Becalming Doodles

Doodling lies in the middle of a spectrum that goes from colouring-in through to drawing (fine art).

COLOURING-IN >>>>> DOODLING <<<<< FINE ART

Most bookshops these days have sections set aside for colouring-in books. They are popular with grown ups as well as kids. Shapes are already given – all that you do is colour them in. They have a becalming effect.

The Fine Art end of the spectrum is for experts. Youtube has many fabulous examples of the process of pencil drawing. Doodling does not call for such levels of skill although the becalming effect can be common to both.

At all points on the spectrum your busy brain can switch to a calmer way of doing things. You enter  a state of no-self and drop involvement with the past and future. It is a state that athletes call the Zone, musicians call the Groove, and more normal people call the Flow. It is a form of meditation that might be called bliss.

Over the last xxx years I have produced over 800 A4 b/w doodles. They took between 15 minutes and an hour to produce. The time was spent in the bliss of flow.

‘I’ am not involved with the creativity that underpins the doodles. There is a sitting with pen and paper and soon marks are made on the page. It does not feel that the stuff comes from consciousness. It is thus felt that it comes from the unconscious. There comes a time when the urge to add things passes so the date is recorded on the lower right of the page and the doodle is filed.

There have been several attempts to classify the doodles. The present system recognises two basic categories – ABSTRACT and REPRESENTATIONAL. The numbers belonging to the different categories have not been counted.

The Abstract ones are made up of lines and shapes and have no meaning.

The Representational ones include:

• Faces (heads) -solo or group [emoticons]
• Full body – solo or group
• Social Scenes
• Landscapes

MATERIALS

I use black ink pens with a range of nib sizes and white, A4, 80gsm paper.

INVOLVEMENT

I use doodles on my blogs. They help to make the pages more approachable. ’My’ doodles are rooted in my nature, nurture and serendipity and are to some extent unique. It would be interesting, (a) to see what categories of doodles emerge from other people’s unconsciousness and (b) the extent to which doodlers get blissfully becalmed.