Oodles of Doodles by Catherine Alred. Artwork is for sale, as well as bookmarks and packaged note cards with pens.
Join us Sunday afternoon, March 12 at 2 pm for a doodle class with Catherine. She'll bring the supplies, we just need to bring our creativity. Refreshments served afterwards. We'll take that time to admire each others' doodles.
Ruidoso resident, Catherine Alred, has been doodling as far back as she can
remember. As a child she always was
coloring and drawing. Recalling one of her
earliest works, she described a piece she created
when she was 10 years old. “I just decided to try to
doodle an actual ‘thing’ and spent hours and
hours drawing a large abstract bird. It’s very interesting to study it now and realize how much my doodling has evolved over the decades."
Catherine’s doodles, however, are not quite the kind of doodles one would
expect when observing someone idly drawing. Catherine’s doodles are
very detailed and intricate. She further illustrates by saying, “My doodles are just a result of me taking a pen or pencil for a walk.
I don’t plan the design; it just evolves.”
People seeing her work for the first time are
often in disbelief and ask,
“Did you really do that?”
The fanciful lines, dots, and curls are executed
in such precision that people often wonder if a computer produced them.
The vast majority of her work is free form.
“Just doodling in a random, free form way is my
favorite way of doodling, but I’ve also doodled
initials, butterflies, paisleys, initials, birds, etc.”
Although she always keeps a sketchpad nearby, at times no piece of paper
is safe from her pen. Her doodling can be found on magazine pages,
calendars, concert programs, and even grocery lists. Noting that she
often cannot restrain herself from picking up a pen and starting a new piece, she added, “Doodling is very relaxing to me. I go into a calm,
meditative state.”
Doodling is more than just an artistic endeavor.
“It helps me concentrate.
I’ve always doodled in meetings and lectures.
Doodling helps me be a good listener.”
She noted the findings of a British psychologist:
“Doodling or scribbling during meetings or class can improve content
memory by 29%.”
“That definitely applies to me. Doodles are in the margins
of practically every set of class notes I ever took in college. Give me a handout or an
agenda at a meeting and I will doodle all over it.”
She has even incorporated her doodles into her love of working with textiles. "I enlarged one of my doodles and transferred it to fabric. Using contrasting fabrics, beads, and metallic threads, I embroidered the doodle on a throw pillow."
She particularly enjoys sharing her work with others. "I've incorporated my doodles into all sorts of items: bookmarks, note cards, decoupage boxes, framed pieces, even mugs and coasters," she says.
After graduating from Angelo State University with an English major
and art minor, Catherine earned a master’s degree in educational administration
from Sul Ross University. She pursued her career in education
in West Texas prior to moving to Ruidoso in 2010 with her husband,
Dr. Clayton Alred, ENMU-Ruidoso president.
Her emphasis on art has always been prominent in her positions.
“I found it such a pleasure to actually teach the art of doodling to a large group of kindergarten children. It was amazing to see how young children quickly caught on and produced amazing drawings.”
“I found it such a pleasure to actually teach the art of doodling to a large group of kindergarten children. It was amazing to see how young children quickly caught on and produced amazing drawings.”
(the above article is paraphrased from a 2012 article in the Ruidoso News)
Sunni Brown, author of The Doodle Revolution, writes, "Our culture is so intensely focused on verbal communications, that we're almost blinded to the value of doodling. Doodling has a profound impact on the way that we can process information and the way that we can solve problems." Doodling facilitates learning.
An article published in TIME magazine some years ago lauded the value of doodling. It recalled an experiment in which forty individuals were asked to listen to a monologue. The speaker talked about a number of seemingly random things, but included lists of places and names. Half of the study participants were asked to doodle as they listened. The other half simply listened. Afterward, participants were asked to recall the names and places named in the recording. The results? The doodlers remembered almost 30 percent more of the requested information than the non-doodlers did.
