Back to Work: Desk Doodles

So, now that it's been two days since Christmas, I know some of you are off to work again. Womp womp. I am thankful to say that I'm spending one more day sitting like a veal in my christmas pajamas, even though I know Christmas is over. In honor of those of you who are going back to work, though, I thought I'd share something fun, silly, and work related.

When I get back to Atlanta, I'll be working in a new office. Our team packed all of our office supplies the day before our company's Christmas Party, and by Monday the twenty-third, all of our things were moved into our new desks in our brand new office. But, before I packed everything, I looked through the notebook I use to take notes during meetings and phone calls. Using my handy-dandy iphone, I took some photos of these masterpieces of listening, thinking, and boredom.

First, you'll find the image drawn on notebook paper that

has a sunglasses, a lady in a dress, the bust of a lady wearing sunglasses, and one of the most terrifying faces ever to be drawn in a meeting I may not have been supposed to attend. You can see here that I thought sunglasses could be drawn using regular two-point perspective, but upon testing this theory, I discovered that the frame shape and moving appendages (re: arms or temples) make regular two point perspective more difficult than one might think.

Next, you'll find this image with my initials, some random numbers, a contour drawing of what I think I must look like, a couple of stars, a small backpack, and some swirls with shaded bits. The swirls are something I've been drawing since high school. They are doodles in the truest sense of the word. The contour drawing of myself came about in college at some point, I think potentially while I was at FIT taking life drawing for fashion. The intials...I mean, who hasn't done that before? The numbers may actually mean something, but I can't figure out

what. The heel is clearly an ugly shoe, and the little purse is something I used to draw when I was working in girls' accessories. Sigh. I miss those.

Next you'll see drawings of three little girls. I made these during a meeting about cold weather accessories safety restrictions. I had to blur out some of the notes I made there at the top, but otherwise there it is. I always have a hard time drawing children's fashion figures because they seem so vastly different from the way we were taught to draw in womenswear. They need to be cute and round instead of long, slim, and mean-looking. I'm still working on it. However, I think it's important to note that every piece of cold weather accessories the little girl on the far right is wearing goes against our testing and safety restrictions in some way, shape, or form.

Next, you can see here we've got your basic top-of-the-page drawing. I like to use this portion of the paper the most because it doesn't have any lines. However, it presents a little bit of a challenge since my hands like to draw vertically instead of horizontally. The profile, though, is one of my most common doodles. I think I had trouble with them when I was at FIT, so now I'm inclined to practice on them all the time.

Here, in a more vertical format that I'm sure makes you wonder if I ever really take notes at all if I'm taking up this much of the page doodling, you'll see a decidedly non-fashion figure. I haven't been to a real life drawing class in years, but I'd like to find one. That's really all I can say about this one. Well, except that I'm not sure why her feet look so big.

Lastly we have a little doodle of a girl leaning against a light pole. I took the idea from a post on The Sartorialist while I was having a long conversation on the phone.

Ok, well, enjoy the desk doodles and if you're back in the office, I'm sure you can enjoy making some of your own while you dream about what sparkly thing you'll wear for New Year's Eve. I, for one, am probably going to wear a bathrobe and fall asleep before midnight because that's how spinsters do. Don't be jealous.