Following on from my post about Extreme Doodling a few weeks ago, Contour Doodling is a similar mindfulness exercise you can do pretty much anywhere.
I call it ‘contour’ doodling because it reminds me of the contour maps I learnt about in geography class at school.
Simply start in the middle of your page with a small, irregular shape. Then draw around that shape following its contours. And keep building it up, getting further and further out. The irregularities will be emphasised the further out you get. Just go with it. Let it become the shape it wants to be.
There is no right or wrong.
You can do it for 10 minutes, or 10 hours. (Okay, maybe an hour.)
Remember, it’s all about the process, not the result.
Extreme Doodling is not doodling whilst snowboarding down the lava doused slopes of an erupting volcano. It’s a tad more sedate than that. It’s doodling with purpose.
Like my previous post about abstract doodling, this exercise is mindful and relaxing.
Simply take your pen or pencil and take it for a stroll around the page.
Don’t think about it. Just spiral around, looping up and down, over and under, without lifting your pen off the page.
Next, (this is the ‘purpose’ part), fill in the shapes that you have created. As you can see above, I have used similarly spaced lines at varying angles, but you could fill each shape with a different design or pattern, as below.
Something like this would lend itself to being filled in with colour – felt tips, pencil crayon, watercolour…
You could even add more geometric elements to it.
There’s no right or wrong.
Nor is there any pressure on it having to be any ‘good’. By ‘good’ we usually mean in the eyes of others. Or, worse still – by yourself!
This is for you.
For you to spend some time relaxing whilst doing art.
It is the process not the result.
I could go on – I’ve got millions of the little blighters. But you get the idea.
I usually do them when I’m out and about and having to wait for something or someone (hence them always being black and white). So it’s a great way to pass time and not get frustrated about having to hang about.
Anyhoo, thank you so very much for taking the time to read/look at my blog. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it, and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.
David Milligan-Croft
Thereisnocavalry 