Splatcember
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
Pareidolia
The scientific term for seeing familiar objects in random images, abstract things, or patterns
Klecksography - leaky ink pens accidentally drip on paper
Victor Hugo, 1875
French Romantic writers saw figures and other images in the inkblots from the old fashioned ink pens and embellished them
Hugo experimented with folding the papers and using the feather-end of the pen
Julius Kerner Stuttgart, 1890
Gaze into the clouds, to seize an opportunity to stimulate your imagination.
Leonardo Da Vinci wrote how he “connected the unconnected” to get his creative inspiration in his notebooks.
He suggested you will find inspiration for marvelous ideas if you look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or the shape of clouds or patterns in mud…
He would imagine seeing, trees, battles, landscapes, figures with lively movements.
Leonardo would sometimes throw a paint-filled sponge against the wall and contemplate the stains.
Once, while he was thinking of new ways to transport people, he threw a paint-filled sponge against the wall which produced a scattering of irregular shapes.
Threw a sponge at a wall to create scattering of meaningless shapes
Trying to make sense out of it, he saw..
One group of shapes resemble a rider on a horse.
The bottom half of the horses feet resembles wheels.
Thus, he created a structure that looked like a horse on wheels and realized people could be transported on two wheels!
Splatcember Challenge: Each day a new splat will be added to your sketchbook. Alter it, add to it, change it to make it your own!
Options for drip prompts
Walk around room and place a random:
Splatter and drip…
Coffee / Tea stain
Sponge stain
String between two pages
Bubbles