"restless legs"

I have just have just finished some little exploratory drawings for a little book "jumpy legs 2" to share with you. It is about my own restless legs, a subject very dear to my heart. 

I started doing small drawings on flights when my legs became unbearable. After my other books "jumpy legs" and "double sided" several years ago, I continue to use drawing as one way to take my mind to a better place not only on planes. I usually finish these little portable drawings back in the studio.
For my legs, I started making a new little folded book which moved when you opened it but decided I wanted a more involuntary type of movement for this one.
"jumpy legs 2"  only has 6 pages which are loose and pinned to a wall from a little hole in the top centre. This allows a little cluster of pages to move gently in the breeze or aided by a fan. They are housed in a little A5 folder.

 They appear to move by themselves. The images are rather "meaty" and organic, not very leggy. But the affliction feels totally like an out of body function, and largely uncontrollable so these mutant limbs seem appropriate. They must belong to someone else.

[I think they look a bit like clothed, green ginger, put together by instructions from Simplicity or Butterick.]

restless legs

cover of the tiny drawing book

I'm sure there are literally hundreds of different reasons why we draw or create stuff but this was a first for me. 

For some as yet unexplained reason my restless leg syndrome has become more active than ever before and has now also become a problem when sitting in confined spaces like the movies, theatre or flying in a plane. 

On our last journey to Vietnam I took with me small handmade books for drawing in on the aircraft. I got a window seat and when my legs got restless, I started drawing and the concentration required delayed the onset of this uncomfortable affliction for as long as I could draw. I started making drawings of the details of joins, rivets and markings on the aircraft wing with the idea of working back into the initial drawings later. I thought it might be interesting to share some of the drawings which I have now completed at home. They have absorbed other home activities and influences but all started in the plane.

As you can see they are quite different to other drawings I have done and are much more design based. I have a few more in progress and can add them if viewers are interested (particularly other restless leg patients) 

I actually twigged the drawing might work because that's what I do at home . When my legs play up when I try to relax watching television, I take off to my studio and draw which pushes the restless legs into the background. Strangely, working on the computer doesn't work the same way. There must be a brain function connection there somewhere which the drawing uses but other thinking activities don't.
When I finish some more of the drawings started on the plane, I might try to explain how the drawings were finished at home using other mixed media.