Doodle Roundup: oddities

Written by Patrick J Turner Jr

Published on September 12th, 2023

Hello everyone. I took a week off from doing the doodle roundup last week. Chances are good that the doodle roundup will become a biweekly event, or just inconsistent in schedule altogether. I find that in trying to create content to populate my internet feeds my best work comes when I am not under the stress of a self-imposed deadline. Writing under a deadline has always been difficult for me, although it does help to have some faint deadline to help hold me accountable and actually get anything done.

Writing is hard. Well, maybe expressing yourself is hard. Perhaps I feel a sort of friction between myself and the content I put out into the world. I think I feel uncomfortable knowing that once I release something onto the internet it is out of my control how it is seen or interpreted. There are people who visit my website who I will never meet and I find that fact simultaneously wonderful and frightening. But enough talk; today I have some oddities for you. I'm actually quite excited about some of these doodles and I think you'll like them, or at least find them interesting:

DIAMOND EYES

Whilst driving to my new home from visiting my childhood home, an idea came to me. I envisioned a man driven by rumors to see something he shouldn't have. This man heard that a god appears in this town under the bridge at sundown. He went there to see what he could see, and was met with a terrible fate. Seeing something beyond human comprehension, he was physically changed beyond repair. His eyes were made into diamonds. His sight broken into kaleidoscopic vision forevermore. Now he wanders aimlessly, praying for relief.

FISHMAN

Lately I have been feeling increasingly ill about the bleak situation faced by our global climate. Each year we see more news about more natural disasters. Wildfires, tornados, hurricanes, rising sea levels, and extreme temperatures consistently remind us how fragile our ecosystem is and how our existing means of comfort are powerless in the face of nature's might. I drew this fish man. He swims down the flooded streets of a once peaceful town. He sees a house where someone used to live. Powerlines run silent overhead, no longer powered by the inefficient systems of old. It's too late.

JASON

This past weekend I smoked two (2) cigarettes. Well, actually they were mini cigars. Cherry flavored Cheyennes to be precise. A good friend of mine in college introduced me to them. On the rare occasion that I do smoke for the novelty of it all, I choose Cheyennes. Or I choose American Spirits, since it's what David Lynch and some of my other good friends smoke. Or I smoke a wine flavored black and mild because they're cheap at the gas station. The point is, smoking looks cool and also hurts my throat and tastes bad.

OBSERVER

One time online I saw a meme that said, "Man what is my coworker drawing?" It was a doodle sort of like this one except it was a cross section of the inside of a guy's head and showed complex computer parts leading to his eyes. It looked insane, and the idea of the meme was that the guy who drew it was kind of insane. I kind of wonder if my coworkers pass by my desk and think the same of my doodles. It's kind of embarassing to imagine someone haphazardly viewing your random doodles, but when presented here I guess I feel okay about them for the most part.

THOM

Lately I've been spending too much time on Twitter (I will never call it X or whatever). I see all sorts of strange drawings and art on there and recently I saw some art from Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke. I don't really listen to Radiohead or know all that much about Yorke, but he doodled some creatures with faces that looked sort of like this. I thought it looked neat and decided to recreate it. I enjoy seeing and recreating other people's doodle styles. It's sort of like ideas flowing from one page to another.

ANDY

Last week I read a lot about Andy Warhol and his various works. I understand why so many people view Warhol's work as shallow and commercial, but I do think the man himself had a certain beauty about him. Between articles about his infamous silkscreen paintings and strange short films I saw a man who hid behind a carefully cultivated public persona. In this sense, I suppose I saw a bit of myself in Warhol. Particularly his propensity for answering questions with a brief "yes" or "no" or prolonged "umm." I drew this doodle without lifting my pen. Always thought Warhol's stark white wig had a cool shape to it.

GERM

Humans have conjured up so many different possibilies for what alien life from outer space could look like over the years. Maybe they're humanoid, maybe they're not, I don't personally find any arguments for extraterrestrials very convincing, but I have always enjoyed art that depicts aliens as cute or funny looking. Nintendo's Pikmin are a great example of this. I drew this stellar squidlike creature to have a similar vibe. He has small little hairs on the top of his head that serve, some purpose I'm sure. His tendrils are bizarre and winding in ways life on Earth would not.

That's all for today's doodle roundup. I have found myself embroiled in a strange internal conflict between wanting to open my heart to others or to hide from everyone on the planet. People are scary to me! I think I fear expressing myself in a way that others find abnormal. I can't handle judgement or rejection well. I don't quite have the confidence or determination to defend my choices from scrutiny. Lately I've realized that others feel the same way though, and that I'm not alone. Until next time remember: just because you're odd doesn't mean that you're on your own.

- Patrick Turner