Doodle Mania!

Ahhh, collaborative art making... Last weekend I sat down to try the first prompt in the new book by Traci Bautista, Doodles Unleashed, with a friend of my daughter's who had an itch to "make something". I grabbed out colorful Utrecht alcohol markers, some Tim Holtz stamps, cat-eye chalk ink pads, a bunch of stencils and my favorite pens (Sakura brand Micron size 1 and Gelly Roll) to get the ball rolling. Using the Spontaneous Marks book ideas, we began scribbling color onto our Bristol papers with giddy abandon.

 Sarah Rodeberg "Doodles Unleashed" inspired artwork.

For my doodle page, I decided to try out some stamps I hand carved and experiment with the Sakura Souffle pens as well - they add that little bit of puffy shine to the design.

Couldn't help myself... had to add the raffle coupon!

The next prompt in Traci's book had us Finding the Doodle; randomly painting on a page and then doodling around the shapes. This was so much fun, my 13 year old, Devon, got in on the fun...

 Reminds me of Dr Seuss' Whoville. Acrylic paint and India ink.

Just amazing what kids see in the swirls!

There is sooooo much more to discover in Traci's book, I'll show you the results of my working through her prompts as I try them out.

I've also recently been working in another book, Creative Doodling and Beyond, by Stephanie Corfee. Stephanie includes examples of her stylized doodles, then gives blank pages adjacent for her doodle fans to practice with. My favorite pens for her exercises are the Micron colored fine-point markers. They give great control and don't soak through to the opposite side of the pages. I'm just in the beginning of this book, but looking ahead I am excited to try her projects using dimensional paint to doodle custom stamps, make gift bag tags, doodling on photographs, creating custom banners, embellishing fabric...and BEYOND!!! I moved into an art journal with a left over paint background to try my hand at Stephanie's doodles today and here's what was created using Sakura Gelly Roll pens:

Stephanie's book page is to the left... doodles in my journal to the right.
See the hidden protozoans with a tail I added to my design? Yes, I'm a closet scientist! :)

More of this weekend's journal play included doodles and stylized words inspired from Handcrafted magazine vol 8 (winter 2012).  [Got so much art-making done these last few days, it feels GOOD!] On this page I also created color samples of different pens (Sakura Souffle, Gelly Roll, Micron) & China markers (grease pencils) and experimented with them all on the page to chart their effects. I also pulled out the Twinkling H2O's shimmering watercolors to throw a little sparkle onto the page. My favorite text from this play is the word "wish". Will have to look for an art piece in progress to use that on... and if you're like me, that means you have at least 5 pieces in various stages of work at all times!

To perfect our ART, it helps to PRACTICE. My advice: grab a doodle book or any magazine and start playing with what you see. Keep it simple. Create fun variations of common motifs like hearts, flowers, leaves, swirls, words, houses, animals, faces, etc. Then, play with color. Eventually, you will find that... inspiration is EVERYWHERE! 

Happy Doodling!   Tristina