Scattered mind is the name of my latest project. It’s a VR art experience which explores the workings of the creative mind. I’m currently looking for funding to finish this project that was started as part of my artists residency at Fusebox in Brighton.
I’m particularly interested in how nature can offer a refuge to creative people, in particular those with neurodiverse conditions such as ADHD & Autism as well as mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.
You enter into a spooky woodland, birds singing and mist falling. The trees are part human. Metamorphosis is also something of interest to me – the connection between us and the natural world. How plants and animals communicate with us – if only we could learn to listen. Scattered Mind encourages us to do so.
You head towards a giant tree, full of gargoyles and sculptures. Along the way you can throw seed bombs that will allow more flowers to grow in the woodland. Enter the tree and look up to see a staircase that takes you up inside the tree.
Within each of the branches is a new world to explore. These include the Classroom of Misfits. A classroom that teaches you lessons about acceptance, bullying and exclusion.
In here you can read a book about the witches who were persecuted and killed in Scotland during the witch hunts. Just for being different. You can throw chairs and paper balls at the teacher or just sit and listen to the wisdom on offer.
There are many other worlds to visit, icluding the Museum of Unfinished Projects, The Opium Den of Distraction – complete with is own Come Down Slide and many others.
It’s a hot debate, as a designer, is it important to have drawing skills? I mean, you don’t need to draw anymore really? Surely computers can do it all for you now, download a few images, treat them with filters, composite them together in Adobe Photoshop – Bob’s yer uncle (as we say in the UK!)
But drawing is not only a process used to create finished aesthetic imagery to include in a finished design, it’s much more than that. It’s a learning process that is an important stage in the development of a confident visual language. When you draw something you learn to see with a different, more focused awareness. You start to question why things appear in a certain way, as a result you can understand how things are constructed, how light interacts with surfaces and how colors affect each other. Things that may not occur to you by just simply looking at an object. you need to truly understand these things to make your drawings work. Even if you don’t like your finished drawings, that really doesn’t matter, it’s the process of losing yourself in the craft of drawing that matters.
And it’s never too late to learn, in the Drawing chapter of my book, Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist I talk about my mother who didn’t start drawing till she was in her 70’s. It has made a huge difference to her life and now she can draw and paint like she would never have thought. You can check out excerpts from this chapter using Amazon’s “Search Inside” feature now. The chapter also contains some of the exercises that helped me learn to draw during my time at Art College. There’s also a resources section on this website that contains some tips, tricks and links to useful tutorials, websites and a complete reading list.
Drawing Exercise from Design Essentials book - draw 6 circular objects with the same drawing implement achieving different textures for each
Writing this book inspired me to include more about drawing in my software tutorial too. I recently recorded a new video training workshop for video2brain on Animation Character Design in Adobe Illustrator which will be available soon. In this tutorial I showed that you don’t need to limit yourself to using traditional drawing materials. In one of the tutorials I show how to create body shapes from primitive shapes and then use Illustrators fabulous drawing tools to sculpt these into more organic shapes, it’s an addictive and very creative process.
So, I hope that you’ll give drawing a chance, pick up whichever implement inspires you to make marks and get sketching! don’t worry about the outcome, just enjoy the process!
