doodling

Earlier this week, a friend of mine posted a link to my Facebook wall about doodling. This seems to be a fairly common occurrence for me. I’m pretty sure it was at least the tenth time someone has sent me a link about some awesome method of doodling or coloring.
But the second I saw the blog post she sent, I knew I was in love. It was a tutorial on how to use a sharpie marker to doodle Mexcian sugar skull art on black and white pumpkins to look like an owl.
My friend and I both love to doodle, but we only recently discovered our common interest. In fact, during the past few weeks, we have found that we have quite a few things in common. There’s only one difference.
My friend is really laid back. She is the definition of chill. Me, on the other hand? I’m all like, “Blah, blah, blah!” And, “Do this! Do that!”
She is a normal person with unique interests. I’m much more OCD, this is the best thing EVER, I can’t live without it!!!
In her words, I’m like a super charged version of her.
For example, she really loves photography. Me, too. But I’m like, “PHOTOGRAPHY! OH MY GOSH! I HAVE TO TAKE A PHOTO EVERY SINGLE DAY AND POST IT ON FACEBOOK AND START A PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS AND ORGANIZE A PHOTOGRAPHY CLASS!! PHOTOGRAPHY IS THE BEST THING EVER!
My friend loves coffee. So do I. But I’m like, “COFFEE?!? OH MY GOSH! I DIDN’T DRINK COFFEE FOR 17 YEARS AND THEN ONE DAY I WOKE UP AND DECIDED, ‘I’M GOING TO BE ADDICTED TO COFFEE’ AND NOW I DRINK SUPER DARK ROAST STARBUCKS COFFEE WITH JUST A HINT OF COCOA AND IF I DON’T HAVE IT BY 9 A.M. EVERY DAY, I WILL DIE.”
And then there’s doodling. My friend loves doodling. I do, too. I’m the only adult person I know who carries around a sketch pad to take notes in meetings so I will have plenty of white space to doodle. I write everything with brightly colored Sharpie markers. I doodle all of the time. I LOVE TO DOODLE!
So, hopefully that will explain why it only took me about 30 seconds after seeing the sugar skull art pumpkin owls to grab my Sharpies and my sketch pad, zoom in on the tiny photo on my phone and start doodling. I sat on the deck for hours that first evening, trying to doodle an owl. It was a challenge at first. Getting those big eyes to be similar in size. Drawing the circles somewhat uniform.

My daughter would grab my black and white doodles and color them. The two of us were content for hours, oblivious to the fact the family wanted to eat dinner or needed clean clothes for gym. I ignored the need to go to the store and buy milk or any type of housecleaning. Even despite a super intense work week, I made time for my obsession. My spare moments were spent on one thing. Doodling.
I doodled owl after owl. I worked on the designs from the blog post. Then, I started creating my own.
I doodled with fine tip Sharpies. I tried my ultra fine tips. I doodled owls with black lines. I doodled in color. I doodled big owls and tiny owls.
I imagined doodling Mexican sugar skull cats. Sugar skull doodle puppies. Sugar skull doodle mice.
Well, I just wanted to thank my friend for awakening in me my new passion. She probably thought she was just passing along a cute photo of an owl doodled on a pumpkin. She probably doodled her pumpkin owls and then went back to life as normal.
Then there’s me. OH MY GOSH! I FOUND MY LIFE’S CALLING. THIS IS WHAT I’M MEANT TO DO. WATCH OUT WORLD, I’M A MEXICAN SUGAR SKULL PUMPKIN OWL DOODLER!!!!
(I need some coffee.)