By Dale Chak ’19
7th period on a Friday, barely able to hold your head up with your hand, you notice yourself looking at the clock every minute, hoping to find a way to pass the time. The notebook on your desk screams, “draw on me!” while the pencil accompanying it attracts your hand with an unexplainable force. Unable to resist the temptation, you bring your imagination to life by doodling your favorite cartoon character. With that, you have become a doodler, one of many on Bellarmine’s campus, each having their own style, experience, and imagination.
Kevin Connolly ’19 and Zen Chamberlain ’19 hope to embrace the diversity of doodlers across campus on Mondays at Lunch with Doodle Club. Kevin shared the mission of the club: “To create a nurturing environment where artists of any skill level can come to share, create, and critique art,” he said.
Zen also discussed the importance of collaboration with art. “It’s a place to trade ideas. Artist block sucks and Doodle Club is a really good tool to get out of it because you can get an idea from a friend when you’re stuck [on] ideas for what to draw,” he said.
Kevin described how he came up with the idea for the club. “I was looking at the club list and I wanted to join a club that was art related, but not super serious… And then, I saw that there were none of those. So, I thought, ‘I’m going to make a club where you don’t have to be good at drawing, but you can draw,’” he said.
Kevin also clarified the origin of the name of the club. “Should I call it the drawing club? No, because it makes it sound like you have to know how to draw, but with the Doodle Club, anyone can doodle,” he said.
When asked about what a typical Doodle Club meeting looks like, Zen explained that it depends on who shows up. “The club is a kind of a centralized friend group plus anyone who wants to show up. If nobody outside that close friend group attends, then we usually play Dungeons and Dragons and doodle scenes of the game we’re playing. If people outside of the group attend, then we do art tutorials and techniques,” he said.
Any student interested should stop by Ms. Gotshall’s room on Mondays at Lunch.