I lost a lot of passion for doing art when I was younger, it was something I was so proud of, how hard I had worked to build up my skills and sell my work so young in life. I loved the sketches of da Vinci and ink line work I was discovering at the time, but was only just moving in to colour when life took hold and reality struck like a thief in the night. I no longer had the time to pursue my passions and life required me to put away childish things and work hard to earn the money we needed to survive.
During this my love for art never ceased, it only grew stronger. I have always loved art and the list of artists I admired became longer and longer, knowing I would almost never find the time in what was my current state of life, I enjoyed looking at the art of others, but felt so pulled to join them.
Finally, after a long and trying road to change my situation for the better I was now able to spend the time I so desperately longed for on the art I had locked away 15 years ago.
After some encouragement from my wife, who a year previous, had also started art again after many years away, this was the first piece I created, I didn't know where I was going with it, or where to start. I spent a time just staring at the paper in front of me, it longed to be used, however I was lost in thought and memory, trying desperately to clutch some kind of remanence of an idea to begin something!! anything!
So I took a long walk through our land to clear my mind and find some inspiration, the thistles were all in full bloom and were beautiful in full purple splendour. Immediately I went inside our old stone home and took my pencil to the blank sheet of paper. I drew the top thistle first and moved down the plant, letting the flow of art take me where it wanted to grow. A fairy appeared in the thistle half way down, still using pencil at this stage I continued to deliver the art that wished to be seen.
Once the pencil drawing was complete, I thought I was done, but different plans took hold and I decided to add colour. I used water colour to give the image life, going over my pencil drawing in tones and colours created on a small plate next to the art I was working on. There were some challenging areas, the skin tone for the fairy and the colour for the thistle heads were both difficult to get right, but I did my best with them and I am pleased with how they turned out.
Here are the images from my first art for 15 years, I hope you enjoy them and have enjoyed the little back story.
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