Imaginary Friends

Hi, folks, I've been a big fan of imaginary friends my whole life. I believed stuffed animals were real as child. I had a little elephant - Pinky, who was seriously one of my best friends. After I'd given Pinky the Velveteen Rabbit treatment, I moved on to Buddy Bear. Me and my sisters had George and Susie and their parents and one of my favorites -- Hound Dog Bert. We wrote some stories of a superhero cat too. I was a rather dreamy child. I try to stay close to that child. I think that to create stories you need to be in touch with the child you were.

Think back to childhood and let yourself inhabit those memories. I think it's especially important to journal the events that you have an emotional connection with. To what end? To what purpose? For me, the way art works is I stir up my imagination with sights and experiences. I follow my muse and read stacks. I wake up my memories by thinking about them, I daydream about stuff, I chat with friends about my ideas and watch for their eyes to light up, and then I know I'm onto something. That's basically the genesis of creative process for me.

I hope this peek at my process helps jog loose something in you and you find deeper creative vision. Come back next week!

This week, I give you the doodle "Imaginary Neil." 'cause in the right universe we are good friends. ;)






Anyway, here is a quote for the day:

In the final analysis, a drawing simply is no longer a drawing, no matter how self-sufficient its execution may be. It is a symbol, and the more profoundly the imaginary lines of projection meet higher dimensions, the better. Paul Klee