People who have never used colouring pencils since their childhood are now buying colouring books and spending hours filling in the various drawings with bright colours. The latest craze finds adults proclaiming the benefits of this most recent “discovery”.

However, one only needs to look at some of the childhood drawings to see that there are easy and inexpensive ways to create art with more individuality.

Scribble art is a loose form of drawing that exudes energy.

The artist starts with a contour or line drawing where the shapes of a person or item are drawn on paper, and then dense lines or scribbles are added to suggest shading.

The illusion of highlights are achieved quite simply with less dense scribbles.

The more variety of lines and scribbles, the more interest is created.

And there is no right or wrong way to scribble those lines so all anxiety about achieving a perfect result is removed.

Scribble art can be done with all black or coloured pens, colouring pencils, markers, even watercolours. The paper is really a matter of what works for whichever medium is used.

scribble art using micron pens

(Scribble art - first attempt - using Micron pens of various sizes from 01 to 08 and using a Faber Castell Pitt artist pen in bold black.)

In the recently completed art above, my biggest challenge was how to convey to the viewer that this man has a beard since the beard itself is just a bunch of entangled squiggles, much like the man's face.

Scribble art is easily done almost anywhere and does not require a huge investment in materials.

Give it a try!

Start with something simple like an apple, or other common fruit. Draw the apple in contour and then find the darkest areas and start your dense scribbles there. Very therapeutic, very freeing.

And should you love your coffee as I do, your art will only be better for it!

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