People generally view creative outlets such as drawing or writing as something done independently. There are, however, countless ways you can use these activities to bond or keep in touch with others. In this blog, I’ll give you a few ideas of creative activities you could do with friends.
Drawing Battles
This is fun to do with someone else when you’re really bored or are just simply attempting to avoid studying and working on essays. Each person does a quick sketch of a character then takes turns drawing in weapons to attack, equipment to defend with, or items to acquire special abilities. I’ve found that the longer you do this with someone the crazier and more outlandish the methods of both offense and defense become. As long as you can draw it, you’re free to do whatever your innovative mind comes up with!
Things You Can’t Draw Challenge:
In this one you come up with challenges for each other to draw. However, they aren’t just any kind of challenges, but the weirdest and most ridiculous challenges you can think of. (Some examples include Disney princesses fighting off a zombie Walt Disney during the apocalypse at Disneyland; Mr. Darcy proposing to a punk rocker chick with piercings in unconventional places as Elizabeth looks on with a scowl on her face; or a feminine robot that has fallen in love with a snowman but their love cannot be.) You end up with some pretty fantastic pictures drawn by your friends and it’s an entertaining way of keeping in contact with people. Make sure to set a date to swap the pictures so you actually end up doing it and it doesn’t just end up as one of those things you always say you’re going to do, but it never ends up happening.
Collaborative Poetry:
Writing with others is a great way to collaborate inventive minds and to work with different perspectives than you’re used to. A cool thing to do is to start with a theme then have each person write a couplet. To add an extra challenge, make it so the couplets have a rhyme scheme.
Mad Libs:
These are incredibly amusing and you end up with some pretty great stories. The basic idea is to have someone write a very short story then others fill in the blanks. Wikipedia explains how Mad Libs work a lot better than I could:
Wikipedia page (External Link)
Story Time:
Another thing you could do is have everyone involved create their own characters, decide an order for people to write in, and then just keep cycling through that order whilst writing scenes involving those characters. Each person can only write a certain amount of sentences at a time (3 is generally a good number to keep things going). It’s really interesting to see how ideas completely diverge in a different direction than the original intention. Also, working with the random twists that people add in gives a great challenge. It forces you to consider everything from a different mindset as your friends could add in aspects or events you would never have thought of. It also gives you and your group of friends your own set of characters to obsess over and to imagine what crazy situations they would get themselves into.
Expressing your creativity is an excellent way to relax and let off some steam when life gets busy. And if neither drawing nor writing is your cup of tea, dancing is always a great way to relieve some stress and to have a great time!
Image credit: Taytertothn via Deviantart
Theresa
– Bookings Rep
