Visual Journal

Every morning when I wake up, I would just wake up but not get up from bed. I'd just lay there for awhile and imagine while my mind's still fresh from dreaming. I'd take the time first to recall any dreams as I can, and then sort of fall back to sleep somewhat this way to semi-lucid dream what I want to imagine next. Sometimes this fails and I fall back to sleep again, but when it works, it gets me back to seeing things visually again like the way it was back in childhood. Eventually you get excited enough to get up from bed to draw it all down.

Usually I have a topic/theme (i.e birdmen, snailiens are the most frequent themes for me) that I want to imagine the night before just so I don't waste time thinking of what to imagine. The more time you think in words, the more awake you become, and the harder it is to get back to that dreaming state of mind which thinks in moving-pictures. This isn't always art-related as sometimes I use this time to find solutions to current problems or find answers to something philosophical in nature, etc.

This activity also helps to get back into daydreaming as well which is where this drawing comes from. Daydreaming is something that I haven't done in a long time since I was a kid and something that I had problems getting back until now. They're coming back slowly in brief glimpses, a little flash of insight showing me some creature's skin with all of the textures, or just the colours, or even the way it moves. I reckon it's just a matter of time before this develops into a waking dream.

The above is not the greatest drawing ever but it's something I had to jot down quickly onto paper before I forget. They are perhaps... working ideas to be worked on later. And as per usual in my case, later means never. But at least it's all there!

Anyhoo, it all happened during a funeral at church. I couldn't hear a damn word the priest was saying so what's there to do? Daydream? Yeah, kinda. I kept staring at random props at the altar, at the statues of angels, all the way up to the stained glass images (which is where the ant thing comes from), to the candles flickering nearby, until something sets me off to lalaland.

That weird turkey bodied, shakespear'ish looking head figure drawn above was from staring at the way the sunlight was reflecting off the pew. The colour of the pew, the texture of the wood with its wavy lines all helped to form that image. I really didn't do it justice though, but it amused me with its bastardised shakespearean monologue. If the priest was speaking in latin, then perhaps that is where that monologue was coming from. Perhaps at a subconscious level I was hearing it. After awhile the silence was getting to me and tired me out, so I stopped daydreaming to recollect what those visuals I had were about, just like recalling a dream. I numbered them and memorised them as best as I can with the details to draw them later on.

Annnnd, there you go~