Jon Burgerman is a Brooklyn-based, award-winning purveyor of doodles and author of several books including his latest, Jon Burgerman’s Daily Doodle. You might recognize Jon’s art from his popular social media channels, paintings hanging in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, highly-designed airline barf bags, and even a custom line of Crocs™.

This week, Jon joins Illustoria to share some insight into his quirky art style and why he doodles constantly.

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There are several reasons why I think drawing is so vital. By the way, drawing and doodling are pretty much the same. I like to use the word doodling because it sounds more causal, goofy, and easy-going—a bit like me!

Photo © Bas Berkhout — Photo © Bas Berkhout

I like to doodle every day because it helps me hone my drawing skills. The more I draw, I gain a better understanding of the materials and my own hands. It’s not so much about becoming ‘better’ but gaining more insight into how everything works together.

Doodling helps me think. I find when I doodle I come up with ideas that I couldn't come with if I didn't have a pen in my hand at the same time. For me drawing and doodling is a discipline of thinking.

Drawing and mark-making in general is just a different means of thinking and articulating visually. Being able to share ideas visually is very important, especially in our overloaded-with-visual-information-modern world. Almost everything we interact with was once originally devised as a drawing. Doodling helps us learn how to speak visually. It’s a global language.

From Jon Burgerman's Daily Doodles. Published by Laurence King Publishing. — From *Jon Burgerman's Daily Doodles*. Published by Laurence King Publishing.

Super accessible and silly prompts for all ages.

Learn to draw from combining simple shapes.

We adore this cover and all the ridiculously fun and engaging doodling prompts in this book, which comes with cool doodle stickers to complete and stick anywhere!

Doodling can be meditative and relaxing. It often helps me focus and order my thoughts. Seeing my ideas scribbled down on a page helps me understand them a lot better than juggling them in my head.

But overall, doodling is simple just good fun. Absolutely anyone can do it and get a great kick of it. Creating is fun and it makes us happy. So grab a pen and get doodling. It doesn’t matter what you draw—just have fun, and see what happens!

Now it’s your turn to get doodling. Be sure to enter the #DailyDoodleBook drawing competition from Laurence King Publishing!

To see more of Jon’s work, follow him online at @jonburgerman.