If any of this sounds complicated, don’t worry—it’s really not. The results you achieve with the doodle art method can appear quite complex and intricate, but the actual process is surprisingly easy. Let’s take a look at the process for creating these unique artistic renderings.
Creating a doodle art piece is quite simple. First, we start with what is called a string. There are no rules for how these strings must look. The only guideline is that these strings should fit within a square of three and a half inches, but even this can be adjusted. Below is an example of a string.
Notice the very light lines drawn here. The string is essentially the backbone of your entire doodle art piece. Every aspect of your art will be determined by the string you started with. But don’t let this worry you—wonderful things can come from just a couple of simple lines.
When making the string that will be the foundation of your doodle art, draw it in pencil only. This is not so that you can erase mistakes (you’ll quickly learn that there aren’t really mistakes when dealing with doodle art). Rather, the string is drawn in pencil so it will disappear into the final piece of art. Don’t worry; this will make sense once you’ve finished your first piece.
So now you have this odd-looking string drawn lightly in pencil—now what do you do? Look closely at your string. Do you see any lines or points that can be connected? Great, now grab your pen or permanent marker and start connecting them however you see fit. You can use straight lines, curved lines, or even dotted lines. Have you drawn some lines connecting the points and sides of the string? Excellent! Now you can fill in the spaces between these lines. Use more lines to create a striped look, small circles to create a bubble look, or a permanent marker to fill in spaces with solid black. The possibilities are endless!
A note about using colors: Traditional doodle art doesn’t call for colors. These small designs are meant to be done in black and white only. Sure, adding color can make these designs more eye-catching, but this is not the point. The challenge is to create as much complexity and variation as possible using only black writing utensils on white paper. You can use colored pens, pencils, and markers if you like, but you would be missing out on the most challenging part of the doodle art method. So go ahead and put those colored pens and pencils away. Instead, see how much you can do with only black and white.
Another important aspect of this type of art is that the finished product is not envisioned at any point during the process. This is not an activity where you decide what you want to draw before you start. Rather, you simply start drawing and let the finished product be whatever it turns out to be. It is essentially improvisation in visual art form. This is, quite possibly, one of the greatest activities you can engage in to improve your artistic talents while maintaining a worry-free mindset.
