Life doodles

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Real life sort of intervened and I haven't felt much like drawing lately. And as for writing... well, let's just say that all of the poems on this blog are at least a year old. I only write poetry when I want to, and apparently I haven't wanted to for a while.

Anyway, I do hope to get back to some creative stuff soon. In the meantime, though, I thought I'd let you into a little part of the weirder side of Yours... um, Mutteringly. I was going to say Yours Blatheringly, but I guess that's me on my other blog, right?

The weird doodle that you're seeing above is a doodle pattern that's stayed with me for most of my life. It was something we were taught in about Grade Three in art class. I couldn't tell you why -- probably something to do with improving coordination by tracing shapes, or maybe choosing harmonious colours -- but we all were told to do these slightly trance-inducing patterns one day. There must be an actual reason for it somewhere, since I noticed that the students in a classroom I visited a few weeks ago had done the same project. If anyone knows more about it, drop me a comment. I'm genuinely curious.

What no one could have expected is that the doodle thingy apparently struck a chord with my OLF (that'd be obsessive little freak, and is courtesy of my co-blogger on the link above. If you want some unrelated fun try googling OLF. Scary how many things it stands for) brain, and I've been doing it ever since. Something about the pattern, naturally; also something about the sheer mechanics, and probably something about the organic nature of the process. Depending on what rules you set for what happens when a shape contacts another (or when a shape contacts a paper edge) you can get some interesting growth patterns. The second photo shows some variations on the theme, so to speak.

Don't get me wrong -- I do not regard this as art. Well, maybe slightly as art, but only in the patterns-please-me sense. In the end it's just something that I tend to do when I'm bored. When I went through my old university notes a few years back I could tell just how interested I was in each class by looking at the frequency of this doodle in the notebook margins.

It wasn't the only pattern, though. Ask me about the "brains" sometime when I'm looking for something else pointless to post here.

Or about the endless flower, for that matter.

Hmmm.

Apparently I have more than a few patterns rattling around in this brain of mine. What about you folks? Does anyone out there have a particular doodle that's stuck with them? If so, I'd love the see them. And if not... let's just say that it's not exactly news to me that I'm a little weird.