Doodles
I used to doodle all the time. It was something I did whenever I had a few minutes to kill or found myself with some downtime, including at work when I was on my own time. With my iPad handy, doodling became an easy way to fill those moments. I would open Zen Brush on my iPad and simply start drawing, rarely knowing where it was going to take me.
I started doodling this way sometime around 2014. I liked Zen Brush because of the brushes and the amount of control they gave me, but I also liked the simplicity of the app. I used both Zen Brush 2 and, later, Zen Brush 3, but I always preferred Zen Brush 2. It was the simpler of the two, and I liked that.
There wasn't much of a safety net. No endless editing. No going back and endlessly tweaking something until it was just right. Once I started drawing, I worked with what was there. If I didn't like where something was going, I started over.
That suited the way I doodled.
In the beginning, I drew with my finger or a third-party stylus. Later, I moved to the Apple Pencil. The tools changed a little, but the process really didn't.
The doodles were always spontaneous and in the moment. Sometimes a recognizable shape or subject would emerge. Sometimes I started with something familiar in my head. Other times they became collections of lines, curves, shapes, and whatever else happened along the way. There wasn't a plan or an intended finished product.
I just doodled.
Over time, I accumulated quite a few doodles. I saved each one in two versions, black on white and white on black. Most simply ended up becoming part of a growing collection.
I did show some of them to a few friends in my creative circle. The response was positive. One friend even asked if he could use one of my doodles in his own creative project. Still, I never really thought they were good enough to publish in any serious way.
Ironically, one of those doodles eventually became something much more significant. Years later, I pulled one from the collection and developed it into the Kerrsplat Publishing logo, my publishing imprint for books, zines, and other projects.
That doodle has a story of its own, including how it went from the original Zen Brush drawing to the logo I use today. I'll save that one for another time.
So, maybe I underestimated these little doodles a little.
Doodles aren't supposed to be serious. At least mine weren't. They were something I did because I enjoyed doing them. They filled a few spare minutes and gave me a chance to create something without worrying about what I was going to do with it afterward.
More than a decade later, I still have them. And after all these years, I figured it was finally time to share a few. Here are some of my doodles.
