Swirly doodle #52

I realy like the way the top of this one form some kind of unraveled  four stranded braid. To me that is the coolest part of the way this turned out in the end, though I definitely like the spiky bits at the bottom as well. Don't know what else to say about this one so here it is.

Swirly doodle #51

Yesterdays was one that's been in my head for a while: stating with the opposing three-pointed bits. The problem was figuring out what to do from there. I don't think it turned out horribly, and I like the figure eight in the center. I think it could have been better though... oh well it's still okay. It was tough however, for some reason it was very hard to get it not to look lopsided, and I still think it does a bit, which isn't helped by the fact that it was drawn slightly off the vertical axis of the sketch book. Oh well... again. Whatever, enough of my babble, here it is.

Swirly doodle #50

And here's today's. This one took a long time to get even close to looking right. This is my first attempt at a pinwheel type design, and boy was it difficult. It was my first and may also be my last. It depends on how I feel on other milestone doodles (100, 150 etc). I'm very happy with how it turned out though, I almost left it as just the two crossing football/almonds and the part coming off of them, but I added the part where the points meet in the center, which I think looks pretty good, though I could have left it alone, and I almost did. Oh well, I like it, even if the parts meeting in the center kind of look like a swastika when you follow them outward... I also just noticed, if you look at it from a distance it looks like a hashtag, only tilted the wrong direction.

Swirly doodle #49

From yesterday, November 2nd. Angry face with wacky hairdo, or horns. That bottom right triangular shape is a little smaller than the one on the left, made symmetry that much harder for everything else following that starting shape.

Swirly doodle #48

From November 1st, I think it's some sort of alien bug. This is the first time I used those oval shapes separate from each other like that, I really like how it turned out. This one also has a little more width to it, unlike most which end up being taller than they are wide.

Swirly doodle #47

This one is dedicated to Lilalena, I really like her stargazing project so this one started out as a (slightly disproportionate) five-pointed star. I like to think of it as a mutated pentagram in honor of Halloween. Muwahahaha ;P

Some thoughts about the new project

Thanks to the input I received I will be picking topics 2 weeks to a month in advance, just in case I need time to think about how to make things work out. Also I've decided based on research into the types of pages you get by clicking random page, that I'm going to stick to nouns that reflect things or ideas... too often you get obscure people or places that are just impractical or lame to try to base a piece on. So I will click random page until I get something that is not a person or place. But I will still be challenged I believe by the limitations of the prompts. I still haven't made up my mind when to start the project, but if I had to guess, I would say very soon, before it gets too cold for the outdoors prompts... we'll see.

Swirly doodle #46

I thought when I finished this one that it looked kind of like a spaceship... later I realized that it also looks somewhat phallic. Oh well, I guess these things happen sometimes... Well now I caught up for the past week, I am going to try extra hard to get the one for the 31st up before October is over so it will be under the October heading in the archive cause I would prefer the doodles from a particular month to go under their month's heading.

Swirly doodle #45

So this one is from yesterday, the 29th. If you dismiss the big hangy part at the bottom and the horn looking things at the top, the central part looks like a bat, which was not done intentionally for halloween, but it's a neat coincidence anyway.

Swirly doodle #44

And this one is from the 28th. I guess this could be another arrow (see #2), pointing downwards, other than that, I don't really think it's anything, just cool lookin' hehe. I still need to darken #45 (Oct 29th), and do one for today, so I'll be back later to do those. I think due to my schedule that for now I'm going to be doing the light versions of doodles every day, then come the weekend I will work on darkening them for quality scans and post them. I really wanted to post every day as I did these, but that's just not going to work out for the time being.

Swirly doodle #43

From the 27th. This looks like some sort of strange bicycle. It's the demon bike from hell in the spirit of Halloween... i guess. The bicycle thing is kind of a liberal interpretation i think because it's radial, so maybe if you ignore one of the sides of pointy bits... meh, close enough.

Swirly doodle #42

Ah 42, the answer to life, the universe, and everything (according to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). This one looks like either another helmet, or the face mask of one of those masked mexican wrestlers. I forget what they're called but I know they have a specific word or phrase for them.

Swirly doodle #41

This is from the 25th, it doesn't look much like anything to me, but I like the little heart in the middle there.

Swirly doodle #40

Oh, 'tis always fun to play catch up. Here is the doodle from October 24th, which obviously looks like a butterfly. This never happens on purpose, my view while I'm doing these is too narrow so I never see these likenesses until I'm done and step back to look at the final product. Well I guess there were exceptions, like my playing card designs...

Some updates on things

I know I didn't scan yesterday's doodle in yet, it needs to be darkened first, I'll do that when I do today's.

The Bigger, better news is about the next project I intend to do. First is a primer on what it is. The project is an exercise in creative problem solving: I am taking the prompts from Noah's book and combining them with a subject to be determined by clicking the "random page" link on Wikipedia. It sounds pretty fun to me. The good news about the prompts is that they have no dates on them, I thought they were specifically dated, and my OCD would have made it impossible for me to 1) not do the prompts on the dates given, 2) not do them in order starting on January 1st. The fact that all they say is Day 1, Day 2, etc, gives me some freedom from myself. Also looking through the prompts I saw some that require going outside to find things, which in Wisconsin need to not be done with snow on the ground. Though now that I think about it those things could be collected at any point and kept somewhere until the day they are needed, except that means any organic material needs to already be dead when collected... Aw hell, like I said, I'll just make sure I start this project at a date where the outdoor things can be done in reasonable weather.

Anyway, some of the prompts need to be modified or interpreted in ways to work with my resources and desires for an art project. In other words, for a prompt that says, for example, write a ten word love story, bonus: illustrate it, I'll be illustrating a love story based on the random subject. This is part of the whole problem solving thing. How do I make the prompts work, bend them to still be relevant (if they need bending at all),so I can use them for a visual arts project. Also how can I use the random subjects indirectly? For example getting a page like 1982 World Series I could use inspiration from one of the teams involved in combination with the prompt and make something about beer (the Brewers were one of the teams in that WS).

So that's what's going on today. I do need help from anyone who may read this though, I want an opinion. Should I make a list of random subjects, as in click the random page link 365 times and write down everything I get so I can think ahead a little bit. Or should I wait until, say, the night before to find out what my subject will be each day? So find the subjects either one year or one day in advance, let me know what you think and give me your reasoning.

Swirly doodle #39

Here's another radial one I did today while watching House. Not that that has anything to do with it, but I thought I'd throw that in anyway. Can't say it looks much like anything, though the radial ones tend to be more on the abstract side. Meh, what can ya do? They were meant to be abstract in the first place, looking like things is usually coincidence.

Swirly doodle #38

This is one of those rare ones where due to the lack of lines crossing in the center I find it works better to have opposing sides of the design symmetrically do the opposite when it comes to going either over or under itself. It's symmetrical in shape, which is what counts for me.

Swirly doodle #37

This one was based on an idea I had where the loops form a chain, unfortunately that turned out to be a little too clustered and twisted. It just didn't look good with more than two loops like I have here. So I only did the two loops intertwined. I like it though, so no worries.

Swirly doodle #36

And finally the one I did today. This looks like some kind of fancy-pants oriental style helmet/face mask. Kind of reminds me of ones I remember from Lord of the Rings, I think maybe on the savage human dudes...

Swirly doodle #35

I see a tulip, or some sort of flower bud/bulb. The points at the bottom ruin that a little, but it's still tulip shaped to me, more or less.