Doodle Draws
Drawing Exercises That Build the Brain
Building brains, one drawing at a time.
Doodle Draws are screen-free drawing exercises that encourage you to slow down, observe carefully, remember what you see, and create with greater confidence. Through simple, progressive drawing prompts, learners practice focus, visual memory, fine-motor control, observation, patience, and creative thinking.
From Basic through Advanced, there’s a level for nearly everyone, whether you’re drawing at home, teaching a classroom, homeschooling, working with students, or simply looking for a calming and purposeful creative activity.
What Are Doodle Draws?
Screen-free drawing exercises that encourage careful observation, focus, visual memory, creativity, and hands-on learning.
Why They Work
Copying and recalling drawings engages observation, memory, attention, hand-eye coordination, and fine-motor skills while giving learners purposeful drawing practice.
Why They Matter
Doodle Draws offer a simple break from screens and encourage learners to slow down, focus, use their hands, and exercise their creativity.
Who They’re For
Kids, teens, adults, families, homeschoolers, teachers, instructors, practitioners, and seniors. Doodle Draws can be enjoyed by a wide range of ages and abilities.
A Level for Everyone
With levels from Basic through Advanced, Doodle Draws grow with the learner, beginning with simple observation and progressing toward stronger visual memory and creative thinking.
Perfect For
- Home & homeschool
- Classroom warm-ups
- Art classes
- Creative breaks
- Focused drawing practice
- Mindful screen-free time
The Neuroscience of Why They Work
Drawing is a remarkably whole-brain activity. Even a simple line drawing asks visual processing, movement, planning, attention, and memory to coordinate with one another.
When a person observes a line drawing and attempts to reproduce it, several processes work together. The learner sees and interprets the image, plans how to reproduce it, coordinates the hand and eyes, makes controlled movements, compares the drawing with the reference, and adjusts as needed.
Drawing can involve:
- Visual processing
- Motor planning
- Attention
- Memory
- Hand-eye coordination
- Spatial awareness
- Controlled hand and finger movement
Doodle Draw exercises ask the learner to:
- Observe shapes and relationships
- Translate visual information into hand movements
- Plan and sequence movements
- Sustain attention
- Compare the drawing with the reference
- Remember visual information during Retrieval exercises
Repeated drawing practice provides opportunities to exercise:
- Hand-eye coordination
- Fine-motor control
- Observation
- Visual-spatial thinking
- Attention
- Visual memory
- Patience
- Creative thinking
Because each exercise draws on so many of these processes at once, a few minutes of focused drawing gives the mind a rich, purposeful task. Focused drawing also provides a quiet, structured, screen-free activity, and many people find it calming or restorative.
Doodle Draws are educational drawing exercises. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition, and they are not a substitute for professional medical or therapeutic care.
How Drawing Helps Your Brain
Boosts Visual-Spatial Thinking
Drawing encourages the brain to notice shapes, patterns, proportions and relationships.
Improves Focus and Attention
Drawing involves concentration, planning and patience and gives the mind a purposeful task.
Encourages Creativity and Imagination
Drawing gives learners opportunities to explore ideas, make visual choices and eventually create something original.
Supports Fine-Motor Skills and Visual Memory
Using a pencil or drawing tool connects visual observation with controlled hand movements and memory.
Provides a Screen-Free Creative Break
Focused drawing offers time away from digital stimulation and encourages slower, hands-on engagement.
A Tool for Many Environments
Doodle Draws offer a calming, purposeful way to practice focus, patience, observation and artistic skill. They encourage individuals to slow down, observe carefully and connect what they see with what they draw.
- Home
- Homeschool
- Classrooms
- Art classes
- Educational settings
- Appropriate professional settings
- Senior and community settings
- Individual creative practice
In Their Words
“Do not underestimate the doodle draws! They may seem repetitive and worthless at first but these are the small and simple riddles that will make your drawing skills great. They say that practice makes perfect; Drawing upon the fundamental principle of learning how to see, intentional work and practice with the doodle draws will help to increase your transfer and creative skills. I have seen exactly this in my years of experience drawing the doodle draws.”
“Doing the transfers and retrievals in art has honestly helped me improve a lot. Transfers has made me way better at looking closely at what I’m drawing and understanding perspective, which is something I used to struggle with. The retrievals have helped me notice small details, basic shapes, and the texture of everyday items. These have trained my brain to remember what I see. Both of these exercises have made drawing feel easier and more natural, and I think they’ve really strengthened my overall art skills.”
“I had three strokes and then I started taking art from Camille, and she had me do Doodle Draws, Transfers and Retrievals that helped strengthen my brain -- new [neural] pathways. The doctor told me to keep practicing and see what would happen. Now I can do so much better. I couldn't even draw a loop [when I started taking art from her] and now I can copy what I see in Doodle Draws and even draw pictures.”
Doodle Draws also work beautifully alongside, and are part of, our upcoming Art Curriculum.
Transfer → Retrieval → Creation
The teaching progression of the Art Curriculum is:
Transfer
Observing and replicating what is seen.
Retrieval
Drawing from memory to strengthen mental imagery and recall.
Creation
Using imagination and learned skills to create original artwork and solve creative problems.
How Doodle Draws Fit
Doodle Draws are used within the Art Curriculum to practice Transfer and Retrieval. These exercises give learners opportunities to observe carefully, reproduce what they see, remember visual information, and draw again from memory.
The Art Curriculum then expands beyond Transfer and Retrieval into Creation, where learners use the artistic skills they have developed to create original artwork of their own.
Doodle Draws do not require the Art Curriculum.
Doodle Draws are intentionally designed to stand on their own as screen-free drawing and brain-building exercises. They can be purchased and used independently by kids, teens, adults, families, homeschoolers, teachers, instructors, practitioners, seniors, and anyone who enjoys purposeful drawing practice.
For those who choose to participate in the Art Curriculum, Doodle Draws also become part of the larger Transfer → Retrieval → Creation teaching progression.
Coming soon
Art Curriculum
Doodle Draws work beautifully alongside, and are part of, the upcoming Art Curriculum. The Art Curriculum incorporates Doodle Draws as part of its Transfer and Retrieval learning, then expands into Creation and deeper artistic study.
You never need the Art Curriculum to purchase, use, or benefit from Doodle Draws. It is simply a larger teaching experience for those who want to go further.
The Art Curriculum is designed for high-school age and older and teaches eight artistic mediums:
- Graphite
- Colored Pencil
- Oil Pastel
- Soft Pastel
- Markers
- Pen & Ink
- Gel Pens
- Watercolor
Doodle Draws can be purchased and enjoyed entirely on their own.
They also work beautifully alongside, and are part of, the upcoming Art Curriculum.