"Take your time to walk, observe, ponder and wonder" - meet Lee FullARTon and her latest creation

What are your most vivid childhood memories of books?

 We didn’t have a lot of books in our home when I was little, but my Mum and Dad were natural great storytellers. Mum always had a yarn to convey about our big extended family and oversaw the family telegraph line and my dad loved Aesop’s Fables which he could retell with great animation.

 On a hot Queensland summer night, we would lay on a blanket in the yard and Dad would start his magical storytelling, I can hear his voice now as he dramatised each character and I can see his expressive hands move to tell the story and recall his cigarette leaving streams of red storylines in the dark.

 Eventually he would cheekily pinch us and say the mozzies are coming we better go inside, and I would say just one more story please Dad.

 What did you want to be when you were ten?

From the time I was five I recall most passionately that I wanted to be an artist and have never wavered from living that dream. In that year when I was five, I had my photo taken with an artist at Stradbroke Island, peeping over her shoulder, staying as still as I could, I watched her apply the paint for a long time. I always imagined and wanted to be her when I grew up.  That day is a vivid childhood memory, I still love to look at a photo my sister took of that moment and wonder about that five-year-old girl.

 Did you write stories when you were a child?

Yes! but for me the pictures came first, then the drawings were the catalyst for words.

My favourite story that I wrote that Mum kept in a special box for a lifetime, that I still have today is an imaginary story of going to Disneyland with my family!

 Tell us about your writing process?

My writing process is connected to my arts practice, and they go hand in hand. Drawings and paintings from my art journals, that I keep of my travel adventures, plain air works, places and people are the foundation of creating images and stories. I art play, experiment and scrawl on paper with the ideas, words and imagery, for some time and only then can I get serious and pen and plan it more formally.

 How do you dream up new ideas?

Creativity comes to me in all sorts of ways, but like Mr Chippa I like to walk every day. I head to the bush with my dogs Harry and Roo and be in nature and the elements. It is during the freedom of walking that ideas sparkle, and I have time to ponder them. When I return home, I must quickly pen notes on paper so as I can work on them further another day or ready myself to ponder them on my next walk.

 What advice would you give young storytellers?

Never stop exercising and feeding your imagination all the good things! Take your time to walk, observe ponder and wonder!