I have been doodling like mad in spare moments, and am just about to start my “project” but am terrified that I will mess it up. It doesn’t help that I have realized it’s Friday the 13th! DOH!
I have been reading Zendoodle sites and am interested in the whole debate about the process. There are some rather vitriolic posts in just about every place I stumble across, to do with the “creation” of Zentangle vs the age-old habit of doodling. I doodle massively in my school books, my son does it too, and even DH has been known to doodle a bit. The new terms used to describe the Zentagle process are unique to the style that was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas that give a standard process, a sort of framework to the mindless doodling we all do. More power to them for popularizing it, and making it perhaps easier for people to create something that is more art than scribbling. But people cannot seem to just adopt a live-and-let-live attitude. Always perplexing, that. What it boils down to is if you want to you can buy the book(s) and the kit, or you can grab a black pen and doodle away, finding inspiration on any of the 100s of web sites that have a doodling focus.
Me? I did a bit of both. I got the books after I started doing it, because I had something particular I wanted to do that I wanted to have the best chance of getting right from the get-go. I believe in doing my research. But I could have lived without them (especially the 2nd copy of book One that I somehow managed to order by mistake! There is a symmetry to that that I will explain at a later date LOL!)
If the process interests you, this is one of my favourite YouTube videos – it isn’t that standard 4-dots-in-the-corners true Zentangle style but I just adore the effect. And her videos show the Zen-like process (less Zen due to the speed of the video!) and the switching in mid-stream aspect pretty well.
She has many more videos, not all doodling ones.
Brilliant link – thank-you! I’ve always loved doodling, and this was great to see the process in detail and intuit the decisions she made at different points. I will be watching this again!
Now I am waiting with anticipation to see your doodle! The mystery of hearing about your project, but not seeing in on the blog has me quite intrigued. Good luck!
I love to Zentangle and doodle. I also agree with the live and let live statement..surrounding the doodle vs. zentangle. Love em both and combine them both. Totally relaxing and stress free to let my mind just go. I particularly like filling in images with tangles or doodles, I have done hands, birds, etc. I am really enjoying creating graphic scenes of flowers and plants and filling them in.
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing it!