Doodling!

My Latest Obsession . . . .

Do I need another hobby? another artwork obsession I don't have time for? something else to buy supplies to add to my stashes and stashes of supplies? Nope, not even a little bit, but I have one, and it's doodling. To be fair this hobby can leak over into my art journaling, bullet journaling, scrapbooking, cardmaking, and all my papercrafting, so I can justifying it that way.

 

I've always enjoyed doodling but didn't think I was very good at it. I got somewhat better after taking Dyan Reaveley's classes at Memorybound, my LSS in Ankeny, Iowa, last year. But a few weeks ago, I bought these two books:

Doodle Art and Lettering with Joanne Sharpe and The Art of Drawing Dangles by Olivia A. Kneibler

 

I think I got the Doodle Art book at Memorybound and the Dangle book at Michaels. They're both available on Amazon, but please try to support your LSS if it carries them.

 

(Warning side rant)Please do support your local scrapbook stores/local art stores, etc. I have to buy some supplies from the big box stores and online too, but when possible, I try to support local. I love the classes, examples of products, and attention you can only get from a local store. Most products they don't carry, they can order for me and no extra charge. And many LSS have frequent customer programs, coupons, and coupon matching that really make them price competitive. (End of Rant.)

 

Back to my doodling obsession: I've started trying to doodle something every day, whether it's in my dot journal or my sketchbook.

 

Here's some practice doodling:

I left the back of the page to the left in the photo on purpose. I use a very cheap sketchbook I picked up in the school supplies sale at Walgreens. Many of the pens bleed through to the back and even to the front of the next page, especially if you're filling in an image or going over a line multiple times. I only use every other page, and then I go through later when everything is dry and tear out the unusable sheets.  If this were fancy paper, I'd use the miscellaneous markings for some kind of art journaling, but this book was so cheap, there's no need.

 

 One of the exercises I'm trying to complete is a page for each letter of the alphabet.  Here are examples. I'm up to the letter I.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a line of dangles. I basically copied this straight from the book, so don't think I'm too creative.

 

 

And here are a couple pictures I made. Again, I got the main ideas/pictures from the doodling book, but I made some changes to make them my own.

  

 

This picture taught me how to make sand, which sounds easy, but I wasn't very good at it before this. I really like the way the sun turned out on this one too, and I'm also pleased with the red flowers in the tree. I don't know that you would see those red flowers at the beach, but who cares?

 

Another beach picture--all my favorites of anything always seem to be beach related.

 

I'm proud of how the waves turned out on this beach doodle.

 

Even before I started doodling, but especially now, I'm always asked what pens I use. The answer is I use all the pens and I want all the pens! But since I can't have all the pens, here are some I've been using for doodling.

 

Copic markers, Dylusions Paint Pens, Sharpies, Staedtler markers, uni-,ball, Faber-Castell, etc. I mostly use the Staedtler pens in my dot journal, but I have used them some in doodling.

 

Some of my favorites are the Ranger Dylusions line paint pens by Dyan Reaveley. The colors are bright, and I love how the paint flows from them. I have the colors and the black and white. Here they are up close:

 

And, of course, my other favorites are my collection of Copic markers. I use the Copic Sketch markers with the chisel tip on one end and the brush on the other. I store them incorrectly in an upright position in a utensil carrier. Because I only use the brush ends, I haven't had any trouble storing them this way, brush-side down.

 

 

I'll try to post more doodling pictures soon. 

As always, thank you so much for following my blog. Comments are welcome! (I do screen them to avoid spammers, so they won't appear on my blog right away.)