Do you have a painting or a cartoon or a piece of art that you love to look at at?
Why do you love it?
Is it how it makes you feel when you look at it?
Is it the colours?
Or the lines?
Or the subject matter?
A top tip to learn more about doodling or what makes things work visually is to copy stuff. Sounds a bit basic doesn’t it, but bear with me.
I spent most of my childhood copying pictures from my Willow the Wisp annual , Brambly Hedge books or birthday cards or absoloutely anything really. Exercise books full of wonky Care Bears, Garfield’s and Evil Edna’s taught me loads ( and also made me cautious of big TVs).
Copying isn’t just for kids, you’re never too old to stop and begin a love affair with a picture in my opinion. You can copy something and then play around with it a bit, you don’t always have to do all the thinking to get some practice in and learn something from what you’re looking at.
Doodle Challenge
Your challenge is to fall a bit more in love with that special picture or illustration or painting by having a go at copying it in your sketchbook/ notebook.
Set a timer for 10 minutes
Get doodling.
What did you find out?
Is the perspective weird? Are there things you didn’t expect that look wrong close up but kind of cool when you view the thing in its whole? ( looking at and copying old Sailor Jerry tattoos is a great example of this) Are there lines that were fun to make or did you uncover a way of doing noses ( anything not just noses ) that had never occurred to you?
Hmmmm, now you’ve done that, could you make your own picture inspired by the artist and your favourite picture? ( this may take a bit more time but it’s fun)
One of my favourite paintings is “The Birthday” by Marc Chagall. I saw it first at senior school and instantly loved the odd sweetness of it. The perspective is so strange and also kind of similar to medieval pictures.
Anyway I spent a bit of time enjoying recreating it and then used the rules of the picture to make my own versions you can see here!