Where do ideas come from? Spoiler alert. I was just watching ‘ the Hobbit an unexpected journey’ the first film in ‘the Hobbit’ trilogy. At the end of the film the dwarves see the lonely mountain far in the distance. We follow a bird as it flies across the land to the mountain. There we see the dragon inside the mountain. Smaug, the dragon, wakes up and you see his eye. The pupil of the eye has a funny slit in it. Not exactly like this, but I wonder if I was subconsciously influenced by the film? You only see it for a couple of seconds but it’s a beautiful image. I think my dragon eyes are quite sweet, but not as good as the animated Dragon Eye of Smaug.
Their appearance intrigues me. How do they not burn up from inside? They must have strong guts or lungs. If they belch do they singe their eyebrows? Silly things like how many legs do they have, two like a bird, or four like a lizard? If they have wings too does that make them an insect? So many questions, how long is their tail and is it prehensile? How big are their wings and how do they keep aloft if they don’t have hollow bones like a bird….
Anyway they are mythical and magical so I don’t suppose any of these questions matter.
A few weeks ago I got a stone painting kit. I used to paint them a lot. I’ve painted little mice, and hedgehogs and other creatures on stones, so I know what I’m doing.
This dragon stone didn’t turn out as well. It’s a bit too blobby, it lacks definition. you can just about work out what it is but I think I have overworked it. It is meant to be a curled up dragon which has fallen asleep on a red cushion. I think it must be a tiny species of dragon, only about four inches long. You can have small lizards so why not small dragons? I think they live in the cracks in stone walls. They eat lichen and set fire to tiny sticks and grasses if they want to get warm. I wonder if I could turn this into a story? Pixies using them as transport, or for flying after honeybees to raid their hives? Imagination is a mad thing….
Drawing I did a while in Artrage oils. Then duplicated it. I don’t know where these ideas come from or even if they are any good. But I’m constantly creating and learning. I can’t help it and I can’t stop. I just get a buzz out of art and creativity.
Walking round the back of the old house, looking for a way in. The rain was cold and icy, falling hard and freezing on the ground and branches as it touched them….
She needed somewhere warm to dry out. No-one in at home and she had lost her keys? But next door was empty, if she could find shelter she could be OK till the morning?
She pushed on a soggy back door, it gave slightly under the pressure. Then the catch slipped and it flew open into a dusty hallway. Cobwebs hung down from dirty bannisters and old bedsheets covered the victorian furniture. She stepped further in. Moonlight and the sodium coloured streetlights filtered through the grubby windows.
A black cat rushed past her, fleeing out of the open doorway. Somewhere in the distance she heard the distant sound of an old fashioned phone.
Stumbling across the old parquet flooring in the darkness, she started to look for a doorway into a living room or reception room. Anywhere that would be walmer. She gently pushed on a old oak door, it opened a crack, it started to creak so she held her breath and waited. Nothing happened. She pushed again and could see light, orange candlelight. A glow coming from a carved pumpkin, almost out, flickering in the slight breeze from the doorway.
Quickly she stepped in, pushing the door behind her. A covered sofa looked like a good place to hunker down for the night…. She slowly sat down, gently, to make as little noise as possible. She felt something slither across her feet. She looked down, and saw to her horror, a dark gloved hand extending through the floor and reaching up to grab her ankle. A flash, so bright and blue lit the room for an instant. In a second she had disappeared. Gone.
My final major project for college will probably be a story about a dragon and an adventure with it. I wrote a story about twenty years ago but when I asked friends what they thought I decided it was too wordy, more like a novel. Not funny enough. So it’s sat on my computer and each time I have upgraded my system I’ve copied the file so I’ve never lost it.
I won’t tell the story, but I thought of it as a tale to tell my friends baby daughter. I was going to get a book published that I could give to her when she was older. Sadly she is an adult now and I’ve lost track of her mum. Maybe that book will finally be finished. Anyway I’m experimenting with illustrations for it.
I saw a post on Facebook today saying you have to have a high IQ to read upside down. I don’t think that’s true. I learnt in my childhood. I can’t remember exactly when. I can remember seeing my teachers notes, which was useful and I guess that I practiced doing it later on. I also used to look at text in the mirror, probably after hearing about Leonardo Da Vinci. Strange what you do as a child. Maybe it’s inquisitiveness, maybe pattern recognition?
Some ideas for a college three square narrative. I had to put a portfolio together a few weeks ago. I decided to draw a cat trying to overcome a cat flap. This was based on one of my cats actually breaking the plastic flap because he’s too big and strong! (not the cat that’s gone missing). The big cat is very determined. He wouldn’t be deterred by a closed cat flap. He couldn’t get out by pushing it forward so I saw him pull the flap towards him with a claw, then pull it upwards till he could get his nose underneath and get out that way!
Mallaband-Brown 