A few weeks ago I started a new practice of spending a few minutes each morning producing a quick piece of artwork.
Without really thinking about what I was doing I grabbed a small sketchpad and in ink pen and starting doodling little bugs, eventually covering the page with an assortment of bugs all slightly different sizes, with different leg lengths and scurrying in different directions.
The next day, faced with another blank sheet of paper, I found that it was little people, in various poses that flowed from my pen. After posting these on my Bluesky social media account and asking which of the little people was a viewer’s favourite it was fun to see the various comments coming in.
It was hard to follow the little people, and on the third day I went marine with a host of (sort of) jellyfish.
For the fourth day, having done a few trial sketches, I set about drawing small blackbirds. It was amusing to have it pointed out later that one of these was legless…
Finally, with my imagination failing me I completed my Miniature Creatures series with a page of amoeba (or is it amoebas?). Well, I call them amoeba, but really they are just weirdly-shaped black blobs with a white spot somewhere inside their ‘body’. Whatever they are, they look kind of alive…
It was interesting to produce some artwork that is quite unlike most of my drawings and paintings, much more abstract and in the case of the bugs, people and birds at least, a little cartoony. They are quite trivial pieces, but fun to do and judging by some of the feedback I got, fun to look at too!
Tim O'Hare 