Doodles

First Doodle Adventure 95

This was my first A4 doodle. Before this one, I doodled in the corners of my school work and on any random scraps of paper at home (16 hours)

My World 96

My World is based on the outline of a map of the world, which was traced off a River Island carrier bag. Most people don't notice the map (18 hours)

Biromaniac 97

I was looking after my grandma for a week and got bored. There were no pencils in the house, so improvised with a biro and it worked well (2 days)

Jola 97

Jola was drawn for an ex called Laura. Her baby brother called her Jola. It is from a photo of her as a baby, surrounded by things she liked (12 hours)

Mad Cow 98

I forgot about this one, until I put this page together and was looking at a web site I did 8 years ago. It was just a quick small one (4 hours)

Half-Wit 98

This was going to be a butterfly, with the other half of the brain making two wings and called "open your mind". I never got around to it tho (14 hours)

Lions Mane Pride 98

I had glandular fever for two weeks, so had some time to spare. I wanted to do something more traditional and this was the end result (20 hours)

Peking Duck 99

After obtaining an eliptical stencil and drawing some random shapes, I ended up with this surreal looking rubber duck type thing (18 hours)

Psycho Derrick 99

I knew a schizophrenic called Derrick. He's loosing his mind and I felt like I was too at the time. This was my last pencil doodle (12 hours)

Peking Duck (colour) 2000

I bought some good quality pencil crayons, faintly printed the original on A3 card and coloured over the top of it. This is my favourite doodle (30 hours)

Psycho Derrick (colour) 2000

With this being called Psycho Derrick, I had to make it psychedellic, so I made it as colourful as possible. This scares some people : ) (30 hours)

Lions Mane Pride (colour) 2000

I tried to make the colours as realistic as I could. It became very confusing with over 200 pencils. This one was the last thing I ever drew (30 hours)

I was always good at copying, colouring and shading when I was younger, but wasn't so good at creating something original. In secondary school I was told that I was too controlled in the art lessons and too artistic in the graphical communication (technical drawing and design) lessons. Most of the other subjects bored me, so I started doodling to pass the time and got better with practice. People began noticing and commenting on them, which encouraged me to do more. I discovered that I could draw better with a pencil I used for technical drawing (a 0.5mm retractable HB pencil). After shading with it quickly, held at 45 degrees, the tip will form a bevelled point. So there is flat surface for shading and a sharp point for fine detail. As I was only using one pencil, the doodles flowed without interruption. No need to use a sharpener and it had a handy little eraser too. I'd listen to some music, go with the flow and slowly get into a trance like state. Then I'd doodle away like a man possessed. The times (in brackets) are only estimates, as I never kept a record of time spent on each one.