"Bobo Was Having a Bad Day..."

Variation on a "Start to Finish" exercise, where students are given two completely random images to use as source material for the first and last panels in a five-panel/one-page piece. Sample pairings included: mushrooms and a nuclear explosion 

The ostensible meta-lesson in these constant exercises is pushing to continually produce work: the "boot camp" experience of these summer sessions makes for intense and unrelenting output. So this would be the creative equivalent of dropping to the floor and giving me fifty pushups. But with an accordion and a baby.

Emphasizing spontaneity as a potential solution to creative speed-bumps is another benefit: there's a fine line drawn between the thousand-yard stare many artists will develop while staring at a blank sheet of paper until the proverbial drops of blood form on the forehead, versus work that naturally arises while working. 

“There is something magical in seeing what you can do, what texture and

tone and colour you can produce merely with a pen point and a bottle of ink.” 

- Ida Rentoul Outhwaite