Find a quiet room, relax, let go, enter a dreamlike state, nothing matters. Close your eyes and look inside your mind, see the demons and the sprites dancing with your muses. Let your drawing hand dance with them and follow them wherever they lead you. They travel paths that exist only in your subconscious, in directions that don’t yet exist in our universe. It doesn’t matter where you go, only that you travel. Then have your tale your told with little ink drawings. Here are some of mine.
Brian Bowes (check out his art), when I wrote 'inkings' in a previous post, he read it as ‘inklings.’ It’s a very nice name for this type of drawing, better than anything I thought of but other clever people thought of it too. Still ‘inklings’ describe them well because they’re done in ink and also the beginning of ideas. By the way, there is a company called Inkling Entertainment. It’s Bob Camp’s. Bob lives only 15 minutes south of me but I've never met him. I rarely leave my studio.
Painting and doodling help balance an artist out. Doodling reminds you to loosen up and keeps you from becoming stodgy and self-important about your work. It's also fun to see pictures appear that you didn't expect, as if someone else is in control.
At some point I started thinking I'll use a few of these as remarques in my two how-to art books
OtherWorlds and
How to Draw and Paint Dragons, hence the paint brushes and palettes appearing.
I started drawing dragons but other animals popped up here and there. Some are dragon-like but the line between dragon and non-dragon is a fuzzy one. A dragonfly is distinctly un-dragon-like. They're really cool animals though that can withstand amazing g-forces but, sadly, have no ability to breath fire.
Some of my best ideas come from my doodles. They often end up somewhere else in a different form or become a greeting card of some kind. In the upper left of this one is Anna the Cavegirl and her friend Percival the Pachyderm painting hearts on each other. They love each other but I assure you that it's platonic. Inter-species affairs between sentient and consenting creatures don't offend me, this relationship will never be romantic so stop the speculating.
Here's a tiny remarque I did for a copy of
Kiddography, my biographical art monograph. I usually draw bigger ones on the page previous to the title page but I never can stay with tradition.
My dragon book had several editions. This was drawn in the Barron's. I like including stuff around the page in my sketches. This drawing just gave me a neat idea.
This demon painter is based on one of my doodles. It's drawn in my
OtherWorlds book. I typically initial my drawings and inscribe the book elsewhere. For all of the remarques I used a ballpoint pen. I like things that are easy to find to draw with. You can ask for a ballpoint pen anywhere and someone will lend it to you. Although people usually have pencils too, they smear (unless sprayed) when inside books and are rarely sharp or soft enough for me.
This was drawn in a
Search Press edition of the dragon book. The book was published in many different languages as well. I like this dragon's puffed up hair. He's clearly a madman with a brush.
Another remarque for
OtherWorlds: Which is mightier, the sword, the pen or the brush? Maybe it's the palette if it's big enough.
I've always thought that dragons and bats have a disadvantage to birds in that their wings are a bit stiffer when folded up. Bat wings don't seem like they'd be good insulators like feather covered bird wings are. I'll have to read up on this. Six-limbed (four legs, two wings) dragons can gallop and attack using their wing claws (thumbs) while standing sturdily on all fours. Birds can't do that!
This is the sort of thing that I think about as I draw my little pictures. Practical thought leads to many imaginative ideas. My new book:
Unchain Your Brain with Drawing. The idea is an inkling.
This remarque fits the introduction to
OtherWorlds well. In it I compare the importance of practice for warriors to practice for becoming an illustrator. This little guy is ready to paint anything that comes his way and kill anyone who tries to stop him from his artistic duties.
