Finding my way back to the line with doodling

I am a “shader”! I have a hard time to leave a line all by itself. I feel more at home in the realms of painting and drawing as a means to create shapes or the illusion of shapes.

Sure, I remember filling the margins of my math notebook with doodles to avoid looking like I wasn’t working on the task at hand but stopped doodling as I started drawing and painting more.  I didn’t take doodles as a serious form of self expression.

So when I signed up for an online art therapy class, looking for new ways to learn more about self expression, the last thing I was expecting was to learn to doodle aaaaand LOVE IT.

And its not just fun and relaxing, there are other benefits too…

“Doodling — the spontaneous act of drawing, typically in the margins of whatever one is really supposed to be working on — is more than a humble distraction. While doodling gets a bad rap, it’s actually associated with better learning, creativity and performance.”

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/17/doodling-benefits_n_7572182.html

“Art therapy is used by counselors, psychologists, nurses and rehabilitation therapists alike to help heal and communicate with patients. Research shows it works. In a study of women with cancer, mindfulness-based art therapy was linked to a decrease in symptoms of distress and improvements in quality of life. Other research found that an hour of art therapy was linked to a decrease in symptoms for cancer patients. And a study of children with severe, chronic asthma also found that children receiving art therapy showed improvements in problem solving, communication, quality of life and anxiety.”

Source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/7-ways-doodling-coloring-benefits-your-brain.html

“Studies show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension — and our creative thinking. So why do we still feel embarrassed when we’re caught doodling in a meeting?

From her slides…

So try it out. Its very easy. You can start with a small square, like I did, and divide it into larger shapes first. Then fill each shape with different lines and patterns until you have filled the square or leave some shapes empty. Let me know your experiences with doodling or/and share your doodles in the comments below.