Last time I mentioned that I'll be changing things up a little to try and up the quantity of doodles in each post. So this week I'm pleased to say that I have twelve new doodles, as well as a little bit of discussion on how they came about.
The first thing to note is that I will be bringing in some digital sketches like I've done this week. I struggled with making up my mind about whether or not to start including digital drawings, but I have my reasons. The main one being that I'm trying to seize any and all opportunities to doodles something. Sometimes it's just more convenient to draw on my tablet, while other times I'm nowhere near a computer.
In fact I'm trying to work in random drawings into my day to squeeze out a little more time spend thinking visually. Up until now I've only really spent time drawing pointless doodles when I have spare time and nothing to do. I often have to work on visual things for my job, so I still get to draw every day. However, there's a big difference between spending all day drawing variations of commercial illustrations, to open-ended doodling with a pen.
Thus, now that I've spent a bit of time collating doodles and experiencing how beneficial they can be, I'm eager to put aside time instead of grabbing minutes when they randomly appear. The biggest thing I've learned about doodling more regularly, is that it definitely helps to improve my creative skill set.
Even though they're just simple doodles with no real technical merit, they're good practice at transferring a thought onto the page. It's good muscle memory for my hands to make marks, and I'm getting better at avoiding simple mistakes along the way. It all combines to a worthwhile pursuit for creative practice, so I'm keen to ensure that I spend more time doing it.
Hence why I'm also introducing digital doodles, which will always take second place next to the scanned sketchbook drawings. I don't have anything against digital doodling, but the limitations inherent in drawing with ink on paper is worth so much more for me right now. I've talked about it before, so let's not get into all of that right now.
Suffice to say that I'll always distinguish between digital and traditional mediums, but I imagine they'll be easy to identify. I'm sticking to using Photoshop and a simple hard-round brush with pressure sensitive opacity and weight. I'm not messing with flow or anything like that, and I plan to stay away from easy fixes like undoing mistakes or using the eraser.
There are many opportunities each week where I can easily introduce drawing while I'm doing something else. The obvious example is when listening to a podcast, or watching a television series. I tend to do something else while that's going on anyway, so it's easy enough to put a sketchbook in front of me, or open up Photoshop on another monitor.
In future I plan to have more than I have this week, as I feel like I could spend more time on it. The focus on quantity is one that excites me, as it will only help to amplify the benefits of doodling random lines. I'm also getting back into painting some more, so connecting thoughts to my hands, and turning movements into marks on paper, is a great way to keep up with the motions of creation.
Final thought - I'll put the digital drawings at the bottom of each week's post, just to ensure there's no confusion. I was thinking of captioning them or something, but frankly that would take more effort than I'm interested in making. If it ever gets unclear, let me know.
Here are this week's digital doodles: