Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak
John Berger

John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ is one of those books that a creative should have on their book shelf. Berger explains that seeing helps us establish our place in the world. Then we go on to explain that world with words and images. As artists and writers it is good practice to take the time to see the everyday things that often go unnoticed.

The work of Christoph Nieman is just one example of using everyday items to create drawings. I remember I used to get children to trace their hands and then draw characters on the top of each finger. They loved to create quite distinct gangs and then write stories about their good or bad deeds. Invariably they created complex language and, perhaps most importantly, had fun.

The work of Brock Davis is intriguing and Ecuadorian artist Javier Perez is another imaginative artist who combines everyday objects with simple illustrations to create a series of imaginative and unexpected composite drawings.

Amber Wheeler took simple photos of her baby son dressed in white on a white background and drew in designs with a basic computer illustration program. They put her baby boy everywhere from the open road or a hot air balloon to the final frontier of space. Portuguese artist Victor Nunes creates amusing and playful drawings using just a black pen and bits of everyday objects. Scissors become a bicycle, lettuce turns into a dress and pop corn transforms into an elephant’s head – nothing is impossible with a wild imagination.

Personally I adore the playful work of French artist Gilbert Legrand. With a creative eye, the casual observer can espy characters or faces in the everyday objects all around us. Legrand takes paints and modifyies totally mundane objects turning them into cute characters and giving them new life.