I think it is always fun to do some experiments. Well, that’s my opinion. And probably you share that view.
Being a PhD student you are in your head a lot of the time. Very logical, you need to think a lot, use your logic and figure things out. Consequences are you are mainly using the left part of your brain.
Your brain functions more effectively if both brain parts are balanced and for most PhD students this will mean you have to stimulate the right part of your brain more. A simple way to do that is the following.
Draw up your week! It is an exercise of Nick Sousanis, a comics artist, educator and postdoctorate fellow at the University of Calgary.
The instruction is simple:
Take a single sheet of paper and carve it up to represent the shape of your day in grid-like fashion. The day one chooses to focus on can be that exact day, a typical day, a particularly eventful day, or some imagined day. Importantly, it is essential to use the entire sheet of paper – for empty space has great significance in comics. Then within this composition you have drawn, inhabit the spaces with gestural lines, collections of marks that run through it that represent your physical or emotional activity within and across those frames of time. Do your best not to draw things!
Do this in a maximum time of 10 to 15 minutes.
Click here if you want to read the whole article.
His idea is to make it a challenge and to draw every day for a week. I have noticed some remarkable results. Do you want to find out what others drawn up? Via the hashtag #gridsgestures you will find other challengers on Twitter.
Let me know the effect it has on you and have fun!
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