In the initial stages of creating a series of images with a narrative I’ve found the simplest way to generate ideas is brainstorming. Get a pen, a pad and a timer. The reason I use a timer is firstly it gives a structure to the session and also kinda forbids you to give up before the time is done. I set it usually for about 5 minutes, which even though doesn’t seem a great deal of time, it is when there’s a blank piece of paper in front of you. Try it!

Having looked at definitions I posted in the last blog post I had some ideas of where I wanted to go, and the symbols chosen are ones I’ve used before. It’s useful to just allow thoughts and images to come, think about the seasons, maybe about inside or out, costume/wardrobe , flights of fancy ‘if I could do anything what would I do?’ - This stream of thinking can be sifted through later as you galvanise the idea, so welcome surprises.

The words I wrote were ;

empty chair,dark clothing, feathers falling, mist, sea, lake,statue, memories, hands,distance, empty,loss,yearning,empty bed, dandelion pappus ( the floaty crown of a dandelion), dancing with nobody, joy in memory, younger days, childish things,longing,ache,reaching,stretching.

I’ll then live with these words for a while and see what images they create and add to them if I feel I want to.

The one thing which was a ‘surprise’ to me in this brainstorming session was the idea of ‘childish things’ and so spent a deal of time dreaming on what childish things I used to like. Eventually I settled on sci-fi. Quite a boyish nerdy like which I have carried with me into adulthood. So armed with this I imagined a time traveler spaceman revisiting memories in real time to find the people within those memories had gone and came up with the working title ‘Starman’.

In the next post I’ll share some of the sketches I created based on this idea.

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Starman - Stage One