How to make a drawingpoem

How to create a drawingpoem video

Recall A Meaningful Experience

Start from our prompts: "home," "childhood," "love" and "death."
Choose a moment that has touched you deeply and quietly, and that you want to treasure and share. Focus on the experience.
You decide the sequence of creating a drawing video and a vocal poem to reveal that energy.

Create A Vocal Poem (< 70 words)

Non-judgmentally write in words and compose them into a poem that is less than 70 words.
Record your poem. Revisit the original experience through your voice. Speaking helps you adjust your poem further.
Iterate until it precisely reveals the touching feeling that you experienced.

Create A Drawing Video (< 60 seconds)

Choose the drawing materials that speak to you.
Set up the camera ready to record your drawing process. More technical instructions.
Draw at your pace. Start only after you feel your mind is quiet and attentive, open and candid. Listen to your instincts. Focus on revisiting the original experience of the touching energy, draw in a non-judgemental and fearless way, until its spirit fully emerges and you feel fulfilled.
Speed up the drawing video to less than 60 seconds.

Combine These Two

Enjoy the magic and emotive power of combining your drawing video and vocal poem. Video editing software includes iMovie, Premiere, etc.
Adjust till they precisely speak to each other and reveal the original energy that has touched you deeply and quietly.

Submit your video, drawing image (min dpi=300), and poem text to yucao@drawingpoems.com. We'll select and publish on DrawingPoems Collective web page.
Follow us at Instagram and Facebook. Share your DrawingPoems #drawingpoems #drawingpoets.

Artists' DrawingPoem Experience

“There's a nostalgic and intuitive feeling with DrawingPoems, doodling little faces and seeing how it morphs into a curious figure. Even better, when you combine a poem with it thereafter, that figure starts to talk and walk! It's very fun to see that happen.”

––Yuko Okabe

“When I realized I wanted to write about home, it brought up a really tender memory of my mom growing up. The drawing and poem then naturally came from that.

I think there was something new! For the most part, when I make a drawing the drawing is really the only thing that is expressing the narrative. In this case, I had the poem. So I think now that I don't have to solely depend on the drawing to provide the narrative, I can try to push my images more in the future!”

––Katie McLoughlin