Apart from graphics for this site, I haven’t made a real drawing in over a year. Almost every artistic emanation from my pen has either been on lined-paper or on the side of my schoolwork. More often than not, it ends up in the trash can anyway. Unplanned sketching and doodling are the only forms of drawing I do these days. Grabbing some clean white paper, a pencil, and sitting down at my desk is something I haven’t done in a long time.

At the dinner table, my dad sometimes pulls out a pen from his pocket and doodles out the topic of conversation on a napkin. My grandpa draws very intricate landscapes on paper plates. Far from traditional media, I find napkins, paper plates, and lined-paper so much easier to work on than white paper or canvas. Why?

There’s no pressure. You can make as many mistakes as you want and just throw it away. You’ve made no commitment to creating a masterpiece. I can just sit happily, drawing away, feeling comfortable that I can mess up. I guess if you’re a pencil-user you can just keep an eraser handy, but this article is coming from an ink person. Being more permanent, using pen is a more delicate art.

If I don’t really draw, what do I do? Doodle.

What is a Doodle?

A doodle is a type of sketch, an unfocused drawing made while a person’s attention is otherwise occupied. They are simple drawings which can have a meaning, a shape or just irregular forms. - Wikipedia

What are the benefits of doodling?

• It inspires your creativity. Any kind of drawing makes you see things differently. Not how it really is, but however you want it to be. If you’re feeling unimaginative, just draw a weird little squiggle on a piece of paper, then go from there. Turn it into something. This is an extremely effective technique to raise your creativity.
• It makes note-taking more fun. I think almost everyone can remember things easier by drawing them instead of writing them. You can develop a “connection” with the subject by drawing it, because of the creativity used to make it. I’ve been known to make a quick sketch of historic figures and it’s really helped in remembering who they are and what they did.
• There’s no obligation. You don’t have to finish it. You don’t have to be perfect. No one even has to see it. As I mentioned before about pressure, there is none. It’s just pure fun. I love drawing, but I’m the most critical perfectionist you can ever imagine. Apart from doodling, I can’t finish any artistic piece without clenching my fist, or any other making some other gesture of frustration. I think this is why I’ve opted for these less-stressful artistic endeavors lately.

Whether you’re using sketching and doodling as part of the design process or just to write the name of your crush, I think it is an overlooked type of art. I mean, I don’t think it you’ll ever see doodles in a museum, but I definitely recommend practicing this carefree art to express yourself.

If you’re a regular on this blog, you’ve seen my article series of random doodles (part: 1, 2, 3) so far. If you haven’t, go ahead and check them out, then go doodle!