I was being a bit facetious but to put it plainly, it’s art without conscious direction or just letting your subconscious lead the creation process. Automatism is often confused with “doodling”, because it is deceptively simple; just pick up a pencil and let your hand create without thinking about making something but it goes much further than that, it’s a state of mind akin to meditation or a trance. Once you practice it enough, you can stay in the flow state while you watch the artwork unfold in front of you.

The concept was created in the 1920’s by several artists and the process contributed to the surrealist art movement. The technique has been used in art therapy, used by professional artists as a form of meditation, art warm ups, and even as a primary technique for their work. Practicing automatism allows for the spontaneous creation of figures, backgrounds, flora, fauna, and frankly, the strange stuff straight from your brain without references.

I became aware of automatism when I re-discovered the work of comic book artists and cartoonists like Jack Kirby and Möebius (Jean Giraud) who both employed the technique. There was something about their work that kept me coming back to it, but I never understood their state of mind when creating. Like lots of those interested in art, I have always doodled, I learned some formal processes to draw figures via books, took art classes etc , and even completed a graphic design degree but I still didn’t feel like I had a style or employed a specific technique that would get me noticed and get me that dream job where I make something for someone (Phew, now I thankfully don’t care about that so much). I could draw from observation via my art education and from my imagination without references pretty easily, a talent, but it was not much more than a parlour trick to the industry so, I stagnated for 15 years.

In 2020, I went back to basics, I relearned anatomy, did life drawings, practiced silhouettes, did some urban sketching, learned macrophotography, relearned all the typical industry standard art programs, tackled colour theory, got over my aversion to using colour, learned speed painting, and learned concept art basics but I still didn’t really understand painting. I got bits and pieces of important knowledge from all of that studying that I still use today and it even shows up in my automatism sometimes.

I changed careers in early 2022 and became a visual designer, woo great timing, I know, I’m a millennial, adversity and resilience are part of my plot to stay youthful. One day I came across a video about automatism on youtube, and it really blew my mind, the video made me see how my preoccupation with learning processes blinded me and stymied progress. I was relearning how to draw and paint in several ways or at most re-inventing the wheel but that wheel was not turning at all. I had to let go a lot more to get what I wanted out of art and but what did I want from art?

So yeah, it was 2022, and the artificially generated elephant with three ears and two trunks was in the room, sitting on my head. A.I. was dominating the zeitgeist, angering old artists, scaring new ones, and fooling posers who never had the guts or ability to trust themselves and use any aspects of their humanity to like anything they could create. More creative jobs became scarce and harder to get into, the animation industry was burning, creatives were getting laid off, and freelancers had a new existential crisis to face when searching for gigs. I wanted to illustrate in a way that was authentic to me, while others felt fine using stolen works to generate something in the style of _____ for their social media profile pic or D&D character. I didn’t want to be the art director only defining direction and vision, I wanted to be the artist. I didn’t want to be an art editor constantly fixing mistakes, I wanted to be the artist. So while execs, new artists and those who felt like they need A.I . to capture their vision. I still wanted my authentic art. Again, what did I want from art? I suppose I wanted relaxation, peace of mind, discovery, fun, and the flow state, or y’know, vibes my guy. Ironically, all of the things are missed out on if you employ the use of a generative A.I. platform to make “your“ art. I also didn’t want my art to always conform to the ever-changing direction of the industry because I’m not only making pieces to sell to a company, my art is selfishly for me first, and surrealist automatism got me there. Oh, it also indirectly taught me how to paint!

The hardest part of automatism practice is suppressing your deep desire (yeah I said that) to make “something“ good. Fear is the mindkiller and perfectionism is the flowkiller. Our brains naturally see and make patterns out of random information that comes in from our senses, our sight being a major one we rely on, but our eyes can easily trick us (or is it our brains doing the tricking); trying to make what we perceive make sense to us. Surrealist automatism defies that notion but I will say the pareidolia phenomena, seeing figures in things like clouds or trees, plays an important role in my own automatism practice.

Your automatism can change depending on the medium but literally any medium can be used, automatic drawing, automatic painting, automatic sculpting, and automatic carving, it all works. I found it best to keep it simple at first, well simple for a digital artist, MS paint or Paintbrush on Mac OS. Don’t erase just create, listen to music, drink, smoke, or do it in complete and utter silence (creepy), do whatever floats your boat or your brain, and trust that your subconscious creativity will get get you there. The worst thing you can do is try to do is to focus on getting a subject just right, worry about how weird something looks or try to predict whether your automatism will look good on the ‘gram because it will snap you right out of the meditative trance or flow state and then you are just doodling, there’s nothing wrong with doodling but it won’t be automatism and you won’t enjoy it. You get what you give to it. You’ve got to be real about it, if you think it’s a silly drawing to post, it becomes one etc etc.

On the job, I work in vectors, I draft, plan, measure, count pixels, and fuss over digital and traditional works which is a completely different mindset. I use automatism as my main form of personal artistic expression to get away from all that stress. I mostly use it to meditate or chill out but I also use it when I’m at full tilt for various cathartic results. Maybe you can find it helpful in your practice as well? Cheers. ~CJ