After
my previous blog I got two questions about some of the content.
First
was, what those hurdles were that I was talking about. Next people wondered whether
I truly meant it when I wrote: ‘Winning or losing, I’m very happy I
participated!’ Wasn’t this just a way to hide the fear/ chance of upcoming
disappointment?
I’ll
start with the hurdles, I think explaining those will also answer the second
question.
Like
I mentioned before, as a child I dreamed of illustrating books but I never made
any serious attempts to pursue this dream. Now I was finally doing it! Exiting
but scary.
Instead
of illustrating I went to the Academy of Fine Art in Education. Still I can
hear the teacher’s voices echoing in my head: my taste in art was poor, not to
mention cliché and so was my artwork. Even now tiny parts of my brain objected
to me illustrating: ‘this wasn’t art with a capital A!!’ I decided not to care,
I was enjoying myself and that’s what matters, right?!
Working
on my art I got stuck often. I got scared to continue, scared to ruin things,
scared of expectations. This made me re-think everything. Illustrating for the
contest there was no time for such nonsense. All 3 illustrations needed to be
finished well before the 1st of May.
So I had to just ‘do’.
I
rediscovered how much I like storytelling, my way. Now when I draw I just ‘do’
and don’t get stuck that easily. I got closer to what I like doing without
being embarrassed about it. I found new solutions, new materials, new
combinations.
During
the 20 days of working on my illustrations I had a week of vacation and I
caught myself thinking: ‘Oh, I hope I won’t spend my whole vacation drawing!’
And then I thought, wait a minute, I remember a time when I couldn’t wait for
the (school-) vacation to start so I could draw all week! The
moment I realized that, something changed, I couldn’t wait to get to my studio
and start drawing.
Doing these 3 illustrations has brought me so much. So when I say that even when I'm losing I'm winning, I truly mean it.
Below an unfinished detail of the 2nd illustration I did for the Lemniscaat contest.
Again I’ve been too quiet for my own
(blogging-) good. Last month I was totally occupied by the Lemniscaat illustration contest. Literally every moment I could spend drawing, I did.
As a child I always dreamed of
illustrating children’s- and mostly fairytale books but I never actually made
any attempts to do so.
Illustrators were asked by publisher
Lemniscaat to send in three illustrations that go with a story of their own
choice. It was clear to me it had to be a fairytale but which one?
I chose a story from ‘Persian
Fairytales’ by Arthur Christensen (original title: Persische Märchen). My dad
used to read from them when I was little and after all the stories by Grimm and
Andersen they were amazingly refreshing. These stories had all this different
creatures and different magic and lots of blood and gore! My choice fell upon ‘Mohammed
the shepherd and the three Peri princesses’.
From beginning to end it took me
almost 20 days to finish all three illustrations and I was just in time for the
(Dutch) closing date on May 1st! It took me this long because I had
to take some really hard hurdles that housed in my brain. Now that I have returned
to my ‘regular’ drawings I can feel a difference in the way I work. I just DO
because when working on the illustrations there was no time to ponder every
brushstroke, they had to be finished and soon! So I’m very happy with this
change and much happier to go to my studio.
Sure I would like to win the
contest, sure I would like to be among the 10 best and attend a master class by
an internationally recognized illustrator. I would like having my work
promoted during the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Have my work exhibited in library
‘The Hive’, in Worcester, England, in the Shanghai Library, China and also in
the Centrale Bibliotheek Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
I would like all these things very
much but taking these personal hurdles was very important to me. Winning or
losing I’m very happy I participated!
Below details from the three illustrations I did for the Lemniscaat contest.
