Making To Make Happy

Oct 13, 20233 min read

Three Easy Ballpoint-Pen Sketchbook-Filler Doodles

Ballpoint pens (commonly thought of as Biros) are one of the most affordable and easy-to-find art supplies you can get! And they are a prime tool for doodling with.

Whether you are simply letting your mind wander for a while as your pen noodles in the margins of your notebook, or filling some blank corners of your sketchbook, here are a few doodle-ideas to have some fun with…

Pssst: you can see all of these ideas in action in my Shorts Feed on YouTube!

Pointy Blobs! (Or Teardrop Trails)

Grab your pen and draw a triangle shape, but with a rounded bottom. It should look like a teardrop.

Draw another two of these shapes beside the first. Try to keep the straight bits on each side of the teardrops in line with each other. This should create a slight curve.

Now draw another three of these shapes again, but this time upside down.

Repeat this “three pointing up, three pointing down” pattern across your page - you should create a wavy kind of trail of teardrops!

If you like you can colour some of the blobs in (with firmer pressure on one side of the blob and lighter on the other) to make them look a bit like jewels. Or perhaps use loopy lines to draw patterns inside the blobs.

Extra Tip: Play with how many blobs you draw in each direction at a time to make your trails curve differently. If all the blobs were to point in the same direction they would eventually create a circle - so the more you use before changing direction, the deeper the curve will be.

A patterned page of pen-drawn boxes with faces inside

Boxxy Bloxxy! (Or Starey City)

This is one of my favourites!

Draw a square or a rectangle. Draw another beside it, a little bigger or smaller than the first.

Draw a slanty line from one corner of the first box, to the closest corner of the second box. Then do it again with the next closest corners so your boxes are connected up.

Now colour in that wonky section, using more pressure on one side and lessening as you go.

Draw a few more boxes, of varying size, and find ways to connect them to your previous one. Colour in each wonky section and just keep going, covering your page in whichever directions you like.

Once you have a little structure building, maybe add in some blobs with eyes, into the blank boxes, as if they are little characters looking out of windows. This bit is totally optional but, in my opinion, is the best part!

A patterned page of pen-drawn wiggly lines

Wibbly Wiggles

Draw a straight line down your page.

Now draw another over the top with a slight wiggle.

Then draw another over that with a bigger wiggle.

And then draw a fourth one with the biggest wiggle of all! Satisfying.

Fill in the spaces you’ve created with your lines with patterns of your choosing. Maybe you add even more curvy lines; maybe you embrace whirlies swirlies. Maybe you add tiny sticks in rows or just colour a big ol’ blob in.