NOT THE TURNER PRIZE

(I've desaturated the above Guardian newspaper colour photo of Richard Wright's Turner Prizewinning gold-leaf mural, thus revealing only its black pattern.) 

You've seen Rorschach ink blots haven't you? Some of you will have tried spattering black ink on a sheet of paper by flicking a brush, folding the paper in half, carefully smoothing it down and then opening it to reveal...taraaaa! A map of your unconscious? A Turner prizewinning work?

Here is a little demonstration of how you could create your own Turner prizework in approximately fifteen minutes, or less if you leave out making Photoshopped versions. Adding drops of water and oil to your ink spattering  can add more textures. Transferring your masterpiece to a wall, cupboard, curtain or tee-shirt and applying gold leaf to it will take a bit longer but is perfectly feasible. 

 
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MORE LUCID DOODLING

The felt pens encourage spontaneity and a nicely flowing line. Very enjoyable. The washable felts made for kids are no good. They dry up after about five minutes of heavy use, but the permanent markers are fine as long as you can stand the smell. Here are some more of my recent fishing expeditions in the stream of consciousness.

I've also added more bookworks so please go and click on the links you haven't seen before in the blue and red sidebars here .

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WHERE DO IMAGES COME FROM?

You're looking at a blank sheet of paper with no thought in mind, no desire to draw anything you see or anything you remember, and then you pick up a pen and start drawing. Lines and shapes emerge as your hand moves across the paper and pretty soon there is an image: something that didn't exist before, something that you didn't plan or intend and perhaps don't even understand. What's that all about? Is it like dreaming? Is it lucid dreaming? Lucid doodling?

Whatever you call it, isn't it wonderful and amazing that there really is another way of thinking which is not thinking at all but a kind of blanking? A sort of meditation which squeezes pictures out of you like toothpaste from a tube?

I've been drawing like that recently with felt pens on A3 sheets of paper. Here are two of them. The only digital alterations I've done are to add a black background to the bird of paradise drawing; the original is on white.

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