Oodles of doodles: N.S. man uses simple activity to create complex art

Do you ever find your mind wandering in a meeting or a phone call and pass the time by doodling?

Bruce Roosen can relate.

His impressive doodles require a steady hand, although the Nova Scotia man doesn’t call himself an artist.

“It’s more of a mechanism for relaxation that I use,” Roosen says. “I work in the IT industry; it’s somewhat of a stressful occupation sometimes and I found that doodling and using pen to paper was a way for me to relax and be able to take my mind away from things.”

It’s not a new hobby for Roosen. He has notebooks filled with doodles dating back 20 years.

“Really, I’ve been doing it my whole life, it really is the only way that I can actually concentrate. Now in meetings -- in my IT occupation, it pays the bills -- is if I’m doodling,” he says. “If I stop with a pen and paper, I lose focus and I start thinking about grocery lists and all those other things.”

Many of Roosen’s doodles are highly detailed, requiring a unique technique.

“The lines and the details on them are so fine and particular that I had to control my breathing. I almost have to hold my breath -- it was like a deep breath in, hold my breath, draw the line, breathe out -- and so by the nature it became a meditative process for me to do that.”

And his latest creation is really turning heads.

Roosen’s take on the former Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong is now on display at Alderney Landing in Dartmouth, N.S.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Bruce Roosen (@oo_ot_z)

“It was called the city of darkness because there was really no laws enforced and no rule of order or anything. And so when I started to do the drawing, I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be great to make a maze, similar to what maybe one floor of that location would be like.’”

Roosen started the large doodle by drawing 3,800 one-centimeter square boxes in the maze.

“Then, I started to draw furniture to make them like little rooms and on top of that is a maze. So there’s a definite start and finish,” he says. “Last time I tried it, it took me 45 minutes to solve the maze myself.”

“I think it’s very cool, because I initially just looked at it and then read about him and I think it’s very cool that he’s kind of found this way to cope with different things in his life,” said one Alderney Landing visitor.

Roosen says the wall display was done in one-hour increments over three years.

“So it was quite time-consuming, but not a great deal of thought behind it. It was just sort of a repetitive, meditative activity.”

Roosen hopes to sell his Kowloon doodle and donate the money to the Dartmouth Community Fridge.