When I was younger I liked creating little made-up worlds and creatures in coloured pencil – it would keep me quiet for hours! My brother and his housemate are fans of my earlier doodles, and when my brother asked me to spend maximum 2 hours doing a small doodle for his housemates birthday, I forgot just how long I used to spend getting lost in my imagination and after 5 hrs of happily doodling away, it started me thinking about how whilst some artists will capture their thoughts with a single brushstroke of colour, I’ll happily spend ages and ages and ages intricately drawing or cutting or painting or sticking!
With the doodles, it’s the process of going into an imaginary world that I enjoy, and with my collages it’s thinking about special memories of a place or person I don’t want to forget – it’s not always simply turning an idea into a drawing – when I draw/find something to put in a collage, that will generate ideas, and the whole process normally all goes on in one drawing or collage. I rarely, if ever sketch and develop an idea before I start it properly – the development of the idea is all on the same canvas. Collecting all the bits and pieces and working out where they best fit helps me better understand and consolidate my thoughts about people and places, and re-live happy experiences – This probably explains why I don’t like to finish a collage!
This post is a bit long and rambling now, just wanted to write my thoughts down somewhere, and here is as good a place as any!
