Welcome

It’s a question I always get asked at shows: “where did you get the idea for this?”, “what does this mean?”

I always feel like such a downer when I give the honest answer that is…I don’t really know!

I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t go to art school or maybe I’m missing out on a trick but I don’t really have much of a process for my designs… what process I do have I’ll elaborate here…

Ideas
I would love to say that I go for long walks or meditate and get inspired but it just doesn’t work like that for me. Ideas bubble up at their own will. I am merely a vessel to take these thoughts and put them into the world. I know that sounds dramatic but it does kind of feel like that sometimes!
While I do my best at putting pen to paper, I’m not one of the greats of art ok I know that!! I could give my idea to someone else and they would create it with much more skill than me…but that idea is mine and mine alone, so I treat each idea as precious.

Sketches
Ideas often come fully formed so most of the time I don’t plan my designs before hand. If you’ve seen me at art shows you might have seen me drawing straight onto the paper without any references. I like that because it forces more of the illustration to come from my head. I could look at art books and study the designs of flowers, or I could remember a flower as best I can, and create something new; something with a bit of truth, and a bit of imagination.

The only times I do sketch really are when I get ideas out and about, e.g. on the train to work. So I often carry a tiny notebook with me for those occasions, just to loosely capture the thought.

Illustration
The main thing I think about when drawing is: what do I feel? What do I want the viewer to feel? It’s often hard to quantify, but drawing is such a natural thing to me. It’s something I need to do. It’s not optional or a choice, it’s a part of me. Again – sounds dramatic, but it’s true!
Anyway, going back to the drawing. Sometimes I will sketch out some of the design and sometimes I go straight in with pen. In the past, I used the draw the whole design out in pencil first but then I felt like the pen work was just redrawing, taking away some of the spontaneity, so I do as little as possible now. I also don’t have the patience for spending so long on the planning phase: I just want to complete this design so I can move on to the next!

Maybe then my head will quiet…