It’s all a matter of perception… isn’t it? (Part 1)
Have you ever been writing a book, only to discover that another person has written a book with the same, or very similar, title? It’s a tad disconcerting. It’s now happened to me twice. It’s a scary moment as you race to find out the ‘blurb’ only to discover that said same or similar titled book is nothing like the one you’re writing (Phew!)
It all seems to be a matter of perception – all of our creative pursuits are, aren’t they? Given the same title for a story, book, poem, we will all come up with something different, because we all look at life through our own stained glass window. I find this idea so reassuring, that everything we do creatively will be original, inspired by individual thoughts, memories, and carrying our own stamp.
This occurred to me again recently on a sketching trip out with twitter friend Angie Shawcroft
@AngieShawcroft. It’s probably a good time to mention here that I have met some flipping ace people on twitter that I now get up to all sorts of shinanigans with, which is really fab! Anyway, we went off to Chatsworth, Derbyshire, with our ‘equipment’. Well, that was interesting for a start off – Angie had a pad, pen, pencil and water brush (fab thing that contains water and you can use over certain type of pencils.) I had a rucksack full of stuff – sketchpad, a whole tin of Inktense pencils, another tin of lead pencils, sharpener and rubber, plus notebook and pen for some wordy stuff – knowing that at some point during the visit I would have to put something into words… oh, and two apples!!! Mostly, I concentrated on the drawing, but I also wrote the beginning of a scene for my current novel, and jotted down the idea for this blog post!
So, me and Angie drew the same area of trees, but with very different results, as you will see. I’m a bit weird with even numbers – I don’t like them as a rule so I decided to include five trees. I also have very definite pencil lines – I draw, I suppose, rather than sketch. And, I am a sucker for colour. Whatever I do tends to look a bit abstract, I think, and normally involves lots of blending of colours. I suppose this is the style I’ve developed, but without consciously intending to.
Angie, who is an illustrator and graphic artist, took a different approach, again reflecting
her style. She chose four trees, the trees to the left of the scene, and left her work unfinished in places. The lines are soft and gentle, it’s very light and airy and she used minimal amounts of colour. We both used the water brush though… but that’s where the similarity ends. Angie used a pen to define her lines. As you can see, the pics are quite different. In our mind’s eye are we seeing the scene differently then? Or is it a matter of style? Actually, I think it’s a combination of both.
I’m fairly sure that if we had chosen to write about the same scene, we would have come up with something completely different to one another too! In fact, I think I’ve got the bug with this one… so, part two of this post will appear next week – with a writing theme and involving another twitter buddy. He doesn’t know this yet – I’ll surprise him!
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