I fear the blank face of the page or canvas. That’s the tip of the truth. I dread the moment just before creation is expected. There is an overwhelm of possibility that stuns me almost every time: where on this space do I start? which colour or word comes first and then next? what is my subject? or is it an object? do I focus on line form texture or function? do I design or simply emote? is that even a real word? how do I best go about figuring out this piece of work, it’s totality and afterlife, before it’s even begun..?
This state of constant self-questioning can appear purposeful. In reality it is a well worn distraction technique. It's also not something that can be shaken off very easily when you have myriad other distractions waiting for you to slip quickly into and drive away… what I ask now is how do I overcome this artistic inertia?
Doubtless there are many books, articles, youtube insta tiktok tutorials etc on drawing inspiration from nothing, but my current state as a gluttonous digital overconsumer is beginning to sicken me if I’ll be honest. I don’t want to consume anymore, I want to produce. But at that act, I find I am currently inept.
A part of it is a lack of focus on what really inspires me - I just don’t know what to look at, and, of what I look at, what is worth my time and (limited) talent to record that, quite importantly, will bring me enough satisfaction when it’s done. This is important to me. Almost as important as what it is I look at and what it is I choose to see of it.
If we look to the past - currently the only view that has occasionally stirred inspo - I have dabbled in plenty. In sketching I’ve studied birds, flowers or whole floral arrangements, interior scenes, toys, furniture, even faces and the human form at times. I’ve used charcoal, pastels and pencil but favoured a good old Bic. I’ve rarely painted because of the amount of effort required in the setup and washup, but when I have done so more recently I've produced a very small mixed bag of decorative interiors and abstract urban landscapes, always using deep and vibrant colours.
If I were to write some sort of amateur’s manifesto, I think it would centre around my love for a very human and organic form of complexity. Above all, I think I love layered things the most. I love recreating scenes or forms that seem bustling in a visual sense - whether that's literally in a busy scape or texturally - but actually hold a sense of overarching harmony. The more you look the more you find that all the elements within are looking together in one direction, and your eyes are headed there too.
I realise in this reconciliatory writing experience that the one place I have always settled my gaze throughout my life is through the window.
Take a view from the window in one's sitting room: perhaps looming largest in most, there is the couch in the foreground with all its textured fabric, maybe a cushion or throw on top; then the huge white and wooden sash window is framed so perfectly behind it with beautifully draped curtains framing it in turn; this allows you a gorgeously mounted view of the roses caressing the brick facade of your home; beyond that still is the tarmac road on which your home sits, and then there are the buildings opposite it, there could even be a parked car sitting between you, the road and them.
Do you see how suddenly ‘a view from the window’ becomes a layered and visually complex creature? I love this. I've seen so many views like this over the short span of life I've lived so far. From Nigeria, I recall only the forest of basil (a wild weed there) beyond the glazed garden doors in our Victoria Island compound. From the first home in which my mother and I settled in London, a jungle of a view from the single bedroom we shared. It seemed so expansive to one so young and small. There were many many homes after that - we were nomads by circumstance - all of which I would savour sitting at the window and just looking and looking and looking... I find whenever I go on holiday, I'm always trying to find a window to look out of so I can see what those who call that place home might see every day.
I’ve actually never been able to put all this to words before - I’ve never really taken my artistic side seriously enough to sit down and try. But here we are, after a long winded ramble in my other beloved medium: the written word. Words like 'angular' and 'specific' and 'periphery' and 'linear' keep floating up along with my hope that maybe I could begin to bring life and form to these reflections. Bring them into the real world through the pen I used to clutch far more often within these unsure hands of mine.
I want so badly to not just sit and look now.
I want to draw,
and I can.
Right now.
