As inspiration hits...

As long as I can remember I’ve enjoyed drawing, colouring and playing with play dough, plasticine and clay. One early memory that stands out for me was of a day in Kindergarten – I drew a picture of a bluejay in crayon and my teacher raved about it, pinning it up on the “good work board”… I was very happy and I can remember setting out to create another “masterpiece” right away. I wish I still had some of these old drawings today.

I continued drawing all through school… usually drawing pictures of soldiers, robots, tanks and planes. In high school my style developed and I started drawing in a sort of anime style – again….. more robots, soldiers and spaceships along with a few armour clad girls now and then. One day I was flipping through a magazine and saw an old movie poster for Casablanca. It was a photo of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman… I felt compelled to draw this picture. A few hours later I had drawn Mr. Bogart and to my surprise, it didn’t look that bad.

After this was done (or sort of half done, cause Ms. Bergman is still missing) I moved on to other pictures in the magazine… and whole other magazines. Soon pictures like these filled my sketchbook…

AH…. the sketchbook of an 18 year old.

Of course there were also drawings of the odd “Aliens inspired” robot or futuristic soldier thrown in the mix…

This was a picture I’d drawn of a futuristic construction worker standing beside his vehicle. (Inspired by the forklift robots on the movie Aliens.)

There were also a few attempts at trying to win the heart of a pretty girl by drawing her picture… sadly, this never seemed to work as well as I figured it would.

These were done a few years after Humphrey Bogart…

In the end, all of it was done simply for the love of drawing faces. When an artist makes a work of art, some talk about losing themselves in their work… it’s that strange connection with a piece where hours can slip by before you know it. You can start working on a piece and time just stops… soon, you realize after an entire day has passed that you haven’t eaten or even slept. It is a strange thing indeed – I feel like I become what I draw, paint or sculpt… whether it’s a person, animal, tree or a glass of water – it’s a special thing though when working with people, doing portraiture or other figurative work. Inside my head, I find myself sitting where the model is sitting, seeing what they see and doing what they’re doing.

The machine that houses our mind and soul is an amazing thing… I love it – It provides an endless well of inspiration to draw from.