Anatomy of a Doodleism Painting

 Over the past 20 years I have pioneered an unusual style of painting I called doodleism. The term has been used by others, at least when I google it now I can find dooleism links. Try it, google the doodle, you may find a poodle or a noodle. Yes, I found an old rhyme book that my Mom had me and my sister make when were very young living in Montreal. It was in a box full of old notes, sketch books, and small lab notebooks I carried around with my while at work. In 2005 I moved to Montreal (well, back to Montreal) where I still live, to begin a post doctoral fellowship at Montreal Neurological Institute. Throughout the day I would make little notes and doodles in pocket books, which eventually got turned into scientific manuscripts, and original doodleism paintings. The first painting using these particular 2005 notes was done a few years later in 2008 it was called Lab Book #8, Stubborn Nature Revealing Herself. There was always a lag time between the date of the doodles and the date of the paintings because I doodled faster than I painted. Here are some scans from the original notebook showing a few of the characters that appear in the painting. 

Sometimes the doodles were already complete designs, even with the title written down. When that happened I would simply paint an enlarged version of it and colour it in. Here is an example, 2008's Bubble Catchers. You can click the links on the names of the paintings to see it.

As I near completion of my painting catalogue (which is now over 2000 paintings), I wondered what is my favorite painting? Like, if I had to run out of the apartment in an emergency and could only save one painting, which one would it be? The smart answer would be the one closest to me. But it is hypothetical. My favorite painting for many reasons is a quirky doodleism painting called The 20/10 Solution. It was a turning point stylistically, and it just seemed to capture many of the elements that define my various painting styles. It is not even the best painting necessarily, just my personal favorite. Here are some of the doodles that I used to create the painting, from August of 2008. In the painting I may have embellished a little, there was no cigarette or cocktail bar in the sketches!