Time is against me...

Oh, to have the time to turn all the sketches into paintings!

'A time to be silent and a time to speak'

Feeling hippy?

I'm not sure why, but for most of my late teens and twenties my music interest led me to second hand record shops to seek out the albums of those hippy days: Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills and Nash, and many more. I only say this so to tie in with this sketch from yesteryear.

A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.

Comic book art

I was never one for comic books as a child, the odd Spiderman or Batman, but I didn't crave them. It was in my early twenties when a friend suggested that I could turn my hand to that style of work that I began to take more of an interest. It was at that time that comic books were changing into the slick, glossy works a lot of them are now and graphic novels were becoming popular. The samples I submitted were not received well and I gave up quickly as I guess I never really had a passion for them. I do, however, like the works of such as Michael Turner, Travis Charest, J. Scott Campbell and the like. This drawing was inspired after seeing the work of Simon Bisley.

What you spend your time on influences you.

Motivation

I, perhaps like many who enjoy putting pencil to paper or brush to canvas, go for periods of time completely ignoring my drawing board. I know I could make time for anything I want to do by leaving other things undone, so that is not the excuse. It's not even that the inspiration is absent, rather that the motivation is lacking. There may be many causes for this but essentially they are all emotional. For motivation read passion and without it ideas are just laboured. And so I used to let myself get away with not doing because I wasn't moved to. Since I have learnt that the every act of doing can bring about the passion. So, no excuses, I'd better do a new sketch, and I would but...

'The trouble is we want to feel before we act.'

- Margaret Cundiff

Who's that girl?

Right, so, an old picture as I have nothing new to proffer. I had just come back from my journeys through Russia, China, Australia, New Zealand and Canada at the time I drew this, full of plans and ideas. When I wasn't working I was drawing and painting. Then I let other things get in the way. I still remember the words of another student when I was at college, I don't remember much else as it was years ago, but those words stuck to my brain like a poster pasted to a wall. Her name was Marnie and to paraphrase her she told me that she was going to concentrate on her career and not let anything else get in the way. It wasn't that I was asking, it just came up in conversation. I wonder now if she stuck to her plans.

This figure isn't Marnie. She had very ginger, very curly hair. This figure isn't anyone.

It's never to late to become what you might have been.