Doodles
Ok so lets try this. Here are some samples of doodles I have done over the years. I will go from newest to oldest-ish going back many many years so people might get an idea of the progress made.
I always hear from people that they “can’t draw stick figures” or that they don’t have the “gift” for drawing. I usually say in reply something like “the only gift you need is the interest in doing it, the rest comes with time and practice.”. A buddy of mine did a whole thing using his dark arts of math and he says I have probably drawn something like 10k people over the years. Seems high to me, but I have drawn for as long as I can remember so who knows.
Most of the time I was a digital guy, but these last few years I have been spending most my efforts on analog, scribbling at the bar with markers. Anywho, for your consideration…
Drunken Bar Doodles
This is pretty much all I do when I am out drinking on my own. I either draw the people at the bar, or as I get more wobbly whatever creeps into my head. I take a picture of the doodle and leave it at the bar. I tend to do 4 or 5 per visit, booze depending. Here is a folder of the ones I remembered to take pictures of, tho granted the drinking often gets the better of me.
Chicago Cafe Drawings
I spent a lot of time in Chicago on my own. Most of that time was either in bars or coffee shops. I had a wacom tablet and my laptop, but as the law and order got more and more suspect when it came to starbucks I had to stop doing it or risk losing my whole set up. Anywho, here is the Tumblr of (remember that!) with some more.
Kalamazoo Cafe Drawings
I don’t have much to show from this era since I wasn’t really into social media at the time, but people bugged me enough I started posting them here. I look at these now and the cringe hits squarely.
Portrait Doodles
Somewhere along the way I started taking requests from people to do portraits of them, their significant others, and pets. People care more about their pets than just about anything, and if you can draw their pet, they will be very happy. You can see more at this instagram I haven’t logged into in prolly 5 years at this point.
Doodles from the Noodle
Before I was all hell bent on drawing what I see, I used to only draw from my mind. According to my mom it started when I had terrible nightmares as a kid. She would find me up at 3 am drawing shit that would put kids on watch lists these days, and my excuse was that if I drew the things they would go away. Idk how much truth is in that, smells right to me I guess. But drawing has been and will continue to be my “mental health routine” next to the booze. You can see some more here at the ol deviantart site that some how is still a thing.
Whelp, it figures.
For a while I was dropping in on figure study sessions here and there. It always surprised me how much more focused I could be when I wasn’t worried about staring at someone and creeping them out. Later, during the pandemic I would go to live cam / twitch streams and draw the folks. They were always so puzzled when I asked them to just chill out and sit there and I would give them the money to do so. I like to think they liked it, but then again with the whole sex industry thing one is best not to think too hard on it. You can see some more of those here.
Okey dokey, that’s that. Substack doesn’t really seem to be a place for this kind of thing but if people dig it I will make a habit of dropping in some posts with doodles every now and again to go with the spittle drenched screeds on whatever. Hope you like the things.