The art of the scribble. I’m always afraid to commit to a line when I draw, so laying down sketch lines on a canvas to paint is pretty stressful. I practice in my sketchbook with mostly pen to fight my perfectionist tendency to erase whatever isn’t perfect, and doodle/scribble/whatever-you-want-to-call-this-pen-marking exercises help to loosen up my fingers and my brain.

This was also an excellent object lesson for the tiny human. She gets upset whenever someone doesn’t see exactly what she sees when she makes a picture, and some other tiny human had dismissed her work as “scribble-scrabble.” Scribble-scrabble is still art when you are marking the paper with your imagination. It doesn’t matter if anyone else sees what you see; even if they guess at the shapes, they still won’t see exactly what you see. But then, that’s what art is all about isn’t it?

Go make your mark!