Like a moth to a flame...

Or in this case, a light bulb. These are the moths that flutter around in my brain when I have an idea for a drawing. They flit aimlessly, bouncing off the walls of my skull. Some of them get fried up and die but every now and again one settles on something half decent. 

That wasn't the intention of this drawing, I just wanted to draw a bigger light bulb. The thought only occurred to me as it was nearly finished that it was quite a nice metaphor and that something subconscious was at play. I like light bulbs as an image, they're quite harsh and give a strong contrast between the darkness and the light. I did tell myself I wasn't going to do any more intense blackness with the biro for a while but all too soon I returned to it, like...well, you know the simile. 

You're the bees knees but so am I...

This grew out of a little thought I had about bees that might make ink instead of honey. I managed to locate some honeycomb grid paper and although it's cheating a bit, I really liked the idea of leaving some of the grid undrawn to show off how the paper has created the hexagons of the inkycomb. It's darker than I intended really but the bee not leaping out off the paper at you straight away is quite nice I think...and I won't be spoiling it with colour this time. To be honest, I much prefer THIS little bee.

This is how it feels to be small...

This idea (or something like it) has been rattling around the inside of my skull like a beetle in a bottle for some time now. I like the idea of drawing collections; hundreds of the-same-but-different items like you'd find in a museum. In practice I probably don't have the attention span for it, although I do really love to draw insects over and over again. Natures sparkling gems that I'd like to train to stay still on the lapel of my jacket when I go out like a pet/jewellery combo...I digress, back to the drawing: as I said, the idea was a museum collection and I was going to house them in a case with labels but when it came down to it, I couldn't bear them to be locked up or worse...So mine are alive and free but they can't read so hopefully they've put themselves into the right order (the artist cannot be held responsible for discrepancies in the name tags). They're also happy to sit while you look at them, just don't stay too long they're ready for a tea break.

Just for fun I thought I'd colour them with acrylic ink, I'll leave this open to interpretation but I know what I think...

Where everything is possible and nothing is what it seems...

Focus your visuals...Look closer...Zoom in...Do you see it? I've always been intrigued by the sort of artwork and illustration that has hidden elements. Pictures within pictures and tiny details. They were always the illustrations I'd gaze at for hours as a child so I suppose they've worked their way to the surface. I'm quite pleased with how this has turned out, it went from one idea to the next and settled itself on a dragonfly with a body made from a variety of human skeleton parts. And I didn't even leave it neglected for months on end, this was done from start to finish over the weekend. I don't know why I keep torturing myself with drawing these tiny, delicate bones but I hope I'm getting better at it... 

Experimentation is an active science...

More dots...I told you it was habit forming! Along with a rarer thing for me, colour.

These little ladies are something I began with good intentions and then promptly misplaced. Having found them again, I decided they either had to go or be finished, so here they are. Ladybirds given a revamp in new, far out costumes. I was going for a sort of experimental ladybird test card using the CMYK colour model that printers use; cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black). Don't think I'm all techy, I just looked that up. It was an excuse to try out my newly acquired acrylic inks, that's all. They're not very symmetrical or evenly spaced (I just went for it freehand in pen...on wallpaper, which seemed like a good idea at the time) and the colours have bled outside the edges but I quite like them because of that rather than despite it. I don't usually wear rose tinted spectacles to look at my own work but they've made me show these off when I really wasn't going to. I'd better take them off again before anything else weird happens!

Before I change my mind...

Welcome. It's nice to have you here. I'm so glad you could come. I hope you like it...I think you will (thanks Willy Wonka). To avoid agonising over the perfect drawing to start with, I've decided to just go for it and keep it simple with this little Dor beetle. Leave 'em wanting more...