A Non-Artist's Attempt at Art and Discovering Doodling as a Relaxing Therapy

_{Proud of my "masterpiece" :p}

Disclaimer: I am not suggesting this as a form of clinical therapy. There may be studies about this but my post only covers my personal experience.

I am no artist and I wish I took art classes seriously when I was younger. There were Art Clubs at school but those who joined were those labeled as the artistic ones. In a way, that was intimidating because I was already out of place with those labels.

Several years after, I can only draw sticks! So when I learned about a free art workshop at Fully Booked bookstore in Makati, Philippines, I registered with no hesitations.

There were a number of sessions which includes drawing but I only have time for the doodling class. I chose this as it seem less intimidating too.

I think almost everyone has doodled. Do you remember doodling when you were bored, or at school or in a meeting while listening to an uninteresting lecture?

This workshop sponsored by Sakura pen takes doodling to a different level and makes it a form of art and therapy. The doodlingss below were done using a 0.4 Sakura pen.

Start Simple

So as not to scare non-artists like me, we started with simple drawings such as circles, triangles and lines. If you can draw sticks, you can surely accomplish this first task!

No Rules, Just Guides

From the simple patterns, we were given a set of blank boxes. Underneath each box are either questions or key words such as How are you feeling?, What do you see? and Favorite Food. And I just drew whatever my mind associated those words with.

Filling Spaces

From the simple and short exercises, we moved on to actual doodling inside blank spaces using any patterns we can think of. And there are several ways of doing this such as writing your thoughts or drawing different patterns.

This part was what I found therapeutic. There was a group of inconsiderate people at the workshop who were so noisy gossiping that I could not hear the instructor!

Instead of focusing my energy on them or complaining to my seatmate, I doodled my thoughts. And here I wrote: These people are annoying... and so on as if I was talking to the paper and got the tension inside me released.

A lot of times I was just TRYING but I enjoyed it because there was no judgment and we were free to doodle anything.

There were no rules and we were free to doodle anything we feel or think of. Our goal was just to fill the blank spaces one portion at a time.

In a way, it felt like drawing's version of freewriting!

My Newfound Way to Distress

This workshop was just timely as I was feeling down and melancholic again. I continued doodling in between boring hours at work.

For the drawing below, I just used a regular ballpoint pen and I noticed the difference. The Sakura pen glides more smoothly and it's easier to doodle and fill spaces with it so I would recommend this pen.

_{And no, I wasn't paid by Sakura pen and I am not connected to them and Fully Booked. This is just my personal opinion.}

I don't know what it is but I was feeling more relaxed and calmer as I just focus on filling in the blank boxes.

I guess sometimes I just do not always have the words to express my thoughts and emotions. In these moments, doodling just anything might express it better such as different doodles of teardrops. Or doodle just because I was craving for ice cream and couldn't get one.