Are Random Doodles More Than You Think?
Tapping into your subconscious mind through drawing.
Have you heard the drawing or writing advice suggesting to do daily doodles or write whatever comes to mind to warm up your creativity muscles?
I like this idea, giving yourself a chance to loosen up and turn off your internal editor. You just put down whatever comes out. Don’t think so much about what it means.
That’s all fine and good if you’re not like me. I love to analyze everything!
The idea that there’s much more to ideas and events in life is exciting and helps me feel like I’m in a magical story continuing to unfold. Anything is possible. So, if that’s the case, we should be paying attention to it all for inspiration and as a way to get to know ourselves and each other.
When it’s easy to understand…
You can create with a specific purpose in mind and make something lovely.
I like when drawings have a straightforward story or theme. They make sense. You know precisely why you made it.
My daughter just finished her 8th grade year and “graduated” from middle school. I’m proud of her. Life moves too fast—and I wish it would slow down a little—but I’m full of pride that she can now move on to high school.
When special moments in life mean a lot to us, it makes sense that creating art inspired by it will help us express how we feel or understand it on a deeper level.
I illustrated the above ink drawing with my daughter’s graduation in mind, knowing I kiss her on her cheek as a way to show her love and support. If I look at this ten years from now, it will bring back all the emotions from this time in her life.
What happens if the story isn’t as obvious?
Most mornings I like to get up early, grab an ink pen and see if I can draw an image without using pencil first.
You’ve seen how I do this with caricatures based on photographs, but I also like starting with a cartoon character and then adding another in a pose and different facial expressions to see what scene comes out. I’m making one random decision after another without a sketch idea or theme. It’s fun (and not every doodle turns out looking great) but I normally don’t give much thought to what I made and move on to the bigger projects.
This week, instead of passing it off as pointless or without a story, look at the random illustrations or free writing you’ve created and search for more meaning.
You might see magic in the image I drew in pen above, but I had no idea where this would go. I started with the bunny on the left, drew his eyes nose and mouth in a worried expression and went from there. The other larger bunny I wanted to make sure had a different expression to create contrast. Is she holding a magic bracelet? Why is the little bunny hopping up?
One could be trying to trick the other.
The school year’s come to an end. As a teacher, maybe I’m exhausted. Trying to get students inspired and thrilled about creating art all year felt like a mix of planning and magic at times. Could this image be coming from my subconscious?
It’s never as simple as it looks
When I looked up the word Doodle in Webster’s dictionary here’s what I got:
Doodle: an aimless or casual scribble, design, or sketch
also : a minor work
Is it minor? Less important? Could there be more to doodling than meets the eye? One thing I like to remember is giving your mind a chance to NOT care about the outcome of your art can also make it art.
Your need to express yourself is important. There’s nothing minor about that.
Plus, all your years of practicing a skill to make it look easy can impress others, but makes it so anything you create should be looked at as valuable. Even if you never show it to anyone.
I didn’t plan to share these, but take a look at a couple more random doodles.
Do you see a story or thought I might have been trying to convey?
The above doodle started with the scared person on the left and grew from there.
I thought I was just creating contrasting characters, but then I remembered something.
I’m working through ideas about a story of an anthropomorphic rabbit living amongst humans. Maybe even taking my Baxter Honeybuns characters and placing him in a human world.
It might be a silly idea that won’t work. Or, a lot of fun.
I guess my mind wanted a chance to see how this would look. Working it out through doodling helps give a visual idea of what I could do. Of course, nothing would compare to making comic pages, but story ideas will peek through my mind and onto the paper if I let them.
If you ask me why I drew the above animals stacked together like that, I would say, “I wanted to practice different facial expressions and cartoon animals are fun to draw.”
Or, maybe one of these will be a new character for a story I could work on in the future.
Let it be fun, and stay open for more
Doodling can give you insights into yourself and your thoughts.
Plenty of artists doodle first to warm up and combine different images or themes together and come away with exciting new ideas—if they keep an open mind.
Doodling. Is it a waste, then?
I think not.
What can you learn about yourself from your doodles or “minor” sketches?
Watching how you work can help. To distinguish what I make from AI art, I’ve continued recording videos of my drawing process—making it clear a human is creating this work.
If you’d like to see how one of the doodles flowed together, press play.
Sometimes, you just need to see the hand moving to know it’s real.
I didn’t pre-plan what kind of drawing would come out. I just made a series of choices on the spot.
What can you work on, stream of consciousness style, this week?
You never know where it can take you.
Buy the comics anthology I’m in, SUNFLOWER right here.
Support my cartooning by buying one of my comic books here.