I have found doodling is a successful catalyst when seeking inspiration. I can generally come up with concepts, it’s at the execution phase when where my inner voice/critic stymies my creativity. ‘Not good enough!’ is the most frequent thought.

Last Friday, I set out to to draw a witch for Halloween. Using the Freeform app on my phone, I scribbled a predictable silhouette of a witch in profile riding a broom in front of a full moon.

Grabbing a Winsor & Newton A4 visual diary, next I sketched out an imagined witch’s face with an oversized mouth.

Drawing on memories from reading Anne Rice novels, the second witch iteration became a glamorous vampire in front of a crescent moon. I paid attention to the lips and eye, inspired by the BBC One reality tv series, Glow Up: Britain’s next make up star.

After taking a photograph of the pencil coloured pictures, I applied filters in Google Snapseed, removed the backgrounds, and added black backdrops and text.

I imagined a heavily accented, Greta Garbo speaking the title of the vampire witch portrait as Fampyre Vitch.

My husband said, the initial sketch was scarier than the final one so I have included both. What do you think?