I am one of those fools who regularly make New Year’s Resolutions. One of those for 2023 was to become more proficient in visual arts. For this, I chose five areas:

• Graphic Design
• Drawing
• Illustration
• Basic Doodling
• Zen Doodling

Let’s look at each of these areas:

Graphic design is a craft where professionals create visual content to communicate messages. By applying visual hierarchy and page layout techniques, designers use typography and pictures to meet users’ specific needs and focus on the logic of displaying elements in interactive designs, to optimize the user experience.

I like to think that my header here on RJsCorner is graphic design. I certainly enjoy frequently redoing it. I have been using graphic design often in my career, but would kinda like to move it to the next level.

Drawing is a visual expression used to convey your own thoughts and feelings towards a subject. To me, this is primarily sketching. I took a drafting course in college and learned things like perspective, but have for the most part forgotten most of that.

Illustration is a tool of visual communication for people to visualize and understand the subject by looking at a picture rather than the accompanying text. In other words, “a picture is worth a thousand words.

Classic Doodling, as pointed out by the authors of DesignHill.com, classic doodling means ‘to draw, sketch or scribble idly’. Generally, doodling is an activity that people take up unknowingly when not able to pay attention to something else. For instance, you are sitting in a meeting and bored. Then, you start scribbling different shapes and patterns on the paper. Meetings in my corporate life, and schooling before that, left me with plenty of time to take up doodling before now; I am surprised I am not already an expert at that. 😎

Zen Doodling is quite different from basic doodling in that it involves repeating the same patterns multiple times in one drawing. To the right is an example of Zen Doodling. When I am finally ready, I will use technology for this method of doodling instead of having to repeat the same motions over and over again.

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I have spent the first seven months on the project studying each of these five areas of interest and am finally ready for my first plunge in my visual arts journey.

In the Next post, I will tell you just what I am presently doing to become a better artist. It has been a convoluted journey, but believe me, I am making progress…slow but surely.