Before writing and drawing were separated they were conjoined.*
Scott McCloud

Pictures and words together make a third thing.**
John Baldessari

It had been suggested that I write something
about doodling for a Christmas-time blog
at the University of Edinburgh,
So I thought that I would share this here – 
It’s a great time to doodle – So here we are: 
Twelve good reasons for doodling and 
twelve doodling things to do – 
all you need is a black pen and paper. 
Merry Doodling Christmas!

Day 1
Doodle comes from dawdle, 
It is a great way to come aside from all the
busyness and noise and slow down: 
Use the doodle alphabet to create an abstract illustration,
Filling a 10x10cms square.^
Make it busy.

Day 2
Colouring in a doodle is for
relaxing. 
Slowly use crayons, pencils or pens to 
colour in yesterday’s doodle, and
see how it changes; 
Notice how you change:
Changing what the body does can change our feelings, perception, and thoughts.^^

Day 3
Colouring is for relaxing,
Doodling is for listening,
But there are six other art-for-learning skills:
A means to record,
Understand better,
Create something, 
Present something.
Add your doodle to the following text by way of illustration:
Before writing and drawing were separated they were conjoined.*

Day 4
Doodling is one of the smallest ways of moving,
And moving is one way we extend our minds 
and keep our thoughts moving.
Draw an A5 frame on a sheet of paper:
You have one line with which to fill this shape – 
You can’t break contact, so
You’ll be able to use all the shapes from the doodle alphabet except 
the dot: 
Write the words, “Keep Moving” on your sheet. 

Day 5 
Doodles and text together take us 
into the world of semiotics, 
In this case,
Conveying meaning in as few words of possible,
Enhancing with a doodle.
Try copying this doodle from Hugh Macleod*^ 

Day 6
We remember more when doodling: 
One study found that people who were directed to doodle while carrying out a boring
listening task remembered 29 percent more information than people who did not doodle,
likely because the latter group had let their attention slip away entirely.^^
Write out the following Jean Rhys quote,
Create a doodle to go with it
The hide this and recall all the objects, 
Including those you imagined to be present: 
I got a box of Jnibs, the sort I liked, an ordinary penholder, a bottle of ink and a cheap ink-stand.  Now that old table won’t look so bare, I thought.^*

Day 7
Just about everything looks better with an illustration;
Check out the novels of Edward Carey, 
For which he prepares both
illustrations and sculptures to help his writing process. 
Create a character or two of your own by firstly
copying Quentin Blake’s illustrations. 

Day 8
There are doodling shapes everywhere. 
I took a load of pictures of buildings and spaces whilst on holiday 
in Florence and at a conference
in Washington, which I later used to create
a colouring book.
Why not get out your holiday pictures and 
use the features of buildings and spaces to create 
your doodle for today? 

Day 9
You can doodle anywhere – 
All you need is a small notebook and a black pen.
Hugh Macleod began doodling on the back of 
business cards, and still creates images that are this size.
Play with small doodles by cutting out some paper
or card
the size of a bank or loyalty card. 

Day 10
You never know where doodling will lead you.
I ended up with illustrating requests for books and 
even a board game. 
Doodle often, don’t worry about what others think, 
Don’t look at likes or anything, just 
doodle.
Create a doodle with the text:
Doodling with attitude. 

Day 11
Everyone can doodle;
It’s simply a sad fact that
someone, somewhere, told us that we couldn’t draw:
How old do you have to be to make a bad drawing?⁺
If you can remember who or when,
Create a doodle that has on the left when you 
stopped drawing and on the right has 
today’s date – 
Then go crazy doodling. 

Day 12
Doodling is for Christmas; 
For several years now I have created a Christmas card. 
Here’s your turn for Christmas 2023 – 
or Yule or Winter or Solstice or Hannukah or 
Dongzhi or Shab-e Yalda. 
Have fun and a great holiday however you
celebrate.  

*Scott McClooud’s Making Comics;
**Austin Kleon’s blog: A brief appreciation of John Baldessari:
^The doodle alphabet comprises a: square, circle, straight line, curved line, wavy line, dot, ellipse, cloud, zigzag, swirl, loop, arch; everything you need to create a doodle;
^^Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind; 
*^Hugh Macleod triggered my doodling; copying his work is a great place to develop our own doodling; 
^*Lauren Elkin’s Flaneuse.  
⁺Lynda Barry’s Making Comics.

We complete our personality only as we fall into place and service in the vital movement of the society in which we live.*
Eugene Peterson

*Eugene Peterson’s Run With the Horses.

We are the dawning of the universe upon itself.*
Rebecca Elson

May you recognise in your life the presence,
Power and light of your soul. …
May you have respect for your individuality and difference.**
John O’Donohue

Sometimes we twist and
sometimes we stick;
Problems begin when we favour one or
the other.
Mihály Csikszentmihalyi recognised our
‘two contradictory sets of instructions’:^
a tendency for the conservative and another for
expansiveness;
Almost two hundred years earlier,
Friedrich Schiller had noticed the twin impulses
necessary for bringing us to “complete being.”^^
One is convergent, the other divergent –
What we know and what we do not know;
In-between lies the emergent, the possible,
Unknown unless we explore.
May your life endlessly dawn upon you,
Each day a new day.

If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.*^

*Rebecca Elson’s A Responsibility to Awe;
**John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: For Solitude;
^Mihaly Csiksgentmihalyi’s Creativity;
*^Friedrich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man;
^*Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water.

genius (n.) late 14c., “tutelary or moral spirit” who guides and governs an individual through life, from Latin genius “guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth; spirit, incarnation; wit, talent;” also “prophetic skill; the male spirit of a gens,” originally “generative power” (or “inborn nature”)

Genius is inseparable from the creative process. The word “genius” is expressive of the capacity to be generative. The genius gives birth to something new. The genius creates. The mark of true genius is that the impossible becomes possible. The unknowable becomes knowable. The invisible becomes visible. The genius speaks the future into existence.*
Erwin McManus

Today, we popularly think of a genius
as being a standout person of great intelligence,
But the reality is that
we all have genius,
Though I don’t think it’s something
set at birth,
Rather, I see it as a plasticity to be shaped and
manipulated as our curiosities grow, our
fascinations lead us, and
we begin the hard work.
Though some are trampled down and whilst
others choose not to explore their depths and
many fill their lives with unsatisfying, temporary things,
It’s never too late to grow our genius, and to
keep on growing.

*Erwin McManus’ The Genius of Jesus.

“Here, I made this.” … These four words carry with them generosity, intent, risk, and intimacy. The more we say them, and mean them, and deliver on them, the more art and connection we create, And we create change for a living.*
Seth Godin

Listening is about being present, not just about being quiet. I meet others with the live I’ve lived, not just with my questions.**
Krista Tippett

I also made it for me.
In fact, the best things I will ever share
matter to me, are
my treasure:
Two myths help us to be
fully human:
One is personal,
The other is social.^

*Seth Godin’s The Practice;
**Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise;
^Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers’ The Power of Myth.

Everything has to work. A new idea or an invention had to be capable of rational proof and be shown to conform to the external world.
Karen Armstrong

There is something lying beyond the perfect of
logos,
Not imperfect
as such, but
more human, more
lively, more
beautiful.
Joseph Campbell spoke of our need
for new myths,
For two myths:**
A personal myth and
a social myth,
To understand life and our place
in the world;
The old myths,
Campbell said, no longer
serve us as we need them to
in our logos-shaped world:
Karen Armstrong concurs:
Like poetry and music, mythology should awaken us to rapture, even in the face of death and the despair we may feel at the prospect of annihilation. If a myth ceases to do that, it has died and outlived its usefulness.*
But myths have been with us
since the earliest burial rites,
And they will be with us for
our future,
Not the little stories of
social media and
weekends and
holidays, but the extraordinary tales
of the greater good of
our lives and how we connect with our
ailing world and
enjoin with others – these stories
held in so many rituals that reveal
The beauty of their
activeness.

*Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth:
**Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers’ The Power of Myth.

look everywhere for difference, … see the earth as source, … celebrate the genius in others, [be] not prepared against but for surprise*
James Carse

As we become people with
more on the inside –
Love
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
and such –
We find that we are able to see more
on the outside.

*James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

Mythology was … designed to help us to cope with the problematic human predicament. It helped people to find their place in the world and their true orientation.*
Karen Armstrong

Our False Self is precisely our individual singularity in both its “Aren’t I wonderful!” or “Aren’t I terrible!” forms. Both are their own kind of ego trip, and both take the tiny little self far too seriously.**
Richard Rohr

We living a false tale when
it’s all about us,
Or its all about others.
Joseph Campbell spoke of our need for
two myths:
The personal and the
social;
When these are in place,
Influencing each other,
Then we have probably found our
true story.

*Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth;
**Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond.

The True Self has knocked on both the hard bottom and high ceiling of reality and had less and less need for more verbal certitudes or answers that always fit. It has found its certainty elsewhere and now lives inside a YES that is so big that it can absorb most of the little noes.*
Richard Rohr

My fascination with genius and my openness to God were both rooted in a desperate search for something to translate my life from the mundane to the transcendent. … One thing I have learned over my lifetime: We search for what we lack, and we long for what we fear we don’t possess.**
Erwin McManus

There is more inside of us than we know –
We are full of adjacent possibilities for how we might
mix our talents and values and energies.
Life is our opportunity to explore,
Not just a part of it –
Our youth or our working years, but
all of it,
Moments upon moments of expression for what we uncover,
So it’s never too late to begin –
Indeed, we’ll simply find more
treasure
towards our richer story.
Erwin McManus won’t know this, but it was
a week spent with him
more than seventeen years ago
that set me on the trajectory of the dreamwhispering work I
do today;
His fascination helped me to keep
seeking and asking and knocking.

*Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond;
**Erwin McManus’ The Genius of Jesus.

I have just completed a book of doodles and
thought someone out there may like to have it
for a donation of £50 to a homeless charity
this winter.
There are almost 100 original doodles in the book.
Drop me a line to let me know if
you are interested.