Making Marbles

Today, we have a prompt of marbles, which I’ve actually sketched multiple times and love them so much that I even use them in lieu of color swatches. I think I must just have a thing for circles. From my avatar to the Doodlewash DO icon, everything is basically shaped like a marble. This seems complete and total proof that I’m just a big kid. And though an adult is usually meant to say “at heart” to append that, the reality is that I’m just a big kid. Somewhere along the way, I sort of forgot to grow up. I didn’t fight it so much as I just now find myself about to turn 48 this month and realize that I somehow forgot to DO it. I have so many crazy things on my list of crazy things I’d like to try next that “growing up” just never made the list. For my birthday on April 13th, I’ve requested a Mickey Mouse LEGO set and a couple of books filled with children’s illustrations. That’s it. And worse, I’m not even sure what a grown up might normally ask for at my age. But, I had someone tell me recently that I looked very young, so perhaps my natural mindset is working well! Or, if nothing else, I can at least save a bit of money on fancy face creams. Not that I’d ever remember to use them properly anyway. And in my heart I’m super young, like embarrassingly young. I function at that age before we ever learned to doubt ourselves and our creativity or become competitive with others. I simply think I’m perfectly capable of making awesome things and I think everyone else is as well and love promoting them while they’re DOing it! It’s so much more fun that way, too!

Like a small child, I simply couldn’t do these things alone. I thrive on your lovely comments and for those of you sketching along with me, I adore seeing your lovely art in answer to these prompts! Yeah, it’s still just me at the helm of it all, which means that I can’t always comment and get way behind on most everything. But, I hope you know I’m still seeing what you make and reading your lovely posts. That’s never changed because it fuels me. Truly, it’s my oxygen. Sketching something each and every day is quite a thing to attempt. It’s a solitary experience when I DO it, but then what? There’s a saying that goes “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Who cares, right? We make things to share with others. Even things we make for ourselves and special loved ones will ultimately get shared with other people at some point. Why? Because we’re proud of what we create and we totally should be! I’ve posted many things that I truly thought were not my best work. But, I adore them because they’re MY work. Something I made that day that didn’t exist the day before. It’s as though a truly magical moment occurred and seriously, everyone should know about this new thing that was just created!

Yep, that’s totally how a child thinks. Thrilled about what they made happen and fearless in their exhibition of it. And with social media we all get the opportunity to be regular and enthusiastic exhibitionists. Which sounds like something else entirely, I know, but it made me giggle so I went ahead and said it that way. I adore social media for all of the connections it makes, but do get a bit tired of the bits that feel like high school. I had fun in high school, but we were all too old at that point to truly celebrate the beauty of life. To really get to that feeling, we’d have to go back much farther in time to remember what it was like to experience the simplest of things for the first time. The time just before someone told us how we should feel. That’s the exact time I like to channel each time I sit down to scribble, doodle and color something every day. I just want to make a little something and enjoy every moment of making it like I did back then. Sure, I want to get better and learn awesome new techniques from brilliant teachers, but I don’t want to ever lose that feeling of simply showing up like I know nothing at all. And equally, never once fretting over the fact that others are making far more brilliant paintings, while I just showed up to my coloring book yet again today and found myself making marbles.

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About the Doodlewash Da Vinci Paint Co.: Nickel Azo Yellow, Vermilion, Leaf Green, Cobalt Blue, Cobalt Turquoise, and Indigo. Lamy Al-Star Safari Fountain Pen with black ink in an A5 Hahnemühle Watercolour Book. Want to purchase a print of this doodlewash? Send me a note with a link to this post, and I’ll add it to my shop!

Charlie O'Shields

Creator of Doodlewash, founder of World Watercolor Month (July), World Watercolor Group, and host of the Sketching Stuff Podcast. Sharing watercolor illustrations and stories while proudly featuring talented artists from all over the world!

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