Is doodling the ‘gateway drug’ to art?!

Are you a doodler? I am, and I always have been. The edges of my notebooks have been full of abstract patterns since I was old enough to write. 

I was really lucky at school, and not many teachers seemed to mind my doodling; but as I grew older I sometimes found people disapproving: some colleagues, for example, seemed to think doodling meant I wasn’t listening to them.... Of course, if you are a doodler like me, you’ll know that the exact opposite is true: the more I doodle, the harder I am thinking. If you’re not a doodler, you may not believe me - but maybe this TED Talk will persuade you!

Quite often, my doodling leads me to ideas I wouldn’t otherwise have had, and sometimes, it leads to - or from - my creative designs. My textile art, particularly, often feels like “doodling with thread”!

​I think that if you look at my doodles and textile pieces, you can see some connections and echoes quite clearly...

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All images copyright Fiona Weir 2020.

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These doodles are not designs, though: I haven’t used them consciously or deliberately to develop the textile art. In fact, all of the examples here were scribbled after the textile pieces were made.  

There is something about doodling that a ‘unlocks’ a gate to art and creation, for me and many others. Doodling is the raw instinct of creativity; messy, unpolished, fun, careless, private, full of energy and compulsive. If I’m not doodling, I am very unlikely to be making any art either.

So, you can never do too much doodling! And if it’s a long time since you last did any, now is definitely the time to start! Don’t think too much about it - or at all: next time you’re watching telly, on a long phone call or reading a blog (like this!), grab a pen and a scrap of paper, and see what your hand creates!

Ta leme!
Fiona