Development of the Doodle

Abstract

At the beginning of October of 2010, I had already sunk to a very low level of depression, which was unfortunately to last until early 2011. Despite its gravity, I persisted in doodling, with only one occasion on which I used any other medium than pencil and paper. While art therapy can help, it does not always do so, and this is probably one very bad episode that was not clearly improved by doodling. But somehow my powers of concentration when doodling were not that eroded, and perhaps I became increasingly obsessed with my artwork. Idleness, where rest does not constitute a part of it, is anathema to me, so I would probably have been even worse if I had not continued to doodle. What proved quite extraordinary on reflection was the fact that I produced about 50 drawings, of which almost 20 are shown in the following pages. My partner, Jean , was equally surprised that such a lot had been produced in 3 months. Furthermore, the range of “subjects”, “themes” or “patterns”—call them what you will, since all are abstract —was quite remarkable. [I might have apologised here for being very self-centred and a huge egotist if I had not been as astonished as my partner with the outcome in volume and detail. On reflection, the products often seems very alien to me—did I really do them?!] But from early days I had made quite a lot of large doodles, not just in 2010. Three of the more memorable images from earlier years follow .