Let's go back in time a bit.
A triple of decades ( more than a couple )
plus...
Somewhat inspired by @calendulacraft , who tends to share her notebooks/creative diaries/journals, every now and then, as well as by @clareartista ( who has done so in the past ), I felt like going back to sharing what must be is the oldest sketchbook that I still possess.
It is also tiny ( my hands are twice as big ).
I think I made the following three pictures before I could even write.
As a young boy, I was obsessed by knights and castles and by heroes/ rebels like Wilhelm Tell, Robin Hood, Ivanhoe and men who slayed dragons and giants. I also loved to put myself in the shoes of adventurous/courageous kids, like the boys in what used to be my favorite movie: The Neverending Story (1984).
Now let's move on to my drawings...
This first picture looks like two little ducks in armor. I might have been reading Donald Duck, back then.
This second one clearly depicts a royal family. I must have drawn this back when I still thought Kings and Queens and princes and princesses were cool and powerful.
And here's a knight with a horse on a leash.
Unfortunately, there's no date written down here, but knowing that I am from late 1981 and noticing that I can barely draw here, I must have been around 5 years young. So the drawing(s) might be from 1986 perhaps '87.
Pretty ancient, if you ask me.
Now let me follow this up with a little bit of an exercise...
Slowly bend your head to the right and rest it on your right shoulder.
If you can't,
feel free to turn the screen ( if you're watching this on a smaller device than a laptop/desktop computer ).
These last two pictures were made in June 1991, when I was 9 and a half years old.
They show
a knight defending a castle...
...and a dragon ('draak' in Dutch )
Interesting enough, this is pretty much where this notebook stops, aside from some uninteresting stuff.
90% of the pages are empty.
It also intrigues me that there's about 5 years of a gap in between the first three and the last two drawings (that I shared with you).
I do know that I drew almost daily, as a kid. So it's not that I stopped drawing.
I have had so many notebooks and drew on so many sheets of paper or whatever I could get my creative hands on.
It's just that I decided not to keep most of my old stuff, as it's all just stuff and I have been moving house so much that I prefer a more minimalist approach to living.
So, aside from having kept some notebooks with little stories and illustrations from the late 1980s to about 1993 ( the end of primary school ) and this notebook, I don't have any childhood drawings left.
I hope that you enjoyed getting a bit of insight into my childhood creative process.
It sure put a smile on my face.
Sending a creative hug!✨
The Monster of Disco
formerly known as Hypersensitivosaurus