An artist!

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Not when I was five!

Give me crayons, give me colouring books. Books with paper covered in dots that you wet with a paintbrush and colours emerge.. Dot to dot books, pages with squares on that I could turn into patterns. I might have been a bit older than five for some of these, but I always wanted art things for my birthday or Christmas. I must have heard of artists because I always wanted to be one. I got an etch-a-sketch machine to draw with, I loved that.

My sister wanted to be a musician, she eventually borrowed a violin from school. I got jealous because my parents said I was doing art and they couldn’t let me have a musical instrument, so I overtightened the strings on the violin and they snapped ( bad/very guilty memory!)…

Now? I’ve been an artist all my life. I started drawing when I was a child such as historical people in tudor dress, Asterix the Gaul, horses, clouds, all sorts of things. I still do that, anything is interesting to me.

Etch-a-sketch

Who remembers these? I loved mine and by twirling both buttons together I found I could draw curves! I used to draw mazes. I remember turning it over and the shake of the silver dust as it covered the trace of your sketch. Also the twanging of what might have been elastic bands moving a stylus? Against the screen. It was just a tiny dot. A bit like a computer cursor! I’d love to get one again!

Finished doodle

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Contours. I’ve always liked them. On maps, on artworks. I used to have an etch a sketch and I got good at drawing mazes on it. I would draw lines, round and round from the centre, build in dead ends, and spend hours creating structure. That’s basically what this is, not that there are any dead ends, apart from where I made mistakes.

Hope you like x