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As inspiration hits...

  • Michael Griffin
  • Sep 1, 2013
  • 2 min read

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.

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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…

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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…

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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.

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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.


 
 
 
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