BEAUTIFUL DOODLE-FILLED PLACES

Every place is filled with component images, symbols, artifacts, and objects that make it unique and give it multiple dimensions. Places are filled with memories, dreams, fantasies ghosts -- that we each see differently.

Tokyo-based artist Sagaki Keita creates doodle portraits of places and iconic landmarks within those places, which are composites of thousands of tiny doodles of fantasy cartoon characters and objects.

Like molecules which make up an organism, these micro-doodles give character and form to landscapes, buildings, and classic works of art. Their whimsy lightens the mood of these technically serious masterworks.

The delicate shapes of animals and fantasy creatures  also give us the sense that perhaps there are cartoon ghosts that reside in each place.

Sagaki doodles directly onto paper, with no rough sketches or drafts done beforehand. They are a stream of consciousness as executed by his pen.

Each doodle portrait can take anywhere from a few weeks to more than a year to create.

While he has a formal degree in fine art from Fukushima University, ever since he was a child, Sagaki has always had a passion for cartoons and graffiti images.

Sagaki pours his passion and his talents into each doodle portrait, using a 0.38mm pen and ink. Sometimes the ink is thinned with water to achieve a grey tone.

He is inspired by Hieronymus Bosch, Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, and Vincent van Gogh. He also draws inspiration from mandalas.

We are inspired to visit each of these places again to see if we can conjure Sagaki’s visions -- to see if we can see what he sees and feel what he feels while we are there.

Sagaki’s interpretations of classics, like the Mona Lisa,  are astounding. Is she smiling because these magical characters that inhabit her face are tickling her from the inside?

Read more about Beautiful Doodles, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including Cool Collaborative Doodling Now, The Nature, Art & Science of Doodles, Beautiful Food Doodles, and Truly Amazing Doodle Art Now.

 

Enter this week’s BN Creative Photo Competition. Our theme this week is Beautiful Doodles. Deadline is 05.18.14.

 

Photo Credits

1. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. Golden Gate Bridge.

2. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. Detail of Golden Gate Bridge.

3. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. Detail of Golden Gate Bridge.

4. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. Statue of Liberty.

5. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. Eiffel Tower.

6. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. St. Basil’s Church, Moscow.

7. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. “In the Garden 2.”

8. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. Detail of City Drawing.

9. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. “The Fifty-Three station of the Tokaido / Night Snow at Kambara.”

10. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. City Drawing.

11. Illustration: by Sagaki Keita. Mona Lisa.