ARTIST NOTES

My heart sinks when people tell me that they’re just not creative because it never looks how they imagined it. I have absolutely been there and I understand how off-putting that part of the creative process feels. I have drawn plenty of questionable, unrecognisable, wobbly drawings. Much like learning handwriting, I see drawing as a skill, so frustration arises for me when people write themselves off as ‘not creative’ permanently based on a belief stemming from ‘bad’ drawings when it might be that they just haven’t yet found or developed a skill with which to transcribe their ideas.  

I believe that everyone has a creative mind which allows them to see or dream their own perception of beauty. Skills with which to translate a creative moment into something physical can be found in so many places and developed and refined endlessly. I think all that matters is that it captures your heart with curiosity and joy during the learning process (which in my experience can be filled with plenty of discomfort and self doubt). I would view the skill itself as being much like a camera is to a photographer. The photographer possesses the creative part, the camera simply the tool to bring it to life.

I started out mostly using a biro and paper because I would often feel inspired to draw when I was travelling and a pen and paper was easy to carry and cheap. Initially, I would draw from photos which inspired me and over time my confidence started to grow and I began to experiment with drawing from an imaginary scene in my mind. 

The joy of working with a biro was that the magic was found in emphasising light and dark. Enhancing the darker parts would feel quite meditative as I repeated biro marks in the shadows. Now that I often work with colour in my illustrations, the highlights and shadows are still my favourite part to work on. It took me a while to connect that the way something caught the light was a key source of inspiration for me.