doodles of mine

I love art and I adore drawing. Like everyone else, you do at times lose your patience, passion or simply the time to go back and explore or to simple doodles and enjoy where it takes you.

For me, It was a scary thing to go back to drawing.  I knew my depression and severity of my physical symptoms from my head injury were altogether serious and soul-destroying when the one thing I always counted on, no matter how badly down or depressed I was, I knew I was great at drawing was gone.

To lose that last thing that kept you grounded, that one thing like "I know i am a failure, a horrible person and can't do anything, but at least I know I can drawn a damn good picture!"...that simply disappeared and I had nothing. Nothing at all to simply fall back onto to keep me going.

To even think of picking up a pencil was a trauma in itself, like I felt I wasn't worth even a pencil and paper! friends, family and medical people told me to go back to drawing, to get my co-ordination and strength back and to use it to distract you on those dull, suicidal days and I did. I drew simple pencil drawings from images in magazines then pictures of friends that at times blew them away. but my hands were so weak and my depression grew so bad that this stopped. I became simply too afraid to even draw.

 I was given a cook book for my birthday and inside was wonderful, colourful illustrations that were quirky and simple in their appeal and beauty. It reminded me that drawing and art goes back to being simple as you want and to maybe start small again and go from there. Even if i drew and coloured in small drawings of everyday items, it was a start!

so the next day I was in town and spotted some pens and bought them, getting them out to experiment and doodle and this was what I came up with...

 These doodles took no more than 10 minutes at most, I wanted to go for something charmingly quirky yet simple and kept the details minimal and colours. I love the magpie in the antles of this lady, magpies mean something to me and I always salute them when i see them. I'm actually thinking of getting a tattoo of one, just a small one so if I see one magpie (one for sorrow), I can look at the tattoo and make it two! (two for joy!)

This one I wanted a tattoo/burlesque look and actually quite a few people liked this. I might further the design a little more and explore it to see what else I can come up with! I think it reflects ironically how I felt at the time - like I was piecing myself back together like a messy emotional/physical jigsaw and crudely sewing myself together to hold on for a little while longer!

This simple exercise just reminded me "keep going". It helped strengthed my hand and it improved my control as well. so many times my hand would spasm and lose control and my vision just couldn't stay on the paper...its so hard trying to explain how a head injury affects you in this way but trust me - it isn't nice!

I'm getting there and my confidence is growing slowly as too is re-learning my skills once again.
I hope i will never give up!


Birdie Love
xxx