The Panel Doodle -- A Creativity Warm-up

Most of the creativity warm-up exercises I use take about five minutes, as long as you set a timer and don't allow yourself to fall into their thrall. This one, well, it's the field of poppies outside the Emerald City of Oz. Good luck, and don't say I didn't warn you, my pretties.

For this exercise you'll need a loose sheet of 8-1/2 x 11" paper, a Sharpie marker, a larger marker and a jumbo marker. Work on a protected surface, because the marker may bleed through the paper.

1. Fan-fold the paper into four panels. As you doodle on one panel, the other three are hidden.
   
2. With the regular Sharpie, doodle on the first panel while singing the ABCs aloud twice. 
3. After the second "Tell me what you think of me," refold the paper so a new panel is up.
4. Change markers and doodle the new panel. Again, ABC x2 is the time frame.
5. Repeat for the third and fourth panels, changing panels and markers each time.

That's your five minute warm-up. Now you're ready for some seriously creative productivity! Unless you're me. Those big markers sucked me in (might have been the fumes) and I started coloring in the doodles. My studio smelled like markers all day.

I got sucked into this exercise even further that night. You can read that post at Two Red Threads.