A little bit of this and that …
… and anything else in between …
These days are really going too fast … It’s September already!
I’m not done with summer yet! I want one more day at the beach … I haven’t finished everything on the to-do list for summer … I’m not ready for cold weather again …
So I’m just going to sit down and try to slow it down a bit and doodle …
Hmmm … those lines don’t look even … it’s going to be another freehand doodle, and maybe in the end it’ll all look even …
The newscasts showed the Times Square New Year’s Eve countdown ball getting some new glass added to it. Which reminded me of another doodle I had left unfinished, not knowing what to do with it.
I did have an idea which didn’t quite turn out the way I pictured it. That’s the pin cushion-looking rows at the top.
I decided to stop fiddling with it and leave it as it is. I may add something else in the middle later on, but this is the first finished Tile for 2016.
During one of our meetings in the DRC, I drew a border around boxes and paragraphs to highlight the content. As the meeting progressed, I kept drawing lines around it, and then eventually criss-crossed with more lines … and more lines … The colleague next to me liked it and asked me to sign it. I told him I had better drawings for him to keep, and not scribbles on the agenda sheet lol
So then I had to come up with something before we left the Congo. I had brought WIPs with me just in case, and thought it would be easier to finish one instead of starting something new, but I rejected those as I wasn’t coming up with anything to finish the doodlings. Needing to come up with something, I started out with the basics, from the beginning.
Two days later, this is what the finished piece looked like. Pressed for time then, I didn’t work on the shading too much. I see little things now that I could have worked on some more, or shaded to make darker for contrast, but it’s done. The recipient liked it – of course, an original signed piece from me! lol – but if he liked it, then it was good enough.
And then … he said that he actually liked one of my other half-finished pieces, and if he could have that too … Why didn’t he say that from the beginning? lol So another rush drawing overnight, to finish just in time for our last morning in Goma.
I thought I had taken a progress pic, but I can’t find it now. But here’s the finished piece, after I added four more rounds and a little shading.
What did I learn from these rush drawings? That my mind isn’t free-flowing enough yet, and it still looks for the structure and symmetry under pressure, instead of just letting go and never mind what comes out on paper. I didn’t have any designs in mind when I started, anyway, so maybe that’s why I couldn’t think of what to do next when trying to finish it.
How do you come up with your doodles? Do you have something in mind when you start? Or do you just put pen to paper and start?
So that will be the doodling goal for the year … free up the mind and just draw.
This has been sitting for a while, pinned up the cork board where I would see it every now and then, waiting to be worked on, waiting for some inspiration. I had seen a big sunflower, standing tall against a wall, by itself, and thought to see what I could do with it in a drawing.
But I’ve been kind of stuck on this, feeling that there’s more that I can add to it, fill in the empty spaces in between, balance the negative space, etc.
But nothing was coming to mind, and all I would fiddle with was to even out a border, shade a little darker, clean up a little around the edges. And it occurred to me that if nothing else was inspiring me to work on this, then maybe it was all done, and that I should leave it alone.
So, here it is. All done, and with nothing more to add. And sometimes, that’s the best thing to do.
This is the result of trying to recreate a pattern … pinwheels.
The shading here isn’t too bad. I’m using the same pen, and a black ballpoint, to create the shades and tones. I don’t want to get started on collecting pens of varying shades of blacks and greys … well, not yet, anyway. I’m sure that eventually I’ll start on that, depending on the complexity of the project.
I’m not sure anymore if this was the pattern I wanted to recreate before, but no matter … I know how to do this now.
On to the next obsession!
I did this late into the night, and when I finished, I saw this pattern effect that I liked – that one in the top left hand corner.
I’ve tried to recreate it, with no success. 
So in the meantime, that’s what I’ve been obsessed with … trying to find that pattern again … No, this is nowhere what I had in mind …
I still haven’t figured out the placement or the sequence of this pattern, but now I’ve got lots of new ideas to try …
The simple doodles turned into … a pie?
I must have been hungry when working on this, because that looks like a pie crust to me. Hmmm … that could be a design for a cake too, right?
