Of course I doodle chickens all the time.
And I like to save those doodles. They depict friends who come out of my brain. Characters with whom I want to spend more time.
If you’ve got a pile of doodles; or if you’ve got sketches that aren’t quite finished, but which have parts that you want to save—start collaging with those bits.
They aren’t “waste.” And it isn’t a waste of time to spend a bit of time with them. They will spark ideas for you.
What matters is they give you material to play with.
I saved this chicken doodle (brush pen on bond paper) for weeks. Then I finally enlarged it on bond paper and kept it for several more weeks.
Finally I cut it out and pasted it to a pre-painted page. I know I was saving it because I wanted to do a “finished” painting one day. And perhaps someday I will. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that this chicken intrigued me when I sketched him and I wasn’t ready to let him go.
And he was still there in the desk pile when I had a difficult day.
He meant the difference between journaling and not journaling—and I always choose journaling (just maybe not painting).
That phrase collaged down—it was a note to myself, left on a to-do list I was just about to toss.
Anything can become useful if we let our minds play and “marinate.”
I feel I know this chicken better now—don’t you?
