Doodles

My good friend from work, Eileen, noticed that I doodle little drawings when time allows.  Eileen also has grandiose schemes for beautifying our break room.  Those two worlds collided and suddenly the little doodles she had me save over the last month or two have been framed and placed on lockers all over.  Eileen is also a doodler, and she has a keen eye for placement.  With her matting and the gallery style white and black motif, I feel like some kind of artist!

Here are a few of my doodles.  All of them are sharpie marker on printer paper: only the most refined art supplies for me! 

I call this one “Like Clockwork.”  (Yes, I’m fully aware that giving a sharpie doodle a title is very, very humble.  What can I say, I’m a humble guy!)  My grandpa on my mom’s side was a clock maker by trade.  He literally spent his time creating, fixing, and maintaining time pieces.  He had a shed full of tiny gears, wheels, and cogs.  And he had that magnifying attachment to his glasses to see the smallest pieces.  Steampunk has made a big splash in the art scene lately, and I really love the idea behind it, but it makes me sad for the fact that my grandpa died before I developed an interest in the trade he devoted his life to. 

I was reading a book about Isis around the same time Eileen told me to save my doodles.  I call this piece “Isis I” as I have many pictures featuring the Egyptian goddess.  Sometimes the wheels and gears that are inspired by my grandpa’s old profession become moons and stars.  The people of Rome, when they began turning to different mysteries to feed their spiritual lives, found Isis to be a goddess who could embody their broadening sense of their world.  She was a goddess who existed with other pagan deities, but who could simultaneously be the sum of them, the ALL.  This view was known as henotheism, the belief in and exclusive worship of one god while acknowledging the existence of other gods and other views of gods.  I like the idea that the worship of Isis put forward, that we can all have our individual truths while honoring and acknowledging the truths other people have. 

This piece is called “Moon and Tides,” and if you know about my place of business, then you know that these things affect my life daily.  I have never paid more attention to barometric pressure in my life. 

Whenever I listen to lectures or lessons or take notes, I cover my paper with little drawings.  The mindless movement of pen on paper frees up the busy part of my mind and allows me to listen better.  Now, if I can only convince my professors of this, I know I insulted more than a few by sketching while listening.  This drawing started out with a girl with a star in her hair, but quickly turned into a mindless series of dots.  I call this, “Spots.” 

“Isis II” is another picture of Isis.  Moons around her are drawn out in a series of spinning wheels.  Botanical features come into play as Isis spreads her mythical wings. 

It’s funny, all those doodles don’t look like much alone.  They usually end up in the waste paper basket.  But Eileen made me see, when they are lined up in a collection, they look like something worth noticing.  Maybe that’s true for most things about being human: if someone else takes the time to see it, we can appreciate it, too. 

Barbie Project Runway 2013

So here we were again, gathered at Judy and Angela’s house where all their Barbie’s from challenges past lined up on their mantel.  There were three of us this year.  And we agreed that voting for each other would have been silly as it would surely result in a three-way-tie.  So we agreed that we’d let Kristina, her husband Nils, and their daughter, Lilly pick the winner—the first time ever we allowed Judges in our Barbie Project Runway challenge. 

Judy and Angela were hosting.  Judy picked the challenge: Fantasy.  I found out almost as soon as she said what the challenge would be that Judy had been itching to make wings for a Barbie.  Angela is always a wild card.  And as I have already made more than my share of mermaid gowns, I thought I’d pick another inspiration.  I went to my favorite non-humanoid creature: the unicorn.  I began sketching almost immediately. 

I picked up a doll for $1.99 at Goodwill.  I gathered my materials from the craft stores.  I didn't have much of an idea of how I would create the horn, but I wanted to have a doll in a shimmering white fabric looking like the most absolutely magical unicorn to ever grace the world.  I picked up some Sculpey clay and began to experiment with it.  The horns I attached to an anchoring head band seemed to be the easiest designs to work with. 

I also wanted to dazzle with sheer imagination.  I painted the doll’s face and body with white acrylic paint to create tattoos you might find in an enchanted forest.  I glued glittering gems directly to her skin.  I found a shimmery fabric I loved.  It looked like an aura of light that might surround a unicorn.  If a unicorn assumed a human’s shape like the Lady Amalthea did in Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, I would expect strange colors and sparkles where a normal human would be solid and plain. 

The doll’s hair began to look a little lackluster, so I fashioned a wig with doll hair from the local craft store.  Originally it hung long, but the long curls seemed to detract from the dress.  I decided to keep the hair a little shorter to create an Afro effect.  I was also going to include a feather boa tail, but the boa distracted from the dress and its ruching.  So I left the tail out.  This design really advanced my sense of editing.  I think my dress is just as good for the things I left off as for the things I put on it. 

The judges looked over the dolls carefully.  Kristina was really pulling for Angela’s High Priestess design. 

Angela's High Priestess

But the clear winner was Judy’s fairy.  The cellophane wings won two out of three judges over.  So Judy is the winner of Barbie Project Runway 2013.  The girl broke her own self-proclaimed curse! 

The Winner of Barbie Project Runway 2013

I’m glad Judy won.  Her wings were gorgeous!  And I still love my design.  It is satisfying to be able to send a look down the runway you are behind one hundred percent.  And I got my unicorn ball gown out of my mind, and I can’t wait to see what the next challenge will be.