Yes, I was doodling again. Doodling is the kind of thing doodlers always doo. I am not the only secret sinner who doodles. My children doodle too. Except, number one son does his best doodling on the piano. I don’t mean he draws on the actual pianoforte instrument. He makes meandering melody that sounds almost polished, almost professional. He amazes people with his musical fingers and his musical ear and, especially, his musical imagination. Number two son doodles music too. Except he’s in love with the guitar. Seriously. He’s doodling out chord progressions and sonorous soulful melodies right this minute. He can play Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1 on guitar. It is so beautiful it makes me weep. And the Princess? She draws anime characters and doodles more like me. Except, as you can see, I draw doodle-dogs and doodle-cats and make you wonder if they have spats. Look at the paw, the paw with the claw. Is it the doodle-cat’s claw? Or the doodle-dog’s paw? One way’s peace, the other war.
And that is my wisdom for today. Doodling is natural. Churches should not call it a sin. Everybody does it, in one way or another. And though it doesn’t usually create high art from nothing, it does lead to the eventual birth of masterpieces.
Catch a Falling Star 
DoodleFace!!!
I drew this face as a doodle while watching an episode of Iron Fist on Netflix. I don’t think it is anybody in the show I was watching, actor or character or comic book villain, but I can’t help but think that Doodleface is a great name for a Dick Tracy villain.
Of course, a doodle is a drawing done with only half-attention being paid. I was not ignoring Iron Fist as I drew this. I did not take time to plan it out with a pencil sketch. I started drawing the right eye, thinking it w ould probably become a girl’s face. When I tried to match the first eye with a second, it came out mismatched enough that she morphed into a villain. Bilateral symmetry equals beauty. Asymmetry equals comedy goofball or possibly villain. As I framed the eyes and developed the center of the face down to the chin, the chance to make a Natasha or an Olga Badenov sort of villain dissipated to the point of masculine villainy. That probably explains the curly hair, since the villain Bakuto in Iron Fist had curly hair. But curiously, this drawing-while- watching-TV fellow is not Bakuto. This guy has no beard. And in the episode I watched, Bakuto had a beard. And Bakuto also ended the episode with a knife sticking out of his general heart-area, not a good sign for his personal health and wellness, though in a comic book plot… well, who knows?
So, if Doodleface is a Dick Tracy villain, how did he get his name and what is his special thing? Pruneface was pruney in the face. Mumbles couldn’t talk so you could understand him. Flattop had a head that was flat on the top like a table. So Doodleface is obviously a master of disguise. He must possess a magic pen acquired in the mysterious Orient in the 1920’s, one that clearly allows him to redraw his features at any given time so he cannot be recognized. And hopefully, he draws well enough that coppers won’t just take one look and say, “Hey, dat guy over dere has a squiggle drawn all over his mug! Dat must be Doodleface!!!” (Of course it has to be three exclamation points because… well, cartoon exaggeration!!!)
And all of this is, of course, evidence that even when I am watching a fairly good show on TV (Iron Fist is not Daredevil or Luke Cage in its levels of amazing Marvel comics goodness) my mind and my drawing hand are both still busy doing their own thing as well. Doodling is an artsy-fartsy way to kill time and fill up empty spaces. My entire blog is basically the same in this purpose. But I am able to use the doodle imperative to create and be creative, to learn and to grow, and possibly make up something worth keeping.
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Filed under artwork, commentary, doodle, humor
Tagged as artwork, doodle, goofiness, wasting time and art supplies