Inspirational Warm-Up Exercises
Use Smell to Evoke a Strong Memory
Quickly close your eyes and imagine freshly cut grass. Buttered popcorn. Cotton candy. Were you able to summon a memory? Smell is one of the most powerful gateways to the imagination. Now think of a place that has always meant happiness to you. Write down a few smells you associate with that place. If it’s the beach, maybe it’s the smell of the ocean. If it’s your grandmother’s kitchen, what did she like to cook? If it’s that trip to Greece you took two years ago, what kind of suntan lotion were you wearing? If possible, try to get a real sample of that smell. Take a field trip to the beach, open up a bottle of Hawaiian Tropic and inhale. Then close your eyes and begin to imagine your happy place.
One of my happy places is Coney Island, New York, so I popped up a batch of buttered popcorn to remind me of being there. The smell really took me back to my childhood!
Reference: Gather Images of Your Happy Place
Once you’ve basked in the sweet smell of your joyous memory, try to summon a concrete vision of the place you remember. While the imagination is a strong force, you might still have gaps or fuzziness instead of solid memory. This is completely natural. One of the best ways to supplement these gaps is to use real pictures to build up your mental landscape. Look for photos in old albums or memorabilia to use as reference.
You don’t have to paint a photo exactly for it to provide guidance in your composition. The bright colors and bold stripes in this photo I took at Coney Island helped me pick out scrap paper for my collage.
This vintage Coney Island postcard reminded me of my favorite ride—the Wonder Wheel—and served as a handy reference for its shape.