My childhood art, Reminiscing:

[Bullet Magnet]

Last night, on my own, bar a sick Grandchild sent to me to look after for the night.
I found a huge old folder tucked away in a wardrobe in the spare room.
It turns out that it contains my old artwork from when I was a kid, up to about 17 years of age...
Quite a varied mixture of medium, Pencil HB, and dark pencil 4B, water colour, magic markers and thick poster pains, as well as detailed drawings using Rotring pens.

So, as I sort through these pictures from my past, remembering bringing images out of my head and putting them onto paper, that were no doubt inspired as I sat at home in my mums cottage by the river listening to a varied selection of music, drawing and paining in the cold dark evenings in the back room on my own with the fire as my only source of light..

I realise that some of the pictures that may have just been "random" images, actually contain some truth..
its also nice to be able to reflect upon ones abilities back then.. Maybe these abilities will be resurrected in my older years... ?

I also remembered one More truth:
All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Pablo Picasso

Anyway, what am I listening to ?
Amongst other tracks, This

phpBB [video]

While listening to this, my 8 year old Grandson, who is now fully recovered, said. "So, is this song about Australia Grandad" ?

ME: "No, it isn't ! let me explain"....

[Dusak]

I was quite good in my school years at drawing, but seen to have lost it now, although I am still creative with my hands. I design in my head, retain it, make alterations then build it. Keeps the mind active. I remember when I was a kid of school age up to about ten I couldn't stop drawing trees in fine and minute detail, spending hours on one tree, usually complete with owl roosting in a hole in the trunk.

[Bullet Magnet]

Tree's and Fungi were my favourite Nature subjects as well Dusak..
I would cunningly hide nude women in the drawn structure or bark of the tree...

I can still draw, but rarely do these days, I always gave my pictures away to people if they liked them, and once did a copy of Salvador Dali's
"Christ of st John of the cross" for my mother's friend, who is now an arch deaconess or some high ranking church official..
A very talented lady, educated in Switzerland, multi lingual, and a nice lady. I never kept in touch with her after my Mum died though..
Funnily enough, she was the one I witnessed "speaking in tongues" with my mother one evening..

I was going to be a Graphic designer, but using my talents to sell stuff to mugs who didnt know they needed the stuff until they saw my advert was not my thing.. Sell my Soul to the Devil... ?? Nahhhh .. We converse from a safe distance and occasionally dance together when needs must...

[dsaxelby]

I loved drawing, being able to put on paper what I could see but I could never apply paint! watercolour is even worse, every so many years I do try again... to no avail

I have a beautiful abstract painting, (not usually my taste) and on close observation a child could have done it, but from a distance it feels alive.... strange but still inspirational.

[Bullet Magnet]

Everyone has a different Style, so its about letting your own style come out in the pictures you create..
I never did any water colour paintings, but would use water colour to create sky's and fields, mixed with other media, like pen, pencil and thick poster paints.

I find it therapeutic, even if i just doodle a sketch with a ball point pen.

I have idea's for pictures, infact one abstract picture came to mind last night, a blue ball at the top top, with a spiral coming from it, going down to a red ball, the spiral will have the colours going from blue, through the spectrum to the red ball at the bottom

[Bullet Magnet]

30 years later, in Amsterdam, and this song is STILL great, and a superb performance by Dave Paich ( lead singer and keyboard player ) and company. TOTO !!! He gained a lot of weight very quickly, and so his voice changed somewhat..

A great Bass riff too, just after the original part of the song ends.. leading into some cool effects on the electric Guitar..

Another song that isn't what it first appears to be about... More "Spiritual"...

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I like looking back to the great and good parts of my past..... On occasion.

[Lisak]

I love both of those songs. They make me smile.
Wish I could draw or paint, but can do neither, art is not my forte.

[Bullet Magnet]

Art can be expressed in many ways, Artistic licence they call it.
Just look at Picasso or LS Lowry's paintings, almost child like in their appearance.

But then, as a child, I loved Spirograph, and spent many a happy hour creating with that..
Dead easy to do, and mixing pen colours produced wonderful results..
Not mine, just some examples of Spirograph.. Google Spirograph images...

[LovelyLadyLux]

I remember Spirograph and spending hours making mega designs with all the different coloured pens it came with. Was quite fascinated by it.

I was never good with it in that I never created anything close to a masterpiece but do you remember the "Etch-a-Sketch?" That red box with knobs where you could take off one line at a time from underneath a screen to make your picture? Haven't seen on in years but I had one of those and can remember sitting for quite long times making my name and/or trying to make a picture.

[Bullet Magnet]

I never got into Etch A Sketch, but my little sister loved it...

http://www.megafungames.com/games/etch_a_sketch/aff.php

not quite the same as twiddling the knobs, but close enough...

[Dusak]

I used to do a similar thing to Spirograph, don't know if it had a name, but it entailed knocking a load of panel pins randomly into a square piece of wood then creating spirographical patters with coloured wool, cottons or silk threads. You mention fungi BM That's another thing that took up a lot of my pre-teen times, The Observers Book of Common Fungi, plus nearly all the others they published at five shillings each. Those were the days. Another thing my mother taught me to pass away the hours. Again I can't remember the name, but it involved knocking four pins into the end of a wooden cotton bobbin and weaving wool around them, pulling the created tube through the bottom of the bobbin. I must of made miles of the stuff, them my mother would create other items by stitching my tubes together, like toilet roll covers.

[dsaxelby]

They still sell them D usually coloured plastic now (if I see one will bring it for you lol..) you could spend your latter years making friendship bracelets or keyring holders suspect you will always be productive

[carrie]

Oh goodness D that brings back memories, I used to have one and made miles and miles of the "tubes" then I would sew them together to make a spiral and present my Mum with yet another place mat, we had them under photo frames, under anywhere they would fit, all garish colours. Thinking back my mother must have dreaded being presented with yet another one of my gifts.

[LovelyLadyLux]

I had one of those too - an empty wooden spool of thread with nails in top. As you say 'miles' of tube stuff. If memory serves we called it tatting (but I know that real tatting is something else akin to crochet that isn't really done anymore cause it takes hours and is super intricate). I know I produced placemats, doily's and all manner of household decorations.

I had no idea these were still being sold today in plastic form.

I was also forced to learn embroidery. Each and every pillowcase we owned had a duck or a dog or flowers or something embroidered on it as did all our hankies. I then progressed to crewel embroidery and chair covers, pillows and hanging pictures for the wall.

[Bullet Magnet]

Yes, my little sister did all that, and finger knitting..

I made Tank's ( as I called them ) out of cotton Bobbins.

You need a cotton bobbin, half an inch of a candle, an elastic band, a used match, a drawing pin and a knife.

Put the drawing pin in one end of the bobbin, hook an elastic band around the drawing pin, push the elastic band through the hole in the cotton bobbin to the other end.
The half inch of candle needs the wick extracting, now push the elastic band through the hole in the candle and out the other side of the candle, then put the matchstick through the loop in the elastic band to secure the elastic band. thus holding the candle to the other side of the bobbin.

Now what you have, is a cotton bobbin with a piece of candle at one end with the matchstick protruding. use the matchstick to wind up the elastic band, and the matchstick starts to dig into the candle as the elastic band tightens.
Now put the tank on the floor, and the candle helps slow down how fast the matchstick unwinds, the matchstick touches the floor and creates enough pressure to propel the whole thing slowly forward...
Use the knife to cut out Teeth in the edges of the cotton bobbin for extra grip..

I found a video of some tanks in action. This posh bugger used cocktail sticks though....

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[Dusak]

We used to play miniature darts as well. Wrap a wide piece of knicker elastic over one hole of the bobbin, then place a pin to the end of a used match stick, wrap cotton around it to secure it, dip it in glue to set the cotton then fire them at the target. My target was usually my sisters backside. Oh happy days, who needed an X-box. Another trick I did was to place a stink bomb under the toilet seat as in those days they came in small glass ''tear drops'' that easily broke under pressure.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Remember all the creations made out of popsicle sticks? I got real good at making boxes with lids and always seemed to like gluing a pine cone on top of the lid as the final piece of flair.

[carrie]

Who watched Blue Peter and nagged their mother's to get sticky back plastic.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Remember playing "Crokino?" Hexagonal wooden board about 1m across with a centre hole that you shot your wooden disc at with your fingers trying to get your disc in the exact middle while knocking out other players discs? Was a weekend staple at our house but I haven't even seen one of these games in years and years.

[Dusak]

As a kid I used to spend countless hours searching for and picking up spent matchsticks to build my fort. Having retrieved a mountainous heap of these smelly throw away's, suddenly discovered that you could actually buy them brand new. I made my own catapult gun and defied scientific logic by shooting myself in the nose while firing it forwards.