Metamorphoses and transformations – mysteries

When we deal with the theme of metamorphosis and transformation, there are two basic conditions to consider. The first is the freedom of the imagination, which doesn’t do well with censorship. Am I allowed to do this, should I do this, can I do this? These are questions that shouldn’t hold you back. Whatever idea jumps into your brain or pen, execute that idea immediately. This is an endless source of new possibilities you don’t know yet. It’s important that you allow yourself this freedom in every moment of creating. That you realize it’s part of the concept for the imaginative new creations that make this theme so appealing.

The second, equally basic condition is that every drawing is mysterious since we don’t know our ideas beforehand. And even if we might already have an idea about them, the mysterious, the inexplicable always resonates. This kind of mystery also presupposes the freedom I spoke of earlier. These two concepts, your freedom in the imagination and in the moment and the mystery that reveals itself in this freedom, are to be respected and highly valued for the impulses to come. They are the starting material, your inner attitude towards the subject.

As a beginning of these impulses, I’d like to suggest an exercise to free yourselves from everyday logic and from everything that is buzzing around in your head, which of course is often very wise, but very often also inhibiting. I’d like to invite you to work completely intuitively, to go completely along with your feeling. The analysis comes later, the thinking about the concepts you develop. That’s another step, but first you go about things completely intuitively. This requires your body to be in a state of relaxation and letting go. This is where your breathing helps you. Consciously breathing in and out at the place you’ve chosen for drawing, consciously sitting down at your drawing place and becoming aware of yourself. In general, the beginning of the drawing is yourself. So, you yourself are in the focus because from yourself you know exactly how things feel.

Therefore, we start with two conflicting or possibly opposing states of mind, which one could perhaps describe a feeling with conflict, if it’s quite extreme, or with a “both – and” or “either – or”. An ambivalent feeling. Everybody knows this feeling in life, maybe from the recent past, maybe from a current situation or maybe from long ago, a feeling where you don’t know exactly: Should you do it this way or that way? A situation that is intriguing both ways, that could go one way as well as the other. A situation that causes problems or opposing attitudes within you. From this situation you must spin a thread that is something like a decision, or a compromise, or a new creation. Something you don’t know yet, something you must bring yourself to do.

How do you go about it? First you take a deep breath. Then you take a sheet of paper and a pencil, and you follow the impulse of this situation. In your breathing you visualize both possibilities of this situation, both of which create a quite different feeling in you. That is the nature of these complex possibilities that you sometimes find in life and that require a decision or an integration of two seemingly contradictory feelings.

Try to find an emotion that you know well. Then put yourself into the situation that seems closer or stronger to you at first, or that may impose itself on you first. Feel into it. And out of that impulse you take your pencil and draw a mark. A stroke, a scribble, something that you notice wants to emerge from you as an impulse. This impulse, this shape repeats itself. Always the same gesture. Whatever this emotion looks like, you let the same hand movement flow into the pencil and throw it onto the drawing sheet.

You can also use oil pastels. The important thing is that you give this feeling an expression, in this impulse, which you repeat over and over again. This should not become mechanical but be very conscious. Stay in the feeling and repeat the impulse born from this emotion. It simply arises. You don’t know in advance how it will be. But it will. It is best if your eyes remain closed and only the impulse works. And at some point, you’ll have the feeling that you’ve worked through this impulse and the intensity of this emotional state. Then you open your eyes and look. No judgment. You just notice: is it strong, is it tender? Is it all scattered, or does it accumulate in one place? Has it formed a shape? You only observe, without judging.

Then you take a new sheet of paper, close your eyes again and shift to the other side of possibilities. To the “or”, to the “as well as”, to the contradictory or opposite side of possibilities available to you in this situation. Take a deep breath and feel this feeling. Develop it within you so that you really feel it deeply. Again, an impulse arises, and this time it may be quite different. Because it’s a completely different feeling, it’s a different direction, a different gesture. Take the pencil and give this impulse an expression. It can be delicate, strong, round, angular, pointed, straight, whatever. But it remains completely in this new, different, opposite feeling. Focus only on this side of your view on the fact or situation that moves you. You can go all over the page or just be in one place, you can be gentle or very strong. But in any case, repeat this impulse always in the same version, so that it becomes quite strong, and the emotion becomes visible. Continue until this impulse, too, is worked through.
Only then you open your eyes and look and see: It looks like the other impulse, or it looks completely different, or there is a coincidence, or there are two extreme poles. This is fantastic, it’s a miracle before your eyes. A mystery is revealed in how these two opposite situations find an expression within you.

Maybe the shape for one impulse and the shape for the other impulse are so interesting that you want to let them speak alone on a new sheet. Then you close your eyes, put one shape of one side on your sheet, don’t look at what happened, just breathe, shift to the other side of your inner situation, pick up that impulse and put the other shape on the sheet too. Each shape just once. Then, when you open your eyes, you see a completely abstract, interesting situation that you probably couldn’t have created with your eyes open.

With this you have already released some of the energy of this inner conflict. Now you can articulate your body from the inside, from the closed eye and change it in one direction or another.

If this seems too difficult at first, you can start with another exercise: Put your hand on the drawing sheet and take its outline. Then, with the elements you’ve developed from the previous situation – or perhaps you can think of a new one – you can let something grow out of your fingertips. Lines, impulsive lines, wanting to emerge, to become active. If you do that with the right hand and the left hand, and the two collide, you can find a completely new entity forming between the two hands, flowing out of the left and right hand.

You can do the same with footprints. You can also try what sprouts from your knees, from your elbows, from your head, from your neck, from your shoulders. Depending on how much time and pleasure and interest you have, you can see what develops from the individual body parts. It can be abstract structures; it can be realistic shapes. It can even be the whole body changing into something else that you don’t know yet but that invites you to try. It doesn’t have to be a realistic body, just a stick figure will do, for those who are just beginning to explore the possibilities of drawing.

If forms have developed from this impulse of the two opposite both-as-well-as-feelings, look closely at these forms, one as well as the other, and play with these forms, develop them further. Be inspired by what has emerged. Take these forms and shape them further.
Remember the freedom of your imagination. You work with the impulse that is there in the moment, you set it free, you let it spread over the drawing sheet joyfully. So that the mysteries dwelling within you reveal themselves to you.

Be curious, be sensitive, be gentle, be attentive, and above all, have fun!
I wish you very, very beautiful results!