13th June 2015

I did a doodle today as I've had some inspiration from my own back garden. You don't always need to travel to see beauty or nature's wonders, a little bit can flutter into your creative sights, right in front of your nose.

So there it was, a flutter-by creative draw to draw. A butterfly, so delicate and detailed, so fancily simple in its movements and wing beats, so complicated in design and pattern, so short in this world. I am inspired.

So I am going to try a series of 'own design' butterflies, using the vibrant palettes from nature. I'm aiming for a full blown made up butterfly collection... here's number one.

12th June 2015

I did a doodle today 15 minutes after getting in from a children's party. Too tired, too hungry and too rushed.... bad combination for creative anything. So apologies, I have made a very feeble doodle attempt for this week's #colour_collective (mint green) and have done two pictures that I am equally as unhappy with. So i binned them. Both.

And set myself a challenge instead. I found a saying, a saying that seemed like it was challenging me to do exactly what it was saying:

MAKE YOUR STORY SO BEAUTIFUL THAT UNICORNS AND MERMAIDS HAVE TROUBLE BELIEVING IT'S TRUE

So I wrote a story, in one minute. and here it is.

Love.

Death.

Stars,

together,

forever.

11th June 2015

I did a doodle today as I have a couple of logo projects on the go.

Sometimes you can just get stuck on an idea, overthinking it or overworking it, until you have actually forgotten what you are trying to say with your logo. Personality is key, ethos and offerings are the keyring and the audience is the door.

Sometimes it is all too easy to forget and go with what you like the look of!

When you get caught in that trap, do something totally different... I set myself a make-believe job to do and see if I can clear my head and focus my creativity and visual communications.

So here's one I made up earlier...

10th June 2015

I did a doodle today because there was a murder in the chatroom...

Writing out of my style, out of my comfort zone, is something I love - creating unnecessary stress on my creative senses to fuel new ideas, new ways of thinking and to open up my mind and my penmanship.

It's not like I don't have a million things I am meant to be working on (and actually finishing), but if I don't stir things up a bit, push myself that little bit differently, then I fall in to ruts, get bogged down in my safe place of my own style and thinking. Nothing wrong with having your own style and thoughts, but what if they could be even better, even broader, even more tantalising? That's where randomness is fabulous, just for-no-particular-reason I will sit at my keyboard and let the keys jabber away in an area I either don't know or a style I have not tried.

Sometimes laughter is the best medicine, with plenty of chortles born from my experimental ramblings, but sometimes, just sometimes, there's something that is a little like 'potential' sneaking out. A million light years from perfection or actual credibility, but just that little scent of something worth trying again...

So here's a one that has caught my creative attention, and got a whole lot of whirring occurring in my head. So much so I even mocked up a cover for the story below:

Hello Purplecat10. Missed you yesterday.

Hi Boosh24.

Are you having a good day?

Not really.

What’s up?

Just some bitches at school. Fucking hate them.

What have they done? Are you ok?

Photoshopped some pictures of me and posted them for everyone to see.

Facebook?

Yeah and Instagram. They’re not even any good at photoshopping, but they made me look like a hooker.

But you’re nothing like that.

I know, but what does that matter. Now everyone’s calling me a slut and the lads are pretending to offer me money for me to blow them off. Dicks.

Purplecat, you’re better than that. So much better than them. You’re my Purplecat and I know you’re not like that. I know you, I really know you, and you know me. You are special, remember that. We are special.

I know Boosh. It still feels shit though.

Oh my Purplecat, I wish I was there to give you a cuddle.

Me too Boosh.

Maybe one day...

  

Maybe.

Jean Atticker took a deep breath and opened the first file. This was not going to be pleasant, she knew it would turn her stomach, but this would only make her more vigilant. Every little piece of evidence was vital to a conviction. Nothing could be missed, overlooked or misinterpreted. That bastard was going to get life. Life for a life. And it was up to her to make sure that the evidence was watertight.

The case had repulsed the nation and led the headlines for months, with the search, the suspicions and pointing of media fingers and then the discovery. The awful discovery, which many had felt inevitable, but that left no one untouched by tragedy.

And then the arrest.

Jean stared down at the papers in the file, a photo paper-clipped to the front of the first document. Cara Evelyn smiled back at her, eyes bright and mischievous, her long hair falling across her cheeks and shoulders. 14 and full of hope. 14 and full of life. 14 and dead.

9th June 2015

I did a doodle today because of pigs swill!

When I read about great ideas and great organisation, it fires me up and in a similar way to that fire in the belly I get from a creative splurge, or writing a character's personality though actions. So I'd like to write about these causes, activities and organisations that motivate me, make me want to stand up and shout "YES"... basically if it stops and makes me think, then it will have an impact (in its own way) on my creativity. We are what we think. We are what we believe.

So here's the first, of what I hope to be a growing number, of these types of posts. I write about those causes and organisations I come across, in magazine, papers, tv, conversations, and not because I am connected to them or that they have been promoted to me. I just write as I find.

The other night I sat in a fairly nice restaurant, eating pretty delicious food, made from locally sourced produce. My plate sat in front of me, not empty but pretty well attacked. I was stuffed. It was tasty, but I just couldn't manage another mouthful. So what happened to the remains? I'm not one for asking for doggy bags, but I hate the thought of it all getting scraped into a black bin bag and thrown out for the garbage truck to chomp on. Surely there's a better way than feeding the bin?

There is. There has been for thousands of years. Pigs swill.

For centuries humans have fed pigs on the scraps from their tables, helping pigs grow big and fat ready to be eaten. Then the humans feed the scraps from their tables to the pigs, helping them grow big and fat and... Recycling perfection. In fact, I believe that this is why people first started keeping pigs... the ultimate recycling bin.

The pig... “is the Husbandman’s best Scavenger, and the Huswives most wholsome sink; for his food and living is by that which will else rot in the yard …; for from the Husbandman he taketh pulse, chaff, barn dust, man’s ordure, garbage, and the weeds of his yard: and from the huswife her draff, swillings, whey, washing of tubs, and such like, with which he will live and keep a good state of body, very sufficiently.”
From Gervase Markham, 17th Century Author

Currently there is an EU ban on feeding swill (food waste) from restaurants, etc. to pigs. Welcome to 'The Pig Idea', who wants to get this ban lifted and:

• Stop food waste being wasted
• Stop forests being cut down to make way for grain for pig feed
• Reduce the rising costs of pig feed and pork production
• Free up food supplies to help feed people 

Right now we are not allowed to feed pigs our food waste, yet we are feeding pigs food that could be eaten by people, people who can't feed themselves through poverty, famine, displacement, etc. Sounds crazy hey.

The Pig Idea and its many supporters don't just work to promote the use of swill, they also campaign to ensure all safe and edible unsold food is used to feed people who need it. But not all wasted food is suitable for human consumption, so why not use it to still benefit humans?

Food for thought, so I did a doodle about it...

Read all about The Pig Idea >
@ThePigIdea #oink

8th June 2015

I did a doodle today as things are on the up.

Positivity is reigning, so I've closed the door on the rather strange past few weeks and I'm now embracing the coming days and weeks. Like a weight off my shoulders, negativity is gone... my creativity and inspiration is literally as light as a feather, free and flying high.

So, here are some ickle feathers for Ickle Monday. Four feathers floating free.

 

 

7th June 2015

I did a doodle today, and it's late. Two days late.

I ma amazed at just how difficult we have made our lives, with our (un-realised) reliance on technology and, more specifically, the internet. Two and half weeks without home broadband has seen my online life hindered and falter. Ridiculous, there must be a contingency I should put in place.

But I'm back up and online and I suddenly feel a bit like a blogger superhero, with rights to wrong and blogs to post. So here we go, catch up starts here with a late Colour Collective doodle, that should have been posted Friday. I'm darned if I'm going to miss my beloved #colour_collective, so hopefully this is better late than never!

Lamp Black was the colour, so I thought it apt that I should doodle a shining light breaking open the darkness.... some kind of cheesy metaphor!