Doodling: Explore Your Creativity

Doodling a familiar Essex mnemonic with the year that Essex-Willsboro area was established. (Doodle by George Davis.)

Doodling should be fun and playful. There’s no right way to doodle and no wrong way to doodle, but I think you’ll discover far greater joys doodling if you can forget previous criticism about your whimsical pen-and-paper habit, and ignore joking about your artistic abilities. Doodling is uninhibited, spontaneous, and totally creative if you let it be…

“When you doodle absentmindedly, you relinquish control of your left brain and allow your right brain to take over. That’s when the magic happens… grab a pad and a pen or pencil and… aimlessly begin doodling—anything… The trick is not to judge yourself at all while you draw. Just have fun and play! It’s all about exploring your creativity.” ~ Violette Clark (Journal Bliss)

As a writing teacher I often remind students to ignore their “inner editor”. Ever since we’re young we’ve been told what’s right and what’s wrong. We’ve been repeatedly (if usually unintentionally) discouraged from exploring our creativity.

Productivity trumps creativity. Or so we’re lead to believe.

But perhaps we were misled. I believe that we were. At least sometimes. There’s an important role for both productivity and creativity! Are you ready to explore your creativity? Are you willing to explore some creative doodling? I hope so.

How do you doodle, Essex? (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
You Are Your Doodles (studiosfc.wordpress.com)
Why You Should Doodle More (fastcodesign.com)
Essex Doodles Weekly: We Want You to Doodle Essex! (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
Doodles (nadinemerkle.wordpress.com)
Doodles, Noodles (pastelanne.wordpress.com)
Doodle do .. 🙂 (nomadfashionista.wordpress.com)

About Geo Davis

Geo Davis (aka virtualDavis) is a writer, storyteller and unabashed flâneur. He taught and coached at Santa Fe Preparatory School and The American School of Paris, co-founded Maison Margaux: "Paris à la parisienne" in Faubourg Saint-Germain, and owns Adobe Oasis in Santa Fe, NM with his bride.

Geo chronicles adventures (and misadventures) of rehabilitating an historic Essex home at Rosslyn Redux: Reawakening a home, a dream and ourselves; blogs about doodling and other esoterica at virtualDavis.com; posts sometimes unnerving, occasionally euphoric, and always pollyanna "midlife mashups" at 40x41.com; waxes nautical at Sailing Errant; and delves into matters of parenting, babylandia, and childfreedom at Why No Kids? He meanders on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube and Flickr.