What is Doodle Art?

A doodle is a drawing made without a high level of conscious thought. They are usually unplanned and often made while a person is thinking about something else.

Doodles may be abstract or they may have a theme or a concrete subject. People often doodle when they are bored, or daydreaming, and it is common to find doodles in the margins and covers of school books and lecture notes.

Many doodlers find themselves coming back to the same patterns or subjects in their doodles, and different doodlers develop different styles.

Famous doodlers include Samuel Beckett, John Keats, Sylvia Plath, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Alexander Pushkin, Maria Sharapova, Eddie Vedder, and Johnny Depp.

Because they are created on-the-fly, doodles often exhibit a spontaneous, experimental quality that is often missing in planned pieces of artwork. As a result, some artists have embraced doodling as an art form, and have developed styles that seek to capture some of the freshness and fun associated with doodles. This art style is known as Doodle Art, and those who work in this way are known as Doodle Artists.

Doodle art can allow artists to show parts of their personality and artistic style that may not be obvious in their other works of art.

Doodle Artists

Some artists have embraced doodling as an art form, and have either produced artwork solely based on doodling techniques or have used doodling alongside other techniques.

  • Mr Doodle (Sam Cox)
  • Hattie Stewart
  • Jon Burgerman
  • John Whale (Doodle Boy)
  • Mattias Adolfsson
  • Matt Lyon
  • Eva-Lotta Lamm
  • Viktor Kalvachev
  • Fred Blunt
  • Pat Perry
  • Kerby Rosanes
  • Lisa Krasse
  • Jim Bradshaw
  • Chris Piascik
  • Sagaki Keita
  • Johanna Basford
  • Chris Glasz
  • Visoth Kakvei