The dream again nobody understands...

This was intended as a sketch to plan out an idea, but I probably won't bother drawing it properly now, it kind of got on my nerves once I got started. I do quite like the neon exit sign though - I really thought I was on to something when I came up with that...

It was inspired by a recurring dream I started having about a year ago, although this image isn't so true to dream life..In the dream I'm in a building where every room looks identical and I can't find my way out. I come to a space where a Minotaur (of sorts) is standing behind a counter or service hatch and I tell him I can't find my way. He says nothing but points to a door and when I open it I'm outside. Then I wake up. My Minotaur isn't really like the one in the dream, whom I suspect may just be a bloke in a mask. The life of a skint artist, even my dreams are low budget. 

It comes back but it's never the same...

I've been having a really extreme bout of drawing block lately. I've got pictures in my head but I can't seem to send them down my arm and into a pen, the link appears to have been severed. There's a few different ways I usually respond to this depending on the level of meltdown. On this occasion, after starting and abandoning a couple of other things, I thought it best to just scribble it out, play with some textures and see what happened. So here we are...again.

As well as bones, extremes of light and dark have become a bit of a fascination of mine and trying to create illumination from a light source in ballpoint pen presents a nice way to scratch about in the shadows. I can't explain why my lightning bolts shine in different ways to each other and I can't explain why the sea is not as choppy as the weather suggests but it's nice to be back. 

I don't want to see what happens next...

I wasn't going to post this. It's sketchy, it's unrefined, it's vulnerable. This is how drawing feels. Like removing tiny but important parts of myself and flinging them into choppy waters. So it's more of a description in sketch form, explaining what happens on the inside in the only way I know how. It took a lot for me to start sharing this stuff, I used to leave the room when people looked at my drawings. Now I can't hold it all in! 

The tranquility of solitude...

Another weird little creature that wouldn't leave me alone. It was just a matter of where to put her..so she ended up in an egg. I drew this really as a way of starting a new sketchbook. Most people who draw or write get intimidated from time to time by the dreaded blank page, especially the first page of a new sketchbook. I'm not usually big on sketchbooks, I give up as soon as a drawing isn't "perfect" and it becomes another place to jot down recipes and shopping lists, but this one has the purest, smooth, white paper (that's kind of a holy grail for me) so I dived in with this doodle. 

I thought about giving her furniture, a cup of tea perhaps, maybe a picture on her shell wall but as with this drawing, I quite like the emptiness. A cross section, slicing into someone's tranquil hideaway. As for what she's reading...who knows? Perhaps she's revisiting one of her old sketchbooks.

I think I'll let you decide...

The idea for this strange little ballpoint drawing came to me when I read a line about a derelict building that "loomed like a giant ribcage" in this book. But I'm not going to discuss that here, let's move on. 

It came and went and then returned again the other day when I found a little sketch I must have made at the time. I wanted to capture the sort of feeling you get when you're amongst the sculptures of Antony Gormley. Beautiful but eerie at the same time. Did it just move? Has it got closer while my back was turned? Is it dead or alive? Organic or man-made? I've purposely left it a bit sketchy and scratchy looking, I didn't want to overwork it, I just needed to get it out of my mind and onto paper. I could have done a lot more with it really but I think the emptiness kind of works. For once I stopped at the right time...

The shadow is cast...

Last night I saw an incredible video of the surface features of the Sun called Thermonuclear Art. I love the idea of that but since hydrogen fusion is a process that requires a fair bit of effort, I decided to get the pens out instead and leave the nuclear reactions to the hearts of stars. So here's a little drawing of the Sun's atmosphere (also known as the Solar Corona) visible to us during a total eclipse, a celestial event that I've been known to get a little bit animated over. To witness the shadow of the Moon covering the Sun from the perspective of the Earth is breathtaking. There's no denying we are on a spinning ball of rock when you experience that happening and we are in just the right place at just the right time. What a startling coincidence!
As a little extra (unintentional) feature, if you look at this image and blink your eyes really quickly it creates quite an interesting visual effect.