Sometimes when I’m feeling sad or lost, I doodle. But I’ve always been a bit ashamed of the doodling I do when I’m not in an upbeat headspace. It’s darker and sketchier than my normal stuff. There’s a lot of confusing patterns and sad faces. As soon as my pen comes off the paper, all I want to do is scrunch it up and throw it away – maybe because it feels cathartic to get rid of it, but also because I have this notion in my head that doodling should always be playful and happy and fun!
But it doesn’t always have to be, does it? I mean, if doodling is an honest chat between your brain and the paper, it can’t always be just sunshine and kitten faces and those happy little circle patterns. Sometimes the pen digs in a little deeper.
I started thinking about all this after finding the online sketchbook of 17-year-old Jenny from South Carolina. She posts up pretty doodlings that speak about hopelessness and feeling lost. It quite intimate to scroll through and hear her inner thoughts… like when you notice someone, and they’re smiling or whatever, but then for a second you catch a sadness in their eyes and you know that their mind is elsewhere for a moment.
Anyhow, I’m glad Jenny didn’t scrunch these up and throw them away, they’re lovely.
