Quick doodles

My daughter likes to draw, so I introduced her to cadavre exquis, which is a game where each person draws a section without seeing the parts drawn by others.

I was surprised at how the game developed. At first I drew something resembling her head but, by the time it was passed back to me, I was using my imagination.

In later games, like the one shown here undertaken with both Neve and her brother Eden, I found myself really wanting to push myself and come up with even more outrageous doodles -- such as these Siamese twins

The games have been rewarding, both for our entertainment and a sense of pleasure.

The experience came to mind when I read about a study that found "an inherent potential for evoking positive emotions through art-making—and doodling especially."

The results of the study by Girija Kaimal et al, titled Functional near-infrared spectroscopy assessment of reward perception based on visual self-expression: Coloring, doodling, and free drawing, suggest that it only takes a quick doodle to get into a creative mindset:

In fact, in surveys administered to the participants after the activities were complete, respondents indicated that they felt more like they had “good ideas” and could “solve problems” than before the activities. Participants even said they felt the three-minute time spans for art-making weren’t long enough.