Copying: Where It All Begins
In school, we’re all told not to copy. It’s plagiarism, it’s wrong, it’s a no-go.
And I agree! When you’re young, you need to have things simplified. But there comes a time when you need to revisit copying and understand its creative power.
Let me show you how copying is an essential part of creativity. I’ll do this in the simplest way possible.
This is not a trick question: what is this?
Did you say, “Duh, it’s a circle?”
Ding ding, correct!
Now let me tweak it just a bit.
What is it now?
Yep, it’s the Moon. Still just a circle, but with a black backdrop and some stars -- which, by the way, are also circles.
This is a super basic example of creating by copying. I copied something, tweaked it, and transformed a grey circle into a moon. It’s not high art, but it is creativity in action.
That’s how you create using copying.
We’ll often interpret what we see differently than others. You might look at that original grey circle and see another possibility. Change two colors and presto, the Sun.
Some might see a ring. Take that sun image, switch that circle to a gold outline, and you’ve got a gold ring.
Some of you might see a flat disc, like a plate.
And some might not see an object at all but a round hole, like a ship’s porthole.
How you perceive is creative. We all spot various possibilities in what we see.
And these things we see then become tools in our creative toolkit. We can use these to solve creative challenges.
Circles, for instance, are the building blocks for all figure drawings, including animals.
How to draw a cat, Illustration by colomio
The comic book legend Jack Kirby used swirls of black circles as backgrounds in his panels, adding extra punch to his art.
Jack Kirby’s famous “Kirby Krackle” dot effect
Inspired by Kirby, the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse used circles throughout to create a portal to the multiverse.
Kirby-inspired dots in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
To be clear, copying by itself isn’t creative. But it’s a vital part of creativity. We take existing things and remix them into new things. We use existing ideas to solve our creative puzzles.
In our next exciting installment, I’ll use pop culture to delve deeper into copying and start to unravel this important issue: when is it wrong to copy?
In the meantime, check out “Everything is a Remix Part 1” and see how all musicians rely on copying.