An Artist’s Diary

I started with a refurbished tablet worth about forty pounds on which I drew with my fingers, before buying a stylus for a pound. I had read somewhere that art healed the mind and gave it strength and power. Slowly, over time, drawing became a regular nightly habit — a doodle in bed — an artist’s diary.

As a diary, most of my art is biographical, about my preoccupations with love and life. I also like to experiment with spontaneity and the unconscious, so I will draw random lines and then seek meaning in them — a free association art process if you like. The unconscious is endlessly creative. I like to tap into what is happening in a space where I am not in control, beyond the limited horizons of the conscious mind. Sometimes, I will plan a piece, but even then, inspiration comes like a lightning strike: unexpectedly, and often with bizarre effect.

When you are locked into the moment you forget the world and its problems, the seemingly endless challenges of modern living. Art imbues me — the lowly craftsman that I am — with the personas of the artists. An imagined life: Da Vinci, Monet, Picasso… The divine role of the creator, pioneer, and the inventor. If Da Vinci were alive today, would he not be working in digital art?

Not least, art gives me sheer joy. Feeling my emerging mark upon the world, locating myself in the unconscious, and playing with ancient forms to breathe new life into them.