Happy Anniversary Doodle Day!

Woo hoo! Today is May 1st and that means that the Doodle Day drawing challenge has been going on every day for an entire year. We (my then 5 year old and I) started the Doodle Day challenge last year as a 1 month event called Doodle Day May in which Erin and I would create a doodle each day based on the same drawing prompt. I had already been doodling every day since October of 2012 (Thank you, Debbie Ohi and Linda Sylvestri for inspiring those 2012 daily doodles) and Erin was already carrying her pink sketchbook to preschool every day to use during nap time so drawing together seemed natural.

We started with Erin and I and 60 other people from around the world who wanted to join us and now, a year later, we have 275 doodlers in the Facebook Group and a few hundred others who email me directly to let me know how their doodling is going. We have had whole classes of preschoolers doodling. We have had a third grade class use doodling as their daily starter. We have teachers, children, artists, parents, friends, and friends of friends. We have everyone from doodlers who told me that they can't draw a straight line with a ruler to professional illustrators.

The amazing thing about this community is that everyone is soo supportive of each others drawings. The comments are about what people like about drawing and suggestions for making the doodles better. We also post about contests, art blogs, Pinterest boards for inspiration, drawing classes, drawing videos, drawing tutorials, programs, products, media, and books about drawing.

Happy Anniversary Doodle Day and thank you to all of the doodling participants

in the Doodle Day challenge.

The first Doodle Day logo

Doodle Notan

 

The Doodle Day Logo

 

 

 

If you want to join the Doodle Day drawing challenge, click HERE to join the Facebook Group.

 

I hope you will continue to doodle with me!

-Alison

New Doodle Day Theme for January 2014

Welcome to 2014!

How Doodle Day started...
What began on May 1st as a one month drawing challenge has snowballed is such a wonderful way that I never imagined when it started...

Doodle Day began after my daughter (only 5 yrs old) made a suggestion on April 31st. After seeing me create a daily doodle everyday for 6 months, she said, "Mom,... I want to doodle with you and we can draw the same things. Let's call it Doodle Day May and you can blog and invite our friends to draw with us." What you should know is that Erin has her own pink sketchbook that she used most days at preschool during quiet time. When the other kids were napping, my little girl would take her pouch of colored pencils and markers from her cubby and draw whatever was on her mind.

I did as Erin suggested and blogged about my daughter and I doodling together and invited our friends to doodle with us. To my surprise, when I checked my blog the next morning, there were 60 people from across the globe who had expressed interest in joining our challenge. You can see that original post HERE. Doodle Day May was born and a Facebook Group was created so that doodlers could freely post their creations and give feedback to others. Click HERE for my summary blog posted at the end of May with my month of doodles.

May ended but...
Doodle Day was soo much fun that many people in the group wanted to continue into June, then July. Click HERE for my summary blog posted at the end of July. While those summer months didn't have themes, I posted a prompt everyday so that those who stare at a blank page and felt anxiety about what to doodle had a little push of inspiration. Prompts are never required to be used - just there if wanted and/or needed. For 2 weeks in August, we did a Character Challenge because I wanted to work on specific age groups others expressed a similar desire so I posted many blogs about distinguishing characteristics in each age group that I gathered from various textbooks, drawing guides, and blogs. See the summary post for the end of the Character Challenge HERE.

Our happy doodlers continued to doodle through September and into October and as a group, we gave November the them of Animals. We doodled a different (mostly uncommon) animal everyday. Click HERE to see the summary of Animal Month.

For December, our group of dedicated doodlers (which had now grown to almost 200 people in the Facebook group and at least a hundred others who email me directly) decided to do an Ocean/Sea Life theme and to make it even more challenging - throw in the A-Z aspect. December 1 began with the letter A and so on until we ran out of letters. The last few days of December were "free" doodles with no prompts. Personally, I finished the month with a cartoon everyday and you can see my entire month of doodles HERE.

Now...we welcome the new year with a new theme. Many of us focus on characters and the object in the central focus of our illustrations (and doodles) and forget about the background. Often, a blend of neutral or sky  or a wash is enough to ground our characters but there are also times when the scene needs to be set at a specific location. For those of us who illustrate (or want to illustrate) picture books for children, we need to be able to take our characters to the zoo, the playground, to school, to the store, to every room in a home, outside and inside, and to every other place from the top of a mountain to the bottom of the ocean so a collection of a month full of settings has become our January 2014 theme.

If you are interested in joining Doodle Day, check out the Facebook Group HERE. Once in the group, you can access the files with the daily doodle prompts and you can share your doodles.

If you want to order Doodle Day swag, check out our Café Press store HERE. The prices are set so that I do not make a profit on these items. I have no intention of making money off of anyone's interest in participating in Doodle Day.

If you want to learn more about me as an author and illustrator, click HERE to go to my website. You can also find me on Twitter @AlisonHertz, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Hope to see you in Doodle Day!

DOODLE DAY MAY - SUMMARY POST

The DOODLE DAY MAY drawing challenge is finished but I have and will continue to create a daily doodle and post as many as I can on my blog, Facebook page, or in the Doodle Day May Facebook group along with links, interviews, contests, illustrations, news, videos, etc...

During the DOODLE DAY MAY challenge, I created several doodles each day and almost filled an entire brand new sketchbook. Below, I have posted just some of those doodle from each day to summarize my month.

If you would like to order a t-shirt or baseball hat for yourself or your child who participated, go to the Café Press store for Doodle Day May.

Original Blog Post with the announcement of Doodle Day May
FACEBOOK GROUP PAGE
Day 1 - Zentangles

Day 2 - Monsters

Day 3 - Think outside the circle

Day 4 - Make a face

Day 5 - Flower

Day 6 - Hat

Day 7 - Dog

Day 8 - Tree

Day 9 - Critters

Day 10 - One Continuous Line

Day 11 - Give Me a Hand

Day 12 - Mothers

Day 13 - Through the Window

Day 14 - Sun

Day 15 - Heart

Day 16 - Space

Day 17 - Fruit

Day 18 - Swirls

Day 19 - Triangle

Day 20 - Fish

Day 21 - Shoe

Day 22 - Font

Day 23 - Vegetable

Day 24 - Flame

Day 25 - Square

Day 26 - Leaf

Day 27 - Star

 

Day 28 - Paisley or Filigree

Day 29 - Ribbon

Day 30 - Shell

Day 31 - Wave

There were 64 adult participants and at least 10 children doodling along in the Doodle Day May challenge. These participants included artists, writers, teachers, parents, children, friends, and friends of friends. The group continues to be a productive, supportive environment where members can post their doodles, ask questions about technique and media, post links to artists, videos, blogs, books, announce art classes or ask for class or media or technique suggestions, etc...

Look for a Character-a-Day Challenge (not sure what I'll call it yet) in late August or early September that will last a week (or possibly two).

I hope you will keep checking back to my blog for Story Starters, Doodles, Interviews, Announcements, Tips, etc...

Remember to keep doodling and have fun! Don't overthink it. Just put your pencil to the paper and see where it goes.

DOODLE DAY MAY - Day 31

Welcome to Day 31 of the Doodle Day May challenge! Did you make it? Did you create a doodle every day of the month of May? How many of the doodle prompts did you try? If you didn't use them, were you able to come up with ideas of what to doodle on your own? Great! This group is amazing! The doodles that would appear on the Facebook Group page were soo fun to see. There were so many different approaches to the prompts. Doodlers were using pencil, crayon, marker, colored pencil, watercolor paints, computer programs in 2D and 3D. Soo much fun! If you want to add the badge to your blog, site, or pinterest page, just right click it to save it and post it. Set your badge to re-size to fit and link to my blog and post.

Thank you all for doodling with my daughter and I. The Facebook Group page will stay open so that members can continue to post doodles and share ideas. Post your questions about media, drawing tools, computer programs. Post links to artists you find or How To videos you discover. Post accomplishments related to drawing. Post classes you find or have taken that sound fantastic!

Here are links to all of the blog posts from May 1-31. I will post my summary post on Monday.

Original Blog Post with the announcement of Doodle Day May
FACEBOOK GROUP PAGE
Day 1 - Zentangles
Day 2 - Monsters
Day 3 - Think outside the circle
Day 4 - Make a face
Day 5 - Flower
Day 6 - Hat
Day 7 - Dog
Day 8 - Tree
Day 9 - Critters
Day 10 - One Continuous Line
Day 11 - Give Me a Hand
Day 12 - Mothers
Day 13 - Through the Window
Day 14 - Sun
Day 15 - Heart
Day 16 - Space
Day 17 - Fruit
Day 18 - Swirls
Day 19 - Triangle
Day 20 - Fish
Day 21 - Shoe
Day 22 - Font
Day 23 - Vegetable
Day 24 - Flame
Day 25 - Square
Day 26 - Leaf
Day 27 - Star
Day 28 - Paisley/Filigree

In honor of this being the last day of May, today's doodle prompt is WAVE.

What does wave mean to you? Is it a wave in the ocean, a stadium wave, waving a lighter at a concert, waving goodbye? Create one doodle of any type of wave. Here are some reference photos for you...

Have fun!

Please leave me a comment if you want the Doodle Day May challenge to become a yearly event. The Facebook Group will stay open and active so continue to post your doodles, art questions, programs, media questions or ideas, links, suggestions, tips, etc...  I plan to host a Character a Day Challenge for a week or possibly two at the end of August or beginning of September and I hope to see you there!