Surrealist Games
Light hearted approaches to loosen up and introduce a sense of play into the serious business of making art. These activities are great for a new class, for the start of the year, but also fun to throw in the works at any time to dispel the rigidity around meeting expectations. You might find your students try things that they wouldn't usually dare to because its "only play". This can bring more freedom and risk- taking into their personal studio work .
When freed from the expectations of perfection, we experiment and make mistakes without fear and enjoy the process more.
Exquisite Corpse
A collaborative, chance-based game, typically involving four players, called Cadavre Exquis (Exquisite Corpse). Exquisite Corpse involves elements of unpredictability, chance, unseen elements, and group collaboration—all in service of disrupting the waking mind’s desire for order.
Exquisite Corpse was invented by a group of Surrealist artists in 1925, based on the parlor game "consequences" that used words not images. This resulted in nonsensical phrases like “Le cadaver exquis boira le vin nouveau” (“The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine”), an enigmatic phrase which goves the game its name.
In the visual version of this game players work in turns to create a figure or "creature", combining images with whimsical, nonsensical results.
How to do it? Paper and pencil is all you really need. You can offer a range of materials for more varied results, or restrict the medium intentionally, i.e. biro pen and graph paper. I like to use collage and mixed media for this. In the image on the left we used magazine collage and marker pens. Each person begins by making a "head" on a piece of paper ( in this case long, A3 colored paper) then passes it to the next person who makes a "body", etc.
Collaborative Fun
The work has no individual ownership, which takes the pressure off and builds confidence and comraderie.
Part of the fun is responding to the other persons drawing so you don't need to cover or fold your work as you pass it on.
In this drawing by Louise Bourgeoise, La Femme Maison, she uses the concept of the Exquisite Corpse but this is no collaborative foldover, it's a one woman exquisite exploration of entrapment! So a follow up activity to the collaborative group work could be to create your own (non- collaborative) exquisite corpse from head to toe..
Not only the surrealists play games....
Let the words decide
In the mid-1960s the sculptor Richard Serra’s interest in materials and the physical process of making sculpture led to this list of action verbs—"to roll, to crease, to curve"—that Serra compiled and then enacted with the materials he had collected in his studio.
"It struck me that instead of thinking what a sculpture is going to be and how you're going to do it compositionally, what if you just enacted those verbs in relation to a material, and didn't worry about the results?”-Richard Serra
See the page Richard Serra's Verbs for the full list of verbs.
Oblique Strategies
(over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas)
The original Oblique Strategies is a set of published cards in a black box, created by composer/ musician Brian Eno and painter Peter Schmidt, first published in 1975, and now in its fifth, open ended, edition.
Each card contains a phrase or cryptic advice that can be used to help you when you are stuck in your creative work.
The idea is to draw a card at random and then use that phrase to address the problem or impasse in your work. This is kind of like consulting the oracle or picking a fortune cookie, the element of chance involved makes it into a game. Go to the Oblique Strategies page for the whole activity. There's now also an Oblique Strategies App.
Make, Share, Reflect
All of the above in a slideshow which you can download as a PDF 
Surrealist Games Slideshow.
Activity: In groups of 4, do the Exquisite Corpse activity, then view the surrealist games slideshow and discuss ways that artists have used play and chance in their art making processes. Follow with written reflections about the experience of play in art in the visual journal.
More playful art making
The Art Seed Bank has many playful activities, here's a few to start with:
Seed: Shadow Assemblage
Assemblage: art that is made by assembling disparate elements – often everyday objects – scavenged by the artist or bought specially. _Tate termsMaterialscreate an abstract or naturalistic 3D assemblage...
Seed: Found Frottage
Look for examples of low-relief patterns around you, in architectural details, natural or manmade objects, anything with a raised texture.Record them with rubbings ( frottage) using a peeled crayon, graphite...
Seed: On the Edge
Explore the state of precariousness through an artwork.Construct something that is on the edge of collapsing or falling apart, but does not. You can use whatever materials are on hand, no special art...
Seed: Disappearing Act
It may exist for a few seconds or an hour, a day, a week, whatever.You can use any materials you like, natural or man made. It could be a drawing in the sand that the waves wash away, ice that melts,...