“Deuparth gwaith ei ddechrau”
– Two thirds of work is getting started
It doesn’t matter what sort of art or craft you are doing, getting the first idea is the hardest part. Sometimes, rather than stare into space for hours waiting for the muse to strike, you can let someone else do the hard work for you.Friday 7th March was National Doodle Day. The charity Epilepsy Action were raising money by encouraging people to doodle using the phrase ‘Do a Doodle, make a difference.’ You can read more about Epilepsy Action here.
In one of the very first blogs I wrote on this website, I explained that I do not find drawing easy. I know that any drawing of mine will be full of glitches, errors and mistakes and that puts a real obstacle in the way of me putting pencil to paper. However, if I decide to doodle, the first thing that happens is that I use a felt or ink pen rather than a pencil. Away goes the possibility of rubbing out badly drawn lines and in comes the willingness to work with wobbles and blotches. Instead of being tense, I start to relax. There are no mistakes, there are things that I have to accept and work with. Lines flow easier and images develop almost organically. So I liked the concept of National Doodle Day. I checked out the celebrity website where the doodles of famous people were going to be auctioned in aid of Epilepsy Action and thought – yep, I can do as well as some of them. You can see their efforts here and I’m sure that you will think the same as I did.
I spent a couple of hours splashing watercolour paints over 20 blank Artists’ Trading Cards. If you’ve never come across Artists’ Trading Cards, you are missing out on a rich cultural experience which you can read more about here. Once my watercolour paint was try, I sat down with a felt pen and just doodled lines. If no image sprang to mind, then I doodled little bunches of flowers. However, when faced with an ATC covered with a blob of pale pink paint what else could I do but this:
Determined to share my doodles with the world, I set up a doodle trail at Bryngarw Country Park where my Coblynnau project (more information here) is running alongside The Keepers project (read more about that here). I left 20 signed doodles stuck to benches around the park and a poster in the Visitors’ Centre telling folk what was going on. Thanks to the Spring weather which has finally arrived, many people would have made their way to Bryngarw over the weekend and – hopefully – found out a bit about doodling. I confess to being a bit selfish though. I have kept my favourite doodle and stuck it in my sketchbook. I think it may end up being a future piece of Textile Art. What do you think?
Os dydych chi ddim yn gwybod sut i ddechrau gwaith creadigol, ceisiwch ddwdlan. Taflwch baentiau lliwiau dwr dros y papur. Rydw i’n defnyddio pen ffelt i greu llun bach.