Interdisciplinary Connections

Mindful Daily Doodle

The Mindful Studio
By Jane E. Dalton, posted on Oct 4, 2023

The doodle has an important role in the visual art room. Daily doodles offer students a place to connect with their creativity, calm their minds, and engage in the present moment without judgment or expectations. It is a creative way to explore mark-making and line as a form of expression while experimenting and learning to draw.

SchoolArts magazine, The Interdisciplinary Connections Issue, November 2023, The Mindful Studio, Mindful Daily Doodle
Olivia H. enjoys drawing eyes as a way to connect with mindful seeing.
SchoolArts magazine, The Interdisciplinary Connections Issue, November 2023, The Mindful Studio, Mindful Daily Doodle
Left: Olivia H. enjoys drawing eyes as a way to connect with mindful seeing. Right: Alexa W. created small squares to doodle in black and white and then added watercolor and images of objects she sees in her daily life.

Doodling is an artistic way to manage stress, create focus, and enhance concentration. In her TEDx UT Talk The Doodle Revolution, Sunni Brown explains that doodling spontaneous marks helps you think. Doodling can also calm the chatter of the mind and bring it back to the present moment.

Brown crafted a modern definition of to doodle: “to make spontaneous marks in order to support thinking; to use simple visual language to engage three learning modalities; [and] to use simple visual language to activate the mind’s eye and support creativity, problem-solving, and innovation.”

The Daily Doodle
The doodle has an important role in the visual art room. Daily doodles offer students a place to connect with their creativity, calm their minds, and engage in the present moment without judgment or expectations. It is a creative way to explore mark-making and line as a form of expression while experimenting and learning to draw.

Doodle Artists
The line is an often-overlooked element in art, but contemporary artists frequently demonstrate how a simple line can evoke powerful images.

British artist Sam Cox, known by his pseudonym Mr Doodle, developed a passion for drawing and doodles all over sketchbooks, bedroom walls, and furniture using interlocking designs, which he calls “graffiti spaghetti.” These drawings have become a signature art form that can now be found on well-known clothing brands.

American artist Keith Haring is famously known for his spontaneous drawings of chalk outlines of figures, dogs, and other stylized images found in New York City subways.

Visothkakvei, a Cambodian graphic designer, has taken doodling to a new level with his tiny, intricate drawings that flow across the page to create illusion and depth.

Sagaki Keita, a Japanese artist, puts a fresh spin on famous works of art such as Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory.

Art Room Approaches
Students can use a sketchbook and limited drawing materials to create daily doodles, or they can experiment with color and shapes to generate ideas for other projects. The doodles can be thematic, abstract, or nonobjective.

A quote, question of the day, or broad theme can be a source of inspiration for a doodle. The possibilities are endless.

Doodling is an intuitive process. It’s about finding inspiration in the movement of the hand, the placement of marks on the paper, trusting the process, and going with the flow.

Mindful Doodle Activity

  1. Invite students to practice one minute of mindful breathing. If they are new to mindfulness, try three deep breaths to begin.
  2. Inhale through the nose slowly for four seconds, expanding your belly. Exhale slowly through the mouth for another four seconds. Repeat for at least one minute.
  3. Provide a prompt or invite students to simply make a mark and follow the thread of their own creativity.
  4. Ask students to focus on the sensation and pressure of the pen as they move it around on the paper.
  5. If their mind wanders, invite students to refocus on their breathing and the movement of their pen on the paper.
  6. If students become bored or disengaged, have them create a new shape or vary the line weight using more or less pressure on their pen. They can also explore the negative space between their lines and fill them with shapes and patterns.
  7. Remind students that doodling is about being in the present moment, trusting the process, and making marks without judgment. There is no right or wrong.
  8. When students are finished, invite them to look at their doodle and notice what they see. Do they find inspiration in small sections or in the larger work as a whole? How did it feel to trust the process and let the pen and hand guide each step?
  9. Optional: Have students go back into the work and add color or develop a section into a larger illustration or image.

Jane E. Dalton is a professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and author of The Mindful Studio: Cultivating Creativity & Well-Being in the Art Classroom, available from Davis Publications. JaneDalton24@gmail.com; JaneDalton.com

National Standard
Creating: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.

Resources
Sunni Brown Doodle Definition
Mr Doodle
Visothkakvei
Doodle Art

View this article in the digital edition.