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| Groovy Take a Line on a Walk Keys to Drawing with Imagination Ink on Paper 21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7") |
Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson has the subtitle “strategies and exercises for gaining confidence and enhancing your creativity”.
I am reading the book and working through the exercises because I enjoyed Bert’s Keys to Drawing (see earlier posts on Keys to Drawing) and I am hoping the book delivers on its subtitle. It is part of the plan to increase the confidence and variety in my mark making and to incorporate more emotion and spontaneity into my drawings.
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| Marquetry Take a Line on a Walk Keys to Drawing with Imagination Ink on Paper 21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7") |
The first chapter is about Doodling and Noodling:
- Doodling is … doodling – “A drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract lines, generally without ever lifting the drawing device from the paper, in which case it is usually called a scribble”. Thank you Wikipedia.
- Noodling is the process of decorating a doodle in a deliberate and controlled way. Bert talks about noodling processes – such as covering the doodle with dots or pinwheel patterns.
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| Apron Take a Line on a Walk Keys to Drawing with Imagination Ink on Paper 21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7") |
Bert differentiates between the two activities:
Doodling is typically free, loose, spontaneous, vigorous and fragmentary. The noodling stage is often controlled, patient, mechanical, repetitive and complete.
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| Concentric Lines Take a Line on a Walk Keys to Drawing with Imagination Ink on Paper 21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7") |
The first exercise is Take A Line on a Walk. You begin with a large doodle. Letting your pen go in any direction it wants, but making sure it ends up back where it started, so you create an enclosed shape. You then decorate the doodle with a noodling operation.
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| Territories Take a Line on a Walk Keys to Drawing with Imagination Ink on Paper 21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7") |
The exercise was more fun than I anticipated - time consuming, repetitive noodling isn’t really me, but I quite enjoyed it. Some of the results surprise me – if I hadn’t drawn them, I wouldn’t guess they started out by taking a line for a walk.
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| Nachos Take a Line on a Walk Keys to Drawing with Imagination Ink on Paper 21cm x 29.7cm (8.3" x 11.7") |
I made a mistake in the pattern in almost every one of the drawings, but that is one of the joys of working in ink – you just have to smile (or sigh) and live with it.
