It's good to exercise that part of our brain that helps us be creative. It's fun to do it by yourself and really fun to do with friends or in a classroom setting when you have an opportunity. It can take you out of your comfort zone and make you feel quite vulnerable. Not such a bad thing maybe.
Finger paints, colored pencils, paints, clay, crayons, glue, glitter, scissors, colored paper, shiny pretty things should be at anyone's disposal for when they feel the urge to make something. I have participated in some graduate level design classes where we made representations of ideas either individually or as groups using basic art supplies (or whatever you wanted to use). It was great. My wife's pre-schoolers do that kind of thing every day. That's great too.
We are never to old to learn. Never to old to try something new. Maybe go to a park or anywhere you like and try sketching something. No big deal just a chance for our minds use images instead of words. You might be surprised at what you ideas you come up with.
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Speaking of using images to express ideas, there's a fellow named Christopher Alexander that has written extensively on "pattern language" if you would like to delve into this a bit a place to start is his website Pattern Language.com. Here's a piece about Christopher from that site to give you a little background -
"Christopher Alexander is Professor in the Graduate School and Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.
He is the father of the Pattern Language movement in computer science, and A Pattern Language, a seminal work that was perhaps the first complete book ever written in hypertext fashion.
He has designed and built more than two hundred buildings on five continents: many of these buildings lay the ground work of a new form of architecture, which looks far into the future, yet has roots in ancient traditions. Much of his work has been based on inventions in technology, including, especially, inventions in concrete, shell design, and contracting procedures needed to attain a living architecture.
He was the founder of the Center for Environmental Structure in 1967, and remains President of that Company until today. In 2000, he founded PatternLanguage.com."
Fascinating stuff.
I was lucky to be able to participate in some graduate level classes a few years ago with creative people where we read and discussed some of these ideas. I'm amazed at how fun it was and how useful it can be to access some of your hidden brain power.
It's an interesting train of thought. Maybe consider Wittgenstein's ideas on the "limits of language" and how we might use our minds to overcome those limits with iconic language or imagery of one sort or another.
I'd say just have fun with it. The great thing about self directed learning is there's no grades in your class (or just give yourself an A+ if you like to have a grade or a gold star if you are into those).
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You can store your digital art on a USB flash memory to bring to a friend -
