Exercising Your Doodles

Before Christmas I bought Bert Dodson's book Keys to Drawing with Imagination. The first few exercises focus on doodles, or rather doing more with doodles. These are some of my examples from the first exercise. I like this book. Even the little doodles feel inspirational. While the book feels like it would be more useful for illustrators, I'm getting a lot of out it. I doodle as much as the next person, but some of these doodles are new to me. As I read through the exercises, I can see how many of these could evolve into paintings. I'm enjoying working through this book.

You won't find much in the way of actual drawing technique. The book does have a lot of good tips scattered in it. There are instructions for building your own light box. There are also many tips for combining and transforming your doodles and sketches into new drawings. The last part of the book focuses on artists and some of the themes they've chosen for their work. I think I'm going to get a lot out of this book.

Just Doodles

I've been busy the last couple of weeks, with very little time for sketching or painting. I did squeeze in a little time for some fun little doodles though. Inspire Me Thursday is all about wishes this week. Right now, I wish for the time and the money to pursue my art more. Actually I just need to remember that I can have that wish at any time. I just need to make the time for it. I just need a subconscious reminder to myself. That is where these doodles came to mind.

The first one came from an idea I saw on Teri's Painted Daisies blog. She had come across a blog where your name was hidden in the form of a Namelien. So while I had a little spare time the other day, I condensed my wish into a few words and turned it into a wishlien. Mine is very small and not that elaborate, but I like this idea. I might turn this idea into a bigger piece.

For the next little doodle, I took all of the letters from my wish and literally threw them on a page in my sketchbook. Then I colored each outlined segment. I like this general idea. Maybe I'll pursue it more one of these days.