Week four of my journey as a student of the SCA; how am I finding it so far? Well, it’s a bit dingy and I haven’t yet got over the smell, but, being an online student, I can only really blame myself for that. 

In all seriousness, I am loving the course so far and with that, all of the new tips and techniques I am learning to help channel my creativity. For instance, this week we are learning all about the art of scamping. For those who don’t know what this is, it’s the exercise of getting your ideas out on paper without any filters. Apparently, with practice, it’s normal to bosh out over 100 ideas/scamps in a session. But, I must admit, I’m still only pulling rookie numbers (my highest count has been only 40 in a day and after this, I had to deep heat my writing hand).

I think what’s so great about doing these scamps and why I have personally taken to them so fondly is the self-assurance they give that the idea doesn’t have to be amazing, polished or even make sense as it’s all about just getting the idea out. Without this pressure for perfection, it has meant that I have been more willing to take risks, have fun and be experimental with the approaches I have taken to tackling the briefs. All this without the worry that it will eventually backfire, fail or mean I have wasted my time. 

As you can imagine, from the act of scamping, I have produced a lot of ideas that I am not necessarily proud of. Despite this, after each session, I will sit and look through all my scamps and try to evaluate their success. From doing this, I have noticed that I can pull more knowledge from the ‘rubbish’ scamps than I can from the ‘successful’ ones. This can be down to noticing things I don’t like in a certain layout or even just something appearing to be crass. All in all, I find I get a better understanding of my own personal preferences to what work I enjoy making, by looking at the work I’ve made that I don’t enjoy.

I look forward to spending the rest of the week continuing with the effort of hitting that target of 100 scamps in a day. . .Fingers crossed.

@OMiltiadous