“Embark on a hunt, with no specific quarry in mind except that it should be an object, either human-made or naturally occurring, whose features in some fashion ‘speak’ to you.  Don’t concern yourself just now about WHY  the object speaks to you  (or about what ); it is sufficient to simply take up what appeals to you.  Wander about for awhile to this end, wherever you like. At some point something will catch your fancy,and when it does, nab it.

When this is done, set up next to you in handy fashion about a hundred sheets of paper – not large, eight by ten inch sheets will do – and plenty of simple drawing media: chalks, crayons, charcoal.  Now spend a little while looking carefully at the object you have selected.  Look at it, touch it, know it so well that it now  belongs to your mind’s eye.  Putting the object out of sight and allowing the experience of looking at this object to swirl around in your head, you will in another moment create images expressive of your reaction to ” meeting” the object to which you were drawn.

A key artifice of this exercise is the brevity aned frequency of your responses.  The less time you allow yourself to reflect on how to  approach the task, the less confined you are likely to be by old standard responses.  The more rapidly you do this exercise, the more quickly you will exhaust your usual repetoire of image making and the sooner you are likely  to wanter into new territory. Therefore , each new image will be given only sixty seconds to come forward before you then go on to the next work without pausing.”

No More Secondhand Art – Awakening the Artist Within by Peter London