The Process...Part 1

I have been a writer for longer and with more sustained focus than I have been anything else. Whilst I describe myself as an artist per se, the individual facets that make up the whole are unequal, some even disjointed or fractured.

For example, I have always believed in my disability to paint. I use the word 'disability' openly and honestly. The result of a genetic birth defect which while it does restrict me in much else that I do, my peculiar digital arrangement means that I cannot hold a paint brush in the standard way and need to lean very heavily on whatever material I happen to be painting on.

Early attempts with poster and palette paints were invariably messy and painting in oils was an absolute nightmare. So instead I concentrated on drawing and became proficient at that skill because it didn't matter if I had to rest my hand on the piece I was creating. I never gave up my desire to paint though.

About the same time that I was perfecting my drawing style I became aware of another palette, a palette of words with which it was possible to create a painting not on a canvas but in someone's head.

The concept fascinated me and I began using both words and pictures (to augment my writing). It was very successful but frowned upon by both purist sections of the disciplines I had combined. Eventually I had to bow to pressure and I gave up illustrating my stories. It was a pivotal moment in my life.

For a while both skills ran parallel but something had to give and for a while it was my art. My interest was rekindled later, but by then my ideas, imagination and ability had changed. I still loved the creative freedom that was possible whenever I wielded my pens and pencils, but I could not achieve the length and depth and scope of what I could achieve with words.

I later began illustrating my stories again - book covers - that lent the viewer some kind of idea of what awaited them in the pages of my stories. Artistically I was also becoming interested in photography and this opened up another vast field of creative endeavour.

Like most things I threw myself in head- first, learning as much as I could from others already proficient in the field and, naturally, from my mistakes. Photography gave me the opportunity to be the painter I could never physically hope to be (or so I thought) and my photographs became inspiration for my writing, capturing momentary fragments of existence so that later I could commit them to writing.

The last artistic development I want to share with you, reading the first part of this blog, was accidental and involved my children (a subject I intend to return to in another part of this series of musings) who introduced me to acrylic paints.

The fast drying pigments enabled me to finally paint. I could put my hands all over my work with no problem. It was another skill I had to pick up from scratch and develop through trial and error. I am pleased to say that painting is another string to my bow and yet, despite the pleasure all of my artistic endeavours gave me, none were really comparable to what I felt I could achieve by writing.

It seemed I was always driven to create, by whatever means I found at my disposal and I took up every challenge willingly. I was yet to discover the dual nature of creativity and the price that invariably, has to be paid...