In my vocabulary, this term (which I believe I invented, but maybe I just heard it somewhere else) refers to callligraphic sketches which I usually make during our church services on Sunday mornings. The Sunday bulletin cover at our church always has a strip of color, about 1.5 x 8.5 inches, which just seems to cry out to be doodled upon. A few years ago, I fell into the habit of filling this space with calligraphic doodles based on the sermon, scripture text, or a line from a hymn as I listened to the sermon each Sunday.

For me, this calligraphic doodling is a form of meditation. I try to think about a single phrase, or even a word, and then I disengage my conscious thought from the sketching and let my unconscious mind take over.

I sometimes carry a broad-nibbed calligraphy pen with me (I have a nice one from Pelikan), and some of the doodles are done using this tool. The "Plumbline" sketch at the left, for example, was done using the Pelikan pen for the Neuland lettering. But more often than not, the only tools I have with me are a mechanical pencil and a Uniball Micro roller ball ink pen, so most of the sketches are done with those two tools.

Many of the sketches go right to the trash, but perhaps a third to half of them please me enough to be saved, and maybe one in five or six is something I feel like sharing with others.

My collection of Callidoodles is probably up to forty or fifty by now. A few of my favorites are shown here. Some of the sketches have been turned into finished pieces (you'll see a couple of pieces in the Gallery which come directly from the original sketches on this page); others are just ideas for the "someday" file.

I have vague, incomplete plans for gathering the sketches and finished pieces in a book - truly a long-term goal at this point!