brush and ink
One of the most intriguing parts in the book I’m reading, Uncertainty by Jonathan Fields, is about frog levitation. “What?” you say. You heard right.
Scientist Andre Geim was conducting such experiments. He and his colleague Konstantin Novoselov conducted all kinds of improbable experiments, which they called “Friday Evening Experiments.” Did they really hope to make frogs levitate? Maybe. But what they were actually pursuing was creative abandon. The genius that comes from asking a lot of questions and letting go of preconceived notions and the need for particular outcomes. Not all of their experiments were successful, in fact some failed wildly, but at least one of the “Friday Evening Experiments” resulted in the two researchers winning the 2010 Nobel Prize.
So here’s your task. Start a few “Friday Evening Experiments” of your own. See where they take you. Don’t be afraid to take chances. You never know what you might discover about a character, subject, or idea… And who knows, you might even make a frog levitate. I know I just did 😉
Feb 21, 2013 @ 03:55:10
I have to offer a special thanks to one of my illustration critique partners who so kindly pointed out that my frog was missing one very important element in order to truly levitate. Its shadow!
It’s funny b/c I had just been asking my husband last night if the painting needed a shadow. Neither of us could decide for sure. To be quite honest, I think I was a little worried about making a frog shadow, especially with the unforgiving sumi. But as it turns out, sumi can be very forthcoming. I needed to just stop being afraid of my own shadow 😉 This is exactly what I’ve been talking about all along! LOL