'I was doodling on a piece of paper,' she confided. 'Īs Shirley spoke, her husband bellowed in the background, 'Stop it! You're doing it again.' Then it's stars, flowers, lightning bolts, faces. I draw lots of straight lines through them. 'It's ruining my marriage,' she said with a laugh. Shirley Ing of Phoenix draws relentlessly, even on her husband's work papers.

(Yes, she's a Republican.)įor some, the drive to doodle can become obsessive. A recent City Council agenda was adorned with caricatures of her colleagues, plus flags and elephants. 'It clears my mind and makes me concentrate better.'īarwood said she doesn't plan images - they just flow from feelings into ink. Phoenix Vice Mayor Frances Emma Barwood describes herself as a 'notorious doodler' who depends on the idle craft to get through endless meetings. 'Maybe I'm trying to fill a gap in my life. 'My hand moves, and I'm not aware of it,' Karp said. But whenever she picks up the phone, circles and zigzags appear. Shirley Karp, a Scottsdale retiree and doodlist for half a century, can't explain her handiwork. An optimist draws high on the page a pessimist along the bottom an anarchist scribbles off the page. Imagine the response when a journalist asks, 'Do you doodle, sir?'īut if this art be nonsense, why do so many people practice it?Įxperts say that the squiggles offer an emotional release and that the images carry symbolic meaning.įor instance, curves generally suggest an accepting person straight lines indicate rigidity. Doodles are disdained.Įven the word sounds frivolous, like poodles, noodles and cock-a-doodle-do. Yet, in the realm of art, nothing gets less respect. It sneaks onto legal papers, kitchen counters, Yellow Pages and library books. Researchers claim that two out of three Americans doodle at least occasionally, sketching curlicues, bluebirds, bloodshot eyes, abstract nothings.The doodle is a common denominator among cavemen and moderns, parents and kids, presidents and peons. Consider the lowly doodle: spawned by boredom, born of the subconscious, a minidream that seeps from fingertips.

Doodler meaning