All artists and creative folk eventually come face-to-face with the nightmarish scenario of a blank page and no thoughts to fill it with. A solution to this lack of timely inspiration, that I came up with many years ago, is the geometric analysis doodle. Basically, you just look around, and start drawing everything you see in the room you're in. Electrical wires, lamps, dressers, stereo components...anything will do. Just get yourself drawing, and feel the pen on the page. The trick to this stream of conscious doodling, is to reduce everything down to it's basic forms, patterns, and shapes. Try to keep most of your lines straight, using only the occasional curve. It turns out to be a bit of a lesson in industrial design. With layering different shapes on top of each other, you add depth and visual interest, and produce some intriguing results.

I always thought some of these doodles would make a cool painting, transferring them over from line art, to colour fills. Though painting flat colours in hard-edged shapes, is a far-cry from something I would list as fun for me, after years of procrastination, I finally sat down and painted one.

One of the things I've been trying to pay more attention to, is how colour sets the mood for things. I mean, reds and blues are obvious, but what about all the subtle colours and shades and pastels in between. The more you think about mood within the composition, the more it becomes a whole image and not just a series of things put together.

I've also been experimenting with how texture can contribute to the feel of a piece and add some interest to it. Especially with digital colour, having something other than flat shades can spice things up but texture can go even further. Misting, grit, pattern...anything can be useful in setting the atmosphere. My current favourite is controlled speckling!

Here's a new watercolour city sketch from not long ago.Watercolour is something I wish I would squeeze more time in for with sketching and painting. It always seems to be the odd man out, falling between large paintings on canvas and sketching in ink brush. It's always a great way to keep a work spontaneous, whatever the project is. I find it to be one of those rare mediums that is able to tell you itself, when the painting is finished and you can put the brush down and relax. Not to mention watercolour is great to throw on some sketches to give them life, and can go with you wherever you go.