Free drawing. This technique shows how you can inspire yourself with intention-free doodling and painting. One of Leonardo da Vinci’s techniques for generating ideas was to close his eyes, relax completely, and cover a sheet of paper with random lines and scribbles.
Then he opened his eyes and searched the random image for images, patterns, objects, faces and events. Many of da Vinci’s inventions were directly or indirectly inspired by his random drawings.
Drawing, or rather “doodling” is your way of communicating with yourself. It gives your subconscious mind a chance to express abstract thoughts that you analyze only afterwards. Draw freely without a plan, without worrying about what others might think about it – the result is only for you.
Leonardo himself wrote in a notebook: “I cannot refrain from mentioning… that I have a new method of study which, although it seems trivial and almost ridiculous, is extremely useful in stimulating the mind to all sorts of innovations. And this happens, for example, when you look at a wall covered with spots… In it you may discover similarities with landscapes – beautiful with mountains, rivers, rocks and trees. Or in turn, you may see in it battles and people in motion, or strange faces and costumes, or an endless variation of objects that you need only complete to arrive at a fully realized painting.”
Leonardo also wrote an essay in which he agreed with Botticelli that you can throw a sponge full of paint on the wall and see in the splashes the starting point for various paintings.
Leonardo da Vinci said of himself that he was inspired by the “handwriting of nature”: He was interested in shapes he could recognize in feathers, eggshells, clouds, snow, ice, crystals and random arrangements.
