Thursday, January 28, 2010

Phone Doodles



My wife Jeanette doodled this face with a ballpoint pen while she was on the phone yesterday. She was talking the whole time and she said she wasn’t thinking about the doodle. “I don’t know where he came from. I have no idea.”

Just curious: What sort of doodles do you do? Vote at left.
-----
Addendum: In the poll, faces were the big winner, with 89 votes. Creatures/Aliens, Boxes and loops got between 30 and 40 votes each. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

24 comments:

Rob Hummer said...

Looks like a disheveled Ben Franklin following one of his lesser successful electricity experiments.

Greg Tatum said...

I don't know why, but I can't doodle. Which is strange because I draw all the time, but I have to have a purpose.

I guess the closest I come to doodling is drawing people in meetings, but that's not really an idle wandering of my pen. Or maybe you could consider folding origami doodling :) I used to do that all of the time in lectures in college to keep my mind from wandering.

Chris Beatrice said...

That's her husband before his first cup of coffee in the morning, no?

James Gurney said...

Chris, no, it's her husband after his 5th cup of coffee.

Anonymous said...

I can't really give one answer. Sometimes I doodle lines and swirls, weird landscapes like this: http://picasaweb.google.com/DragonladyCH/Sketches#5431921411395737922
Sometimes it's creatures: http://picasaweb.google.com/DragonladyCH/Sketches#5431920702276466882

Or also people.

I always got told off at school for doodling but I really can concentrate better when I doodle, it keeps my brain busy and I don't daydream as much as I would otherwise. Sometimes I can even recall a phone conversation by looking at the doodle I made then.

Beck said...

It's the ghost of James Gurney future. I dig the hippy, slightly off kilter vibe.

Susan Adsett said...

I do this all the time! The strangest people just wander out of my pen... some are reoccurring characters, some just show up once.

I try to keep a lid on it in meetings, though - if people notice what I'm doing, they start trying to guess who it is (when it really isn't anyone at all!)

Natalia M. said...

I tend to attach animal parts together to make up weird stuff! Usually I start by combining skull elements together to draw a skeleton starting from the skull!

Anonymous said...

I remember when I used to doodle all the time. Now it rarely happens. I don't think anyone ever really thinks about the doodle they're drawing; it just comes out of no where.

Charles Valsechi said...

Must find this man!

Unknown said...

I do loopy things most of the time, though in my pre-Columbian Mesoamerica Art History class I found myself drawing a lot of the designs I could see in the sculptures. It takes training to see what's going on in their murals!

Amber said...

I tend to create patterns, or sometimes doodle flowers/plants. I think if I focused more on faces or animals I'd be less invested in the phone conversation. Decorative doodles and organic/plant forms are interesting enough yet do not distract my conversations.

Unknown said...

today in class i started doodling an eye, then i drew a girl and then a horse smokin a pipe, and before i knew it i had drawn a bunch of fish and a cheetah, and i dont know why haha.

Jacob Atienza said...

I make some of the most interesting images when I'm the phone doodling. I guess it's the same reason why I like to draw while watching movies at home, I seem to be able to disable the anxiety-ridden art-making portion of my brain when it is preoccupied...

laurghita said...

My drawings are based in random scribbles I cant build something from my mind on an empty page.

Shreya said...

Actually, I think some of my best doodles are those when I draw while I on the phone. I confess, unlike most women I absolutely hate talking on the the phone; drawing is my way of not getting super bored. However I think its the fact that I am not trying too hard that actually leads to the interesting looking forms(and they're quite varied too - faces, creatures,spirals,vehicles etc). I wish I could get that sort of disconnected doodling into my other sketches.

Rhesus singe said...

Things like that, several calls of course but I keep one page like that each day. ;)
http://dustdevil.deviantart.com/art/telephone-sketches-100894780

Erik Bongers said...

I do boxes/polygons.
And actually, I do them conscously. In other words when I'm not talking myself, but listening (or am I?).

I actually 'choose' which way a line goes.
After the phonecall, I evaluate the result. Sometimes I can really appreciate it as a little abstract 'masterpiece'.
Two of these masterpieces actually made it into a fullblown painting as you can see here and here.

Catherine said...

When I doodle, I inevitably end up sketching horses. My sketchbooks are full of numerous random horse head doodles.

China Blue Rockett said...

Creatures and aliens, primarily, especially in class. They're often at least passably humanoid. I also draw just torsos; I love torsos.

Sandra Van Winkle said...

It depends. Blogged about it here: http://vanwinklesart.blogspot.com/2010/01/doodling.html and added link to your post. Thanks for all your great art posts and your work. I'm a longtime fan.

ricardo said...

I can't doodle while I'm on the phone. Just can't.
When I'm not doing anything else, though, I doodle people. Heads, mostly.

Larry said...

Like your wife, heads.

Ian Schoenherr said...

Inspired by your topic, I posted a doodle on my Howard Pyle blog - is it Canio of "Pagliacci"? I wish I knew.

http://howardpyle.blogspot.com/2010/02/howard-pyle-doodle.html