While we had a still life set up (this takes us back to November, see post for 11.7.12) I took a couple of minutes
—probably literally two minutes—to “noodle” with a black Utrecht brush-tip marker on gloss paper, cut down to about 4 x 6. I had prepared a stack of these because each drawing takes only a few seconds. With a peripheral view of the still life, I produced twelve line drawings in rapid succession; five of them came out to my liking and 
seven not. I spread them out on a table and the good-bad was immediately obvious to the students. There’s no need to articulate what exactly made some good and some bad. It was satisfying for me to get such a clear vote. Still, taking time to study these to 
arrive at some insight about the good-bad feeling, would be worthwhile.
It’s always surprising to me that when students try this exercise, they find it difficult. I call it “noodling” in order to suggest that it’s fun and easy, but that doesn’t seem to do it.
I’ll show the five we liked in this post and the seven that didn’t turn out in the next.
Click for larger image.
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What a fascinating idea! I look forward to your next post. These little noodles are little compositions without any other factors distracting. I would like to hear your analysis of why certain compositions (noodles) strike a favorable chord, and others not as much.