Scumble World…

On the wardrobe above my bed, directly above where I lay my head each night, is a painted panel. I scumble painted it years ago, building up layer on layer of alternate gold and cream paint in a random way to make an understated pattern. I don’t really know why I did this, after all nobody really sees it. It his hidden out of sight until someone lays on the bed, an invisible detail, just another of my whims.

Over those years, on many a sleepless night, I’ve looked at that panel long and hard and I realise that when I painted that panel I created another world, one that I have got to know quite well, one that nobody else knows, one that is completely personal to me alone. I may have told you that I see pictures everywhere – drawn in the sand, positioned in the branches and leaves of trees, in the clouds, even in the shadows that pass over my moonlit wall. Pictures are everywhere for me. I can’t escape them and I don’t really want to and hidden in my scumbling are pictures.

There’s a whole world in there. The Scumble World.

Over the next few weeks I’ve decided to share my scumble panel picture and the world within it with anyone that’s interested. I thought it would be interesting to see it developing, my thought processes, how it changes. Maybe I’ll even let you know what is going on, tell you who this and that character is, let you know their stories.

I don’t know how long it is going to take – it will take what it takes, but I’ve made a start. I’m not inventing, I’m merely emphasising what is already there, letting that locked-in world come out into the open.

Look carefully in the bottom right hand corner, Scumble World is just beginning to emerge.