exercises you use to generate ideas ?

tacit math

what types of ( more or less obscure ) activities do you engage in to generate ideas ? eg :

drawing upside down
drawing with your opposite hand
drawing in the dark

exercises like : http://weirdblog.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/creative-squiggle-exercise-stimulates-your-imagination/

and certain practices in books such as : http://www.drawright.com/


etc

MoP

I tend to just draw vague shapes (soft and flowing if i want an organic idea, or more sharp jagged lines for a mechanical one), really lightly with a pencil, then kinda follow the lines which look best to me and generate ideas just by looking at the vague shapes.

I also like to use http://www.greveson.co.uk/speedpaint.php

Even the really silly ones can sometimes spark a cool idea.

Jeremy Wright

I wouln't suggest drawing in the dark; you'll hurt your eyes.

I just draw shapes and see what comes of them.

MoP, that site is hilarious. My fav thus far:
<font color="yellow">Contemporary Art:
Wood in a dead animal. It is worth $44,000.</font>

doc rob

research (stealing ideas) and sketching (resolving ideas)

Illusions

Other than just things randomly coming to me, I sometimes use "What if?" scenarios based around a theme, and expand from there with more "What if?". For instance my current project came from this succesion of ideas:

What if instead of a tree growing from an apple, a person did? Then...what if the person never stopped growing, and they eventually became the tree?

Then just sketching out what those things look like and going from there...but also what doc rob said...researching and resolving make those "What if?" scenarios a lot better after the initial spark.

romi

one of the things i do is look at this book -

Architecture: Form, Space & Order by Francis DK Ching

just scan pages randomly and within minutes ideas bubbles up in my head. its an awesome book.

cheers,
Rom
snowblindstudios.com

tacit math

thanks for the replies fella's. those are some interesting processes. i wonder if i could fish for more visual based techniques ? if anyone has any examples of that type to share i'd love to hear 'em