Circa 2017

Doodle Drip

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: Contrast. It’s like the doodles are taking me over.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: I love how textured and chunky the doodles look. I love that it looks like actual drips. I love the idea of dipping my hands into doodles and it coming out like this.

✦ Materials: Uni Pin Fine Liner and watercolor on and Bee Paper Super Deluxe Paper.

Circle Doodles

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: Experimentation and growth.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: I haven’t done anything like this since, though I want to. It looks really cool and fun to color.

✦ Materials: Uni Pin Fine Liner and Bee Paper Super Deluxe Paper.

Circa 2016

Rainbow Yin Yang

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: Contrast. By this point, my doodles have expanded and the technical doodles next to the expressive watercolor embodies the same feelings as Left Brain, Right Brain.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: This was a symbol I frequently admired and felt connected to. A true representation of the dichotomy between technical and expressive.

✦ Materials: Uni Pin Fine Liner and watercolor paints on Bee Paper Super Deluxe Paper.

5150

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: 5150 is the code in CA that means involuntary psychiatric commitment. The number has been meaningful to me as a representation of mental health and the poor treatment of women and femmes in medicine. There are a TON of symbols in this piece…all mental health related.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: One of the most popular pieces in the ”Doodle Enlightenment” era. When I was heavy on Instagram, this one went semi-viral and even got me a sponsorship with Bee Paper (that I did NOT realize was a sponsorship at the time). Videos of this piece also went somewhat viral.

✦ Materials: Uni Pin Fine Liner and Bee Paper Super Deluxe Paper.

Doodle Spread 2

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: Exploration and experimentation. I also wanted to do a seires that got more and more chaotic.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: I made coloring pages out of these pieces. They were large and detailed and while I don’t exactly like how limited the doodles are (my doodle confetti is much more complex now), they were popular pieces and visually stunning in their size.

✦ Materials: I used some sort of marker paper and a Rotring brand fine liner.

Bonus Series

It’s called “Doodle Spread 2” because there are two other pages in this series. Doodle Spread 1 had no extra alternating lines. Then 2 had the lines but more straight with wavy edges. Doodle Spread 3 was the most chaotic, and I intentionally made all the alternating lines look like angry, cartoon eyes.

All these pieces inspired a bunch of other pieces in the future.

Nothing…

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: ADHD and anxiety often stuff my head and don’t leave room for much else. It also causes me to have weird faces as I think through random scenarios. I was lost in daydreams a lot as a kid. People would ask me what I was thinking about or why I was making a face…but how could I explain?

✦ Why I Love This Piece: One of my favorite representations of my mental health.

✦ Materials: Uni Pin Fine Liner and Bee Paper Super Deluxe Paper.

Left Brain, Right Brain

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: Contrast, this is one of the first rainbow/black and white color combo I did. Not only was it representative of that dichotomy in color, but also in how I feel about myself in most things. I think most of us have a serious, business side and a goofy, creative side.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: Pivotal piece in this color scheme and overtly represents logic vs. emotion.

✦ Materials: Watercolor and fineliner over Strathmore 300 mixed media or bristol paper.

Sad Happy

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: I was going through a divorce and it was really hard, but it was also necessary and for the better. This piece was made to represent those emotions. It’s dark but serene.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: It’s one of the few poster sized pieces I have, and it was made during a pivotal point in my life.

✦ Materials: Acrylic inks and poster sized watercolor paper from a craft store.

Literally Me

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always seen myself as an alien. There’s a couple reasons for that: 1) I felt so misunderstood so frequently that I didn’t feel like I was from this planet, and 2) I constantly questioned my gender identity, and aliens felt “gender neutral” to me.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: I didn’t realize all the symbolism at the time. I don’t even remember thinking it was a particularly special special when I made it. But looking back on it now, I feel really fond of it.

✦ Materials: Watercolor and fineliner over what was more than likely Strathmore 300 series bristol or mixed media paper.

Circa 2015

Mixed Media Tree

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: This was during my first art journaling phase. It was me experimenting. I know I used a reference for this (I’ll try to find it) but it’s supposed to be a calming piece.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: It’s visually pretty, you can see the various media in it (pages from an old dictionary). I can’t remember where I heard it but some YouTuber I watched (maybe Ruth’s Coloring??) say that the Art Journaling to Fine Art pipeline is real and I feel like this piece is that connection for me.

✦ Materials: Acrylic paints, an old dictionary, some cardboard, all in a Canson XL Mixed Media 7x10 Sketchbook.

Circa 2014

Whoa

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: I just never saw myself as fully. human. This is one of the few self-portraits I have.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: I remember how I felt when I drew it.

✦ Materials: Fine liners and a random sketchbook.

Careful, It’s Fragile

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: The patchwork heart represents having your heart broken over and over, and the whole piece means loving in spite of it.

I didn’t like drawing people, and when I did, I’d draw them like aliens. This particular arm comes from a character that inspired the way I drew myself in the sketch Whoa and Nothing…. I only have one sketch of her (below). The purple and black striped top is a shoutout to my Sims 3 character.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: It’s simple and minimal (something hard for me). It’s weird and interesting. It has emotional tones and a clear message.

✦ Materials: Sakura Pigma Microns and Prismacolor Premier.

Notebook Cover

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: I drew this on lunch while at work at my old office job. I was doing it to try and destress. So it means calm, peace, joy…all things I wasn’t feeling at the time.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: Someone at that old office job said this looked like a notebook cover and I took that to heart. It’s a really interesting pattern and I love the color combo. In fact, I think this piece was the one that got me into theses colors in the first place.

✦ Materials: Colored Sakura Pigma Microns on what I think was a Strathmore 300 series paper.

Incorrectly Ironic Onion

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: Irony as a force and character has been a big part of my The They lore. And at the time this was drawn, me and friends like to joke a lot about how incorrect a lot of people’s irony is (and the heavy misuse of the word). So a character came out of that.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: It’s quirky, I like the simple cartoon style, and I like the contentment behind the eyes.

✦ Materials: Probably Sakura Pigma Microns, as I was heavily using them at this point. Had random grid paper apparently.

Bonus Character

There was a point when my god character, The They, had a son apparently. I remember drawing this while I was at my office job (you know, instead of working). I like this style.

Circa 2007

Hand Vase

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: I was just trying to be weird.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: The surrealism of this piece is what really draws me to it. It’s not too bad for how little skill I had at the time. I think it’s an interesting concept and I like the fade between the wrist and vase.

✦ Materials: Pencils probably.

My Heart Is Stippled

✦ Meaning & Symbolism: Contrast, surrealism, being emo.

✦ Why I Love This Piece: One of the oldest artworks I still have made when I was a kid. It was supposed to represent something really deep and meaningful, and to this day, I still can’t figure out what it is.

✦ Materials: Some sort of ink pen and watercolor.