Drawing as thinking

I’ve loved drawing since I was very young and I can spend hours playing with ink or doodling in the corner of a page. I’m quite a tactile person in that I like making things with my hands - for my art undergraduate course I spent a lot of time playing with papier mache and glue! When my hands are busy, my head quietens down a lot and it feels like it’s my hands that are doing the thinking instead. Sometimes I draw shapes and patterns and people and scenes that are already in my head, but mostly I play around until something quite different or surprising or unusual appears on the page.

I always turn to drawing when I’m looking for a new idea or when I’m stuck with a knotty problem or I’m trying to visualise a character and their world, and it often throws up new ideas which take root in my head and change the tone or plot of a story. Some images are carried in my head all the way through a story and remind me what I want it to be about, whilst others might be a starting point that slowly disappears as the story unwinds.

Recently I found lots of old drawings that are still really relevant to my current writing project. I’m still as intrigued and interested by trees as I ever was!

Drawing is my way of thinking. Do you draw too? Does it help you create new worlds and stories?