How I approach the process of creating a sketch and the difference between a sketch and a doodle.
Sketching is fun. It is often the entry point to learning to draw and there is no expectation behind it. They can be as messy or as clean as you want and neither is right or wrong. It suits whatever style and approach you wish to go with. I will go into detail on how I approach my sketches personally and why I never ever doodle. There is a difference between the two and I think many people conflate them. So lets talk about all that.
When I first started drawing, I would sketch very rigidly. I’d hold the pencil very tight and near the tip and try to make sure every stroke was perfectly placed. That might work for some, but for me, it resulted in stiff and motionless characters. I’ve since learned to approach it differently. When I’m ready to sketch, I grab the pencil (or stylus) farther from the tip and grip it much more loosely. I also stretch out my arm because I use the my whole arm when sketching. This is all to achieve a much wider range of motion with each stroke. I want to use long, quick pencil strokes to get the gesture down. The key for me is being light and messy here. Once I find the right line then I’ll go a bit harder with the pencil. I also try my best not to use an eraser. Its very easy to fall into the safety net of that eraser (or undo for digital) and by not using it at all, you train your hand to find the right lines quickly and fluidly. Sometimes it can look like it’s going all over the place, but there is an appeal to that. At least for me it is. I believe that is because it is very much an animators way of drawing. Look at many professional animator’s drawings and you’ll notice how rough and loose it is. Those lines exude confidence. Each one feels fluid and full of life. That might not appeal to everyone, but I’m someone who has fawned over animation for a long time so that rough and messy feel really grabs me. There is no better example than one of my art idols and animation legends, Glen Keane.
Glen Keane’s drawing have so much life and energy that you can feel how alive his characters are in their movements. I sense that on a visceral level. He is an animation god, and I’m going to commit a cardinal sin and compare myself to him. Every artist out there is screaming at me right now because that is the fastest way to head into a downward artistic spiral. But the point of this is just to show how my sketching style has evolved into something similar to his.
Now about doodling. I don’t doodle. Some people like to and to each their own. But I just can’t. I’ve tried many times and the end result just doesn’t do it for me. In my eyes, it never looks right. A doodle is defined as an absentminded drawing, and I can see how that can be beneficial. Just letting your hand go wild with no care can result in some interesting new ideas you’d never think of before. But for me personally, I need to have an idea first going into the drawing. I need to have a general idea of what I’m going for in the drawing with a some kind of plan on how I’ll achieve the end result I want. That’s just me though, so if you like doodling then have at it. Do whatever you find works best for you. Now you might be thinking, “wait, isn’t a sketch and doodle basically the same?”, and my answer to that would be an emphatic no. They are not the same. A sketch, while loose and messy, has a perceived end. A certain look and feel that the artist is searching for from the start. A doodle, however, has no endgame. There is no plan, no approach when doodling. The artist just sits down and draws whatever. I need a game plan in my mind, so for that reason I’ve never doodle.
A bit of a tangent here, but something that irks me a ton is when I see artists labeling something they did as a doodle when it is clearly anything but a doodle. Not sure if they think it is a form of a humble brag, but it annoys me. Don’t label a painting that took hours to create as a mere doodle. It may not be intended to be perceived this way, but to me it comes of as a bit arrogant. It is insulting to call what many would see as an amazing piece of art as a simple doodle. Whether intended or not, it downplays the amount of work and the level of skill and talent involved to create art. So that’s all I have to say on that. Mini rant over.
For the purpose of this post, I went against my normal process and tried doodling. I put down a few strokes and just made a random character connecting lines. Here was the result.
So there is a bit of insight into my approach at sketching. It may not be perfect, but it works for me. That is the point though. Every artist needs to find an approach and process that works well for them. My way may not work for you and someone else’s may not work for another. But that is the beauty of it. Each person developing their own process results in unique styles. No one wants to be the exact same as someone else, and that is what makes art so great.
The Art of David Stankowicz 