Hey Archer & Olive fam!

It’s Icy of @eyesea.studio, one of the Design Team members!

I have prepared for you a blog about self care doodles/illustrations!

As someone who has been keeping a bullet journal for over five years now, I have developed a love for drawing. Not only do I feel very “zen” and in the moment whenever I doodle but I am also able to express myself and practice the art of drawing.

To me, doodling in my bullet journal itself is a form of self care. But lately I’ve noticed that a lot of my friends and the people around me tend to neglect to allocate time to look after themselves. We can be all caught up with responsibilities of everyday life that we often end up burning ourselves out. 

So yes, I think in this fast paced world we live in, the idea of self care is often underrated. But the thing is, you can’t pour from an empty cup.

In the bullet journal community, I noticed that doodles would usually consist of a specific tangible object that represents a thing or an activity. Masha, our Design Team alumni published a blog post on self care doodles which you can find here.

So I decided to do self care doodles that are more on an abstract level. Because self care means different things to different people, I have consulted the fam over at the Archer & Olive Facebook community. I asked them to give me a word or emoji that symbolizes self care and these were the most common answers:

• Journaling (this is obviously a given!)
• Boundaries
• Unplug/Power Off
• Me time
• Ask for help/support
• Positive self talk

What do I need?

I will be using kraft paper from my Archer & Olive B5 Neapolitan notepad and Acrylograph Pens from Valentine's Day to do my self care doodles for this blog post.

However, feel free to use whatever you have available at home! It doesn’t matter whether you have a used notebook, bits of scrap paper, a pen or pencil. You are also welcome to use any colored pens or pencils you have! Let your creativity run wild!

How do I do my Self Care Doodles?

As with everything, I sketch everything out in pencil first. I like drawing a very rough outline, kind of like a “skeleton” and then adding “meat to the bones” later on. Doing my drawings in pencil first makes the drafting process easy as I can always erase as needed.

Once I am happy with the pencil draft, this is when I finalize with the pen of my choosing. In this case, my acrylograph pens.

Remember, your doodles are not meant to be perfect! I have included a printable which you can use as a guide (or even use to trace!) which you can download here:

In addition to that, there is also an instructional video that shows you how to do the following illustrations step by step. Here is the link to the video you can follow along with:

Self Care Doodle #1: Journaling

As with everything Archer & Olive represents, journaling is one way to practice self care. In this illustration, I drew a notebook and a pen. On the printable, I left the notebook blank but you can add designs to it, for example, your favorite Archer & Olive notebook design! Mine is the crescent moon!

 And also, because this is YOUR self care drawing, feel free to draw your favorite writing tool in place of the pen! It could be a marker, gel pen, or a fountain pen!

Self Care Doodle #2: Boundaries

I absolutely love the idea of setting boundaries. This is actually not a conventional self care doodle I see in the bullet journal community but here it is!

When I think of “boundaries”, I think of those triangular signs that either have an exclamation point or a cross in the middle. I decided to go with the cross in the middle because to me, setting boundaries is prioritizing my mental health and saying no to things I genuinely don’t want to do. After all, why do something half heartedly when you can spend that time doing something that you genuinely care about.

Self Care Doodle #3: Unplug/Power Off

I can’t argue with this one! This is something that I try to do as much as I can.

The drawing I did is essentially a plug because it stands for taking a break away from technology.

Social media is a double edged sword. It can bring people all over the world together but at the same time it causes a whole lot of stress! As much as I love meeting and getting to know people in the creative community, sometimes I get overwhelmed with all the information there is out there.

Self Care Doodle #4: Me Time

I know the idea of “Me Time” can encompass all of the self care doodles in this blog. But this one is more on a general level.

Because self care is self love, I decided to draw a heart shaped clock.

“Me Time” can literally mean anything. Because we are all different, we have different concepts of “Me Time”. As an introvert, my “Me Time” is generally being by myself and doing solitary activities because socializing exhausts me. On the other hand, I have close friends who sees “Me Time” as spending time with other people. LIke people who do their “Me Time” together.

Self Care Doodle #5: Ask for Help/Support

As Bill Withers sings “we all need somebody to lean on”, this is proof that no man is an island. We all get by with help from those around us.

And because this is usually done through conversation, the drawing includes two speech bubbles.

Aside from doing a brain dump and diary entries in my bullet journal, talking to a trusted friend helps me feel better whenever troubling times arise. There is nothing wrong with being vulnerable because the more we bottle our feelings and keep it to ourselves, we can’t really experience happiness with the burden that we are carrying.

Self Care Doodle #6: Positive Self Talk

To be honest this is something I struggle with!

This doodle is a mirror with a heart in it. This represents self love.

But really, I feel like we need to be our own best friends and give ourselves affirmations every day. I’m all for personal growth and pushing ourselves but there are times when I become my own worst enemy when I really need to be my own best friend.

Where Do I Do My Self Care Doodles?

You can definitely include these in your bullet journal!

You can either draw all your self care doodles in one page dedicated to everything Self Care. Another idea is  you can add these drawings into your habit or activity tracker page. 

I guess the most important thing about these self care doodles is having fun while drawing them! Please don’t focus too much on making them look perfect because what you create is already a beautiful manifestation of practicing self care!

Don’t forget to share your work in the Archer & Olive Community by tagging us @archerandolive and @archerandolive.community