Look at these Sketches and Photos that Turned into Precious Moments

Sketches and Photos

I will always cherish each painting and photo, they are sign posts along the way of life.

Sketches and Photos

Creativity is as natural to a human being as eating, to obstruct your own creative effectiveness, to block the desire, is to create a sickness in the mind that psychologists have recognised as a major problem.

The jury is out on this, but there is some truth in the idea that what you suppress, will pop up somewhere else in the personality, and normally, in a negative way.

If I want to paint, and I have many years of intense experience as a painter, I’ll paint.

If the camera looks tempting, and the ideas pop up and spark in my mind, I’ll grab the little black box of tricks and go and take photos of whatever it is that is attracting my attention. It could mean something that can only be understood through taking action on it.

Below is a Conti Pencil drawing that I did using my memory, a self portrait, sketched in a few minutes.

There was scrap of paper at hand, and the urge to sketch myself felt important. Instead of analysing, and thinking deeply about why, I just went ahead and started drawing quickly.

I also told myself, don’t correct, don’t stop, just keep sketching and trust that something wants to come out onto the paper. It worked.

The same feelings can dictate the need to express ideas that most people only ‘get out’ while in a therapists room. A painting of a man screaming his lungs out with fear and angst.

It was painted sketchy, the idea being more important than the careful deliberation of an idea. It was all about getting a feeling out and onto the canvas. A gut feeling.

Getting feelings out onto canvas, or capturing a feeling through the lens, is all a bit of a discussion.

I’m definitely suspicious of painters who claim to capture the psychology of a person with a paint brush — a bit of cod-psychology, and pseudo intellectual posturing, and you’ve got that good ol’ “bullshit baffles the brains” going on in a conversation.

Four o’clock in the morning, a bar full of art students, “but what is art?”

“Well, allow me to explain…”

Beer is poured, wine is gulped.

“But I don’t agree…listen to my ideas.”

“Well…”

It’s nine o’clock in morning and the barman wants these arguing lunatics out of his bar.

I’m all about the symbol that appears in a painting; often unplanned, even not noticed at first, but later little combinations and passages that seemed to have come through unconsciously but weren’t, at first, apparent in the work.

Everything is an experiment in creative endeavours. Nothing is academically planned and executed like a machine stamping out impressions of our minds.

Art and creativity, in all its forms and mediums, is an attempt at understanding the world around ourselves, and having some fun along the way — it’s not all long faces and depressive thoughts.

Above, a Madrid exhibition of some of my work.

The idea behind the painting comes from a Berlin bar that I enjoyed visiting often, back in those days. The bar, “Wild at Heart”, which was strongly connected with the Kit-Kat-Klub in Berlin, turned me on immensely. The people in the painting hardly do justice to the real characters in the bar. So it’s just a small taste of how that wild, and decadent place used to be.

Below are a few of my photos that reflect small moments throughout the day.

A quick photo of a friend. Interesting for me because he is a busy man, a person who is always in action, and gives the impression of never stopping too long to think about things — that’s his way, get on and do it.

Here, he’s stopped and thinking, something caught his attention enough to ponder an idea.

The shot is close, and that helps to lend it a feeling of intimacy. Black and white allows the image to express its essential qualities, and avoids distractions.

Cats surround us. They are fascinating, and demanding. They want attention, but only in a way that suits them.

Balthy Boy and Miss Dickens have been a couple for many years.

They say cats “get married”, if that’s true, then these two had a cat’s wedding ceremony, probably held in secret, and away from the humans.

Their daily lives together show a typical marriage situation. Sometimes they’re all cuddles and snoozing together, other days, they’ll give each other a little nod and a couple of friendly cat winks, and avoid each other.

Cats communicate in silence, all body language, I’m sure they argue in silence too. Good for the neighbours downstairs — two big fluffy Persians who also appear to have ‘jumped the broom’ together.

This last sketch, below, is just an example of how creativity can catch you unawares.

Those moments when you just have to draw something, or take a photo. I was walking through the tunnels and walk ways of Madrid’s massive underground complex at Nuevos Ministerios. As I went, I passed buskers, bad electric guitar players, and then this guy.

He sat on a small folded fishing stool, an old and battered guitar across his knee, and he played and sung like a professional Blues Player. He stopped me in my tracks.

I had a scrap of paper, a BIC Biro pen, and so I scribbled a quick impression of him.

It’s at times like these that you wish that pen and paper could record music.

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