Doodles: Christmas Spirit

I was perusing through the store yesterday looking for a fun craft for the kids I teach religion class to on Tuesday evenings. I ended up finding some beautiful stickers for the kids so they could make Christmas cards, but I also found a sketchpad that seemed like the perfect size for my own use. I had originally wanted to stop by Barnes & Noble or Micheal's to find something sturdy and "artsy", but when I saw a kids Crayola sketchpad, I thought, why not? It has spiral bounding, which I like and at three bucks I don't feel the pressure of having to make every sketch perfect. I can be pretty self-conscious when it comes to art and design at times. Because I'm an avid blog reader, I often read graphic design blogs of people who are so creative and can produce such beautiful artwork. It's inspirational and impeding at the same time. You should see the scores of crumpled paper I have laying around me sometimes because my sketches never turn out the way I see other people's do.



For the first time in a long while I was able to sketch and not stop at every wrong stroke I thought I made. I just kept going, and in the end, I didn't mind what I had. It's no secret for designers that the importance of sketching cannot be understated. I still remember being in college and having to draw 50 sketches of an apple and a banana. At the time I couldn't understand why I would waste my time doing such a thing, and I thought the assignment was boring. But it's true, sketching really does allow you to slow down, pinpoint what you want to create and most importantly take note of the fine details that can go unnoticed but are essential in making up what we see and feel. It can be a tough concept to grasp, and there are times in my professional work when I still immediately go to the computer to start a project, but the payoff of sketching is often worth it.





It can be liberating to sketch for fun. A chance to get away from all of the digital tools that surround us everyday and put pen to paper and see what may come. I should also note that to this day, my aptitude for drawing apples and bananas is pretty darn good.