Last Updated on February 25, 2024
Have you ever found yourself daydreaming or losing interest in one of your classes in school and end up creating a little masterpiece of your own on your notebook’s margins? We’ve all had those moments.
Doodling is actually an art form, despite having done it mindlessly or unconsciously. They may be simple drawings that have concrete representational meaning, or just abstract shapes that mean nothing at all.
Apart from being a result of a bored student, doodles are also often produced during long telephone conversations, if the speaker has access to a pen and paper.
There are a number of different kinds of doodles – cartoon versions of other people (mostly teachers and fellow students), famous television or comic characters, some imaginary characters, letterings, landscapes, geometric shapes, patterns, and textures, to name a few.
Origins Of The Word
Did you know that the word doodle came from the early 17th century and it initially meant a fool or a simpleton? The word may have been derived from the German word “Dudeltopf” or “Dudeldop”, which means simpleton.
The modern meaning of the word, as we know it now, emerged in the 1930s either from the 18th century meaning of “to doodle” which meant “to swindle or make a fool out of,” or the 17th century verb “to dawdle” which meant “wasting time or being lazy”.
Doodling is Science
Recently, there have been a lot of studies and researches conducted about doodling. It has been said that doodling can help a person’s memory by expanding just enough energy to keep one from daydreaming or not paying attention.
It acts as a mediator between the spectrum of thinking too much or thinking too little, and helps focus on the current situation. Researches on doodles are now being focused on studying a certain writer’s subconscious and productive mind.
Famous Doodlers
Even famous public figures have been known to doodle every once in a while. The notebooks of Alexander Pushkin are celebrated for their superabundance of marginal doodles, most of which are sketches of his friends’ profiles, hands, and feet. Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore has made a lot of doodles on his manuscripts.
John Keats, poet and physician, has medical notes that have doodles on its margins as well. Other known literary doodlers include Samuel Beckett and Sylvia Plath.
Even American presidents such as Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton have been known to doodle during presidential meetings. Some doodles can also be found on the notebooks of famous painter Leonardo da Vinci.
Here are 30 doodles and sketches that will serve as inspiration for you.