# Abstract & Organic iPad Doodling: Foster Your Creativity with Play & Experimentation - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/abstract-and-organic-ipad-doodling-foster-your-creativity-with-play-and-experimentation/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Illustration & Drawing · Quick win · Rated 6 /10 # Abstract & Organic iPad Doodling: Foster Your Creativity with Play & Experimentation Updated August 2026 Rich From TapTapKaboom · Multi-hyphenate Artist All levels · 46 min A 46-minute permission slip to make ugly, unplanned marks on an iPad, using rules as creative fuel rather than restriction. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fabstract-and-organic-ipad-doodling-foster-your-creativity-with-play-and-experimentation%2F1484650304) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. Abstract & Organic iPad Doodling is less a drawing course than a structured permission slip. Rich Armstrong, a product designer by trade, spends 46 minutes walking through a sequence of short exercises in the Paper app, each one built around a self-imposed constraint: one color only, shapes that must overlap, a single unbroken line, the non-dominant hand. The class never asks whether the results look good. It asks whether you loosened up while making them. ## Structure and technique The course opens with the simplest possible on-ramp: drag a background color, pick a foreground color, and start making shapes with two rules (one color, no touching). From there each lesson adds or swaps a constraint. The overlapping exercise introduces the roller tool's transparency effect, where repeated passes darken and blend into a "multiplier effect." The two-color exercise loosens the no-touching rule while adding a second hue to juggle. A single-line doodle exercise forces continuous, unbroken marks with the fountain pen, deliberately banning the undo and eraser tools so mistakes get absorbed into the drawing rather than erased. Later lessons get more specific. The Blobby Text exercise has students paint a word with the roller and embellish the resulting shapes into readable but distorted lettering. The Random Background & Foreground exercise is the most inventive: paint shapes in the same color as the background so they're invisible, then work on top of them, a genuinely surprising way to generate unplanned composition. The Abstract & Content Layers exercise pairs an organic roller background with fountain-pen content (trees, creatures, imagined characters) layered over it, which is closest the course gets to showing a finished, exhibitable piece. ## What it actually teaches None of this is illustration instruction. There is no lesson on anatomy, composition theory, or rendering. The closest thing to technical instruction is a short rundown of the roller and fountain pen tools, how they interact (the pen always sits on top of the roller regardless of drawing order), and a section on building a three-to-six color palette using the in-app mixer or an eyedropper pulled from a screenshot. The real content is the framework of rules and boundaries itself, explained directly: limiting tools and colors doesn't restrict creativity, it forces the brain to compensate and produces more interesting accidents than working with everything available. That idea, repeated and demonstrated through a dozen small exercises, is the actual takeaway, and it transfers to any medium, not just the Paper app. ## Where it falls short The course leans on an app, Paper by FiftyThree, that has been discontinued for years, which undercuts the promise of hands-on, along-with-me exercises for anyone trying to follow today. The project brief at the end is thin: share what you made and what rules you followed, with no critique framework or benchmark for improvement. And at under an hour, several exercises get only a minute or two of screen time before moving on, so depth is sacrificed for breadth of format. Anyone wanting to develop a personal style beyond loosening up will need to look elsewhere. The standout The rules-and-boundaries framework, deliberately restricting colors, tools, or even which hand you use, is the one idea that reliably produces better doodles than working with total freedom. ## What you will learn - · How to use the Paper app's roller and fountain pen tools, including how they layer and blend - · How to build a limited color palette and mix custom colors in Paper's color mixer - · How to use self-imposed constraints (one color, no overlap, no undo) to generate more interesting results - · Several concrete warm-up exercises: single continuous line doodles, blind background-matching shapes, and drawing with the non-dominant hand - · How to combine abstract roller shapes with content-based fountain pen drawing into layered compositions - · How to talk about and share unpolished work without being derailed by the pressure for perfection Best for: Anyone who owns an iPad and the Paper app and wants a low-stakes, playful way to loosen up creatively without pursuing polished illustration. Skip it if: Anyone hoping to learn illustration fundamentals, character design, or a repeatable finished-art workflow, or anyone without access to the discontinued Paper app. Engaging Teacher Helpful Examples Actionable Steps Clarity of Instruction [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fabstract-and-organic-ipad-doodling-foster-your-creativity-with-play-and-experimentation%2F1484650304)