Create your own doodle colouring designs

There are so many colouring-in books for grown-ups these days, because people have started to realise what a great form of stress relief it is. In fact, there are so many that it's hard to choose one! Another great form of stress relieving art is doodling. So I decided to combine the two and create my own doodles that I could then colour in.

But then I realised that a blank sheet of white paper can be intimidating! It's fine when you are doodling with no goal, but I wanted my doodles to look more polished! Here's what I did.

1. Start by breaking up the large expanse of white paper into smaller areas. I did this by using a circle stencil to draw lots of different sizes of circles, but you could use any shape, or draw a grid onto the page.

2. Look around you for inspiration. I looked at the patterns on items near me, and at the shapes of plants and other items.

3. Start by filling in some small shapes, to get confident.

4. Break up larger shapes by drawing lines to divide them into smaller shapes.

5. Think of the doodles that you drew as a child, or those you draw now, and use these to fill in some of the shapes. I used some of the doodle designs I've drawn all my life, like stars, wavy lines that become more and more distorted, spirals, and a crystal lattice of points joined together. I combined these with more recent doodles like hillsides divided into stripes.

6. Think of small elements that you could repeat to form a design, for example I drew buttons, mathematical symbols, hearts, and even grains of rice!

7. Once you've finished doodling, colour in your design with pens or pencils.

You can download the image below if you'd like to try colouring it in yourself!