A Year of Sketches, Doodles & Illustrations
Six ways I tried to keep myself drawing, experimenting and learning in 2020.
I took part in a public event called Wasted Ideas during the 2015 Helsinki Design Week. “Every year we throw thousands of ideas in the bin,” the invitation said. “There are many reasons for this; lack of money or time, lack of experience, bad timing… simply the wrong team… or because you can’t be bothered to take it any further. Come and find a new team to work with… let others run with your idea… or simply come and hang out, and admire the free flow of recycled ideas.”
At the event, I watched people walk up the aisle and onto a makeshift stage. They took turns to present their ideas that hadn’t yet seen the light of day to a crowd of curious people. The audience had come to listen but had ideas of their own waiting to be let loose so that someone might take hold of it and help nurture it back to life. ‘Sharing’ was at the heart of the event.
I had initially put this together as a list of my own wasted ideas, incomplete sketches, and failed projects. But as I began writing about them and compiling the many drawings I did through the year, I started seeing them, less of a waste or a failure, and more as a learning process. And that has given me the motivation to continue doing some of these activities and take some these projects forward.
Here are six ways in which I tried (and you can too) to keep myself drawing, experimenting, and learning:
1. Casual sketching at home
Timed sketching sessions
A relaxed evening at home occasionally means pulling out large sheets of paper, spreading all our stationery on the floor, and drawing while having a chat. We spend less time doing this than we would like to. But we know this is an option when we’ve had enough of our screens for the day.
The large sheet of paper (above) is the outcome of drawing each other in timed sessions. When we get bored of sketching one another, we switch to other things like one of the many plants we have at home. And when we’ve had enough of that, we take inspiration from online tutorials.
One evening we tried a Skillshare class called Start Drawing: 3 Fun, Freeing Exercises to Spark Your Creativity by Carly Kuhn. We drew three portraits in ways that were meant to free your hands and your mind.
First, we sketched a portrait with our non-dominant hand. We followed that with a continuous-line sketch without lifting the pen from the paper. And lastly, we did a blind contour without looking at the drawing until it’s done. This exercise really does make failing fun! It’s an exercise that’s sure to loosen you up. We had a good laugh while doing this too.
2. Experimenting with new materials
Linocut printing
We picked up a small linocut hobby set from Hobby Point in Helsinki. And then we forgot about it. So it sat idle in our stationery box for over a year. It was only after seeing a process video by Latvian tattoo artist Emil Salmins called— Handmade Flags with Tibetan symbols. Printmaking on textile — that I decided to pull the linocut set out and give it a try.
I should thank Disha Roy for kindly nudging me to maintain realistic expectations with this exercise. It being my first time working with a Linoleum sheet, we started with a simplified version of the Monstera plant we have at home. I never imagined that carving a sheet of linoleum could be so meditative.
If you’re more interested, you can check out both Maarit Hanninen and Emil Salmins on Youtube for some inspiration.
3. Participating in community challenges
#36daysoftype and #inktober
I took part in two community challenges last year. For the #36daysoftype challenge, I chose to illustrate Tamil letters (above). I took inspiration from the kind of hand-lettering you might see if you walked the streets of Chennai. Studying each letter, looking for inspiration, and learning to illustrate it on Procreate was very time consuming and a rather ambitious side project. I managed to complete 6 illustrations in total (what should have been 36 illustrations).
For #inktober I chose to sketch the exercises I was given by my physiotherapist. My inspiration was a rough sketch I had done while studying a yoga sequence a few years ago (image above). My goal being to make a hand-drawn exercise sheet. I enjoyed drawing a few poses before I got distracted, sketched a quick self-portrait, and called it quits.
4. Learning a new tool
Procreate for iPad
Inspiration to sit down and draw something comes to me in different ways. New stationery and new tools always guarantees distraction free creative time (for a while at least). Last year, Procreate for iPad gave me more reason to sit and draw than any other tool I own. It has become my go-to tool for any digital drawings or illustrations.
All the experiments I did on procreate came together in this project (image above) that explores different illustration styles through emulation. I picked a few artists at random and gave them a shot on Procreate. Head over here to see the process in more detail:
5. Playing with language scripts
Tamil calligraphy
Practicing different language scripts can be a great exercise to train your hand and eye to move in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. Tamil letterforms seem to have captured my fascination again. I rarely speak Tamil with anyone these days. Conversations with family keep this language alive inside me. Beyond that, I don’t get much opportunity to hear, talk or read anything in Tamil. And that’s a real pity.
But I find this distance from Tamil an exciting place to explore the script. It redirects my attention to the shape and form of each letter. Tamil letters curve, brake, and turn in ways that are unlike any other script I have come across. The image above is made up of practice sheets of writing Tamil with a calligraphy pen. I enjoyed this process of spending more time with the script and, in-turn, with the language itself.
6. Cards for friends and family
Christmas cards we can draw on
We find a lot of joy in scribbling birthday wishes and Christmas greetings on a piece of paper in order to make our own cards. This is a series of Christmas cards we sent out in 2020, inspired by the quirky illustrations of Nimura Daisuke, and loosely based on ugly Christmas sweaters. We drew out a base image and printed several copies of it that we could draw on. I had fun with this until I paid for the many postcards that we sent.
Here’s hoping that this gives you the courage to revive some of your own ideas that didn’t leave the notepad (or did but didn’t get too far). Feel free to remix some of the above work in your own way.
