An Art-Making Game

I recently purchased an iPad.  My journey towards this purchase was, I imagine, a fairly typical one.  First, I spent years sneering at the concept of the iPad, denying that an iPad could be either fun or useful, thumping my womanly chest and brandishing my Kindle in the air while howling defiance to the heavens, etc.  And then I bought an iPad.  And for a while, it seemed that my darkest suspicions about the iPad were confirmed.  It sat in a corner and accused me of wasting money.  Sitting in the corner like that, it didn’t seem to be much good.

And then, on a whim, I started to actually use it.  The main way I’ve used it so far is to draw pictures on it.  And, because Alec (my boyfriend) and I are sort of essentially collaborative and/or competitive, we’ve found a way to make drawing pictures on my iPad either collaborative or competitive (I really can’t tell which it is).

It is fun, simple, and I’m going to tell you all about it, with examples.

Ahem.

The first thing you must do, if you want to do this on an iPad, is to get a fairly basic drawing app if you don’t have one already.  I use one called Art Set, and the free version of Art Set is perfectly adequate for this game.  If you want to do this by hand, I salute you, and advise you to prepare to do a lot of photocopying.

Start with a simple scribble.  I say and mean ‘simple;’ however, if it is too simple, it may not work.  Anyway, here is an example of a simple scribble:

Scribble 1

Scribble 1

Once you are satisfied with your scribble, MAKE A COPY of said scribble.  You must preserve the original scribble in order to have this particular sort of fun.

By the way, this game is actually very, very simple, and I am going into excessive levels of detail merely because I believe in being thorough when I am giving instructions.

Once you have a copy of your scribble, pass your iPad or your scribble-photocopy or whatever to your spouse, girl/boyfriend, friend, relative, or the random stranger on the train that you’ve talked into playing with you.  Tell them to make the scribble into a picture.  Wait until they do it.  Then open the scribble file up again, MAKE ANOTHER COPY of the scribble and then do your own scribble-picture.

 

2014-07-14 00.51.03

My Scribble-Drawing 1

2014-07-14 00.50.29

Alec’s Scribble-Drawing 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am putting a lot of emphasis on the preservation of the original scribble for a reason.  See, as long as you have the scribble, you can keep adding new pictures based upon that scribble; you can pass it on to new friends; you can have an art contest, the judging of said contest to commence as soon as you or one of your friends, in a moment of forgetfulness, inebriety, or idiocy, accidentally erases the original scribble.

Which brings me around to something else I wanted to mention here.  It is an…

Invitation To Participate In My Scribble-Game

You can participate in my Scribble-Game!  Save one of the scribbles I’ve posted here as a picture and open it in Art Set or some other program that allows you to draw on pictures- or, print it out and use whatever art supplies you have handy.  I am really excited about this idea.  If you do scribbles based on my scribbles, I WANT TO SEE THEM!  Can you, I wonder, post pictures in the comments section of this blog?  I will explore this issue anon.

Anyway, here are some other examples of scribbles that Alec and I have transformed into pictures of things:

(Hover over pictures to see captions)

That last series of pictures has reminded me to mention that, at least in my version of Scribble-Game, you can rotate the original scribble if you want to.

Anyway, this game is, in my opinion, both an awesome competitive art-sport and a way to dream on paper.

Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *