What's been inspiring me lately...

I wish I could say that my life has been interesting lately.  I have nothing to report.  So I'm having one of those moments right now where I feel I should be doing something more, that I'm wasting time, but I can't help it, a boredom is growling deep inside of me and there's this constant growing need to be in bed.  I have slept too much over the weekend.  I wanted to get more drawing done, but everytime I approached a blank page, I get tired, I sink down into the couch, I watch a video, I eat something, I take a walk outside, and then come back inside looking as blank as that blank page.  So what do I do during these moments?  First, I try to find something to write about.  If I can't write anything, I find something to look at.  I start to get inspired.  I start to dream out loud.  That fuels my mind.  But there's also the restlessness I feel from not having enough human company.  So I couldn't sleep.  Hugging the blankets wasn't doing it for me.  Early this morning I dragged myself into the computer lab, searching for attention... and searching for something interesting to pay attention to. 

 

I am fast becoming a big fan of Finlay Cowan's work. Infact, I realize now that I've long been a fan, I just didn't realize who he was. I was only familiar with his album covers for Pink Floyd. After I found out that he had a brief stint as bassist for Johnny Thunders (of the New York Dolls), it's no wonder he has a very "musical" style of drawing. His lines flow like sighs and long breaths, a little shaky at the edges, and full of life, like his hands were "dancing" when he was drawing. I find myself falling in love with his style and plan on ordering his graphic novel, Miss London. The novel has the feel of a magazine and a sketchbook complete with poems.  But what I like most about Finlay Cowan is his emphasis on Faeries and Gods.  If you see my work and wonder where some of that inspiration comes from, or you want to learn how to draw a bit like I do, you owe it to yourself to check out Finlay's book Drawing & Painting Fantasy Worlds.  It's the closest book I've come across that explains the way I work!  Seriously, I'm not kidding.  I could easily become friends with this guy.  With a few exceptions, Finlay's style is similiar to mine.  Plus he looks a lot like Peter Murphy.  He kind of looks like a character I would write about.  So not just looking at his work, looking at him I get all sorts of ideas... 

 

I gotta hand it to foreverknight for sending me some episodes of Pushing Daisies. I love how colorful the show is, how each character is infinitely interesting, and how I can't stop re-watching it. What's most inspiring about the show is the style of narration that reminds me of how I tell a few of my own stories -- but not with as much obvious exposition! I like shows and movies that sometimes play out as if someone is reading me a story at bedtime.  I also love stories that have a fairy tale quality, but not dumbed down for a general audience.  I can't wait to watch more.  The show makes me hungry.  For pie.  I have bought and made more pies in the last month than I ever have in one year.  Isn't that funny?   

 

An odd thing that provoked me to sit down and handwrite a short science fiction story about another world; spiders.  It's not because I've had dreams about spiders (I do tend to have a lot of those, but not recently) or that I've seen a spider crawling in my home (a lot of them tend to hang around) but because lately my ears have been "stuffed up" as if I have swimmer's ear or something. A brief moment of panic over my ears (I've never had problems with my ears, so go figure) and I imagined that maybe a tiny spider somehow made a web in my ears.  I know this was just my imagination working overtime, and to change it into an image that was helpful and less stressful on my ears (I've been suffering from differences in biometric pressure due to the weather, not due to any excess of fluids in my ears, thank Gods), I began to meditate on the image of a spider... but not just a tiny one.  Big ones.  Ones that are the size of a dog or cat.  I then began to remember some article or television science show I once watched where someone was experimenting with spider silk to design a more effective form of Kevlar vest.  Can you imagine what the silk of a very large spider would be like?  Or that it could be used to create a very ingenious type of fiber for clothing?  So, after putting drops in my ears to keep the pain of the "stuffiness" at bay, I relaxed into my bed and programmed my mind to dream about large spiders that I could cuddle with and touch -- big, soft, furry spiders like none to be found on this Earth.  Sure enough I got this entire story about a race of human beings whose entire culture is centered around spiders.  I really saw them as real people, as real spiders, in my mind, so real I thought I'd wake up and see them.  In between dream and waking, I felt for certain that they exist.  So I immediately picked up a pen and a blank journal and wrote down everything I could remember about the Spider People.

 

Someday you'll read that story.  For now, I'll just tease you with it.  I'm hungry.  Lunch awaits.  (I've been up since 4am and the day is no where near half way done and I have lots to do yet!)