Scrapbooks Galore

I have kept art, craft and design scrapbooks for as long as I have been doodling with a pen and dabbling with a paintbrush. To my mind they are indispensible and provide me with hours of enjoyment and inspiration at a time when inspiration is thin on the ground. We all have times like that I'm sure. Writers suffer writers' block and artists have to cope with artless blocks. Do writers check out other authors' works: I am not sure? Artists certainly do.

My scrapbooks contain a combination of my own sketches and doodles and pictures of everything under the sun that appeals to me whether it be artwork, crafts, pretty frocks, beautiful landscapes or just a model with a profile to die for or the position of a pair of hands that I might want to graft onto one of my pictures. I have no ability to draw hands and feet.

I get some great magazines cheaply from local libraries where they sell off the out of date stock, charity shops or local car boot sales. I spend many happy hours doing my next favourite thing to drawing and that is cutting things out. I have been an expert "cutter outer" since childhood. It has a wonderfully soothing, soporific effect on me. I have boxes full of cuttings yet to be pasted into scrapbooks.

I only ever use these pictures for inspiration and not for copying because I prefer to produce my own ideas and art but sometimes a pattern or a combination of colours will catch my eye and sometimes lead to a whole new series of artworks. I have even been known to buy books cheaply from charity shops and creatively recycle the pictures, and recycling is what we are all supposed to be doing these days, isn't it?