Doodle Art

Dear readers,

Let's get know what Doodle is!

Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract lines, generally without ever lifting the drawing device off of the paper, in which case it is usually called a "scribble".

Typical examples of doodling are found in school notebooks, often in the margins, drawn by students daydreaming or losing interest during class. Other common examples of doodling are produced during long telephone conversations if a pen and paper are available.

Popular kinds of doodles include cartoon versions of teachers or companions in a school, famous TV or comic characters, invented fictional beings, landscapes, geometric shapes, patterns and textures.

Doodle art can help you learn how to draw and make a great addition to your design portfolio – as highlighted by these brilliant examples. Combining child-like doodles with expressive illustrations, they show how doodling can be used to create beautiful and arresting designs. Who knew there were so many doodle art styles?

1.  Irvin Ranada

Student Irvin Ranada currently studies Fine Art at the Far Eastern University in the Philippines. In his spare time, he's an avid doodler and has creating numerous, intricate doodle illustrations. A master of composition, Ranada's drawings are a perfect reminder of just how special doodle art can be.

2. Lizzie Mary Cullen

Lizzie Mary Cullen is a multi award-winning artist based in London. A natural talent with pen and ink, Cullen's doodle art has attracted the attention of many leading brands, including the BBC, MTV and Harvey Nichols. This intricate depiction of Brick Lane, is just one from Cullen's brilliant series titled London psycho geographies.

3. Mike Rohde

Mike Rhode is a designer who loves to read, write and draw. For the latter, he takes a Moleskin sketchbook everywhere, keeping a visual journal of his travels. We particularly like this piece taken from Rhode's Portland sketch note travelogue, in which he records facts and thoughts with brilliant little sketches and typography.

4. Kate Bingaman-Burt

Becoming obsessed with consumerism back in 2006, illustrator Kate Bingaman-Burt decided to document her daily purchases with a doodle. Staying with the consumption theme, Kate draws her doodles on to receipts and credit card statements. What a creative and fun way to showcase your personality and your buying habits!

5. Matthieu Bessudo

Matthieu Bessudo, aka McBess, is a French illustrator living in London. With a passion for illustration and music, Bessudo always tries to mix the two in his work. A super-talent, his doodle art features a mind-blowing amount of detail.

6.  Paperchap

We don't know much about UK artist Paperchap but what we do know is that he is a commuting doodler. Every day, he travels between Shoreham By Sea and London Victoria, which leaves him with rather a lot of idle time - so her doodle all over the newspapers. Now, that's a creative commute.

7. Chris Piascik

Describing himself as an 'illustrator, formerly known as designer', Chris Piascik fast became a well-known face in the doodle art world. Based in New England and with more than eight years of professional experience, Chris embarked upon a 'daily drawing' challenge back in 2007. Once he'd done 1000, he published them in a book entitled '1000 days of drawing'. He continues to doodle to this very day.

8. Snippy Snippy Crab Kristine

After months of procrastination, the artist that goes by the name of Snippy Snippy Crab Kristine completed this completed this set of entirely random doodles. This talented artist spends much of her time creating gorgeous Manga artwork, with any spare minutes spent doodling lovely creations such as this in her skecthbook.

9.  Starchild

Starchild is an artist with a mission - to create a visual language to explain a culture which is vibrant, dark yet familiar. Using mixed media he'll "cut, paste and create from the giant pile of junk that is the Universe". Each of his pieces tells a different story and could be interpreted in hundreds of ways. We love how he has encorporated mixed media into the doodle artform.

10.  Andrea Joseph

Now this gorgeous illustration by Andrea Joseph takes us back to the days of school excercise book scribblings and random jottings. Although ours looked nowhere near as good as this! Joseph created the brilliant design using only ballpoint pens, which features a beautifully worn pair of Converse and frighteningly realistic stationary. Absolutely stunning.

11. Eklektick

We love the fun and playful mind of US-based artist Kristin Krause aka Eklektick. Both her home and studio are full of colourful artwork such as these random doodles titled 'Thought Mess'. For one month, Krause stuck sheets of paper to her walls and then wrote and sketched her thoughts on each. A brilliant idea from a very talented artist.

12.   Kim Jung Gi

This South Korean artist is the master of the doodle. Taking to blank walls when he's not capturing his improvised art in a sketchbook, Kim has become world famous for his on-the-spot epic doodle masterpieces.

In Kim's case, seeing is believing, and thankfully his YouTube channel is chock full of brain-tinglingly amazing pieces.

The artist says: "I observe things all the time. I don’t take references while I’m drawing, but I’m always collecting visual resources." Take a dip into his sketchbook!

I have a lot of fun sketching at speed. This drawing, for example, took me just 40 minutes to complete.

And that's all! :) Hope hope you get inspired and create great doodles!