Learning through other artists
I mentioned in my last (and first) post, that I spontaneously decided to sign up for an online course back in September ‘23. I was finishing my day frustrated at everything, and feeling like I’d been following the wrong path. Just then, like magic (or like my phone had been listening to me), I happened to see an Instagram post for an online course for illustrating children’s books. First of all, not only has that been a dream of mine since I can remember, but secondly, I have been following this particular Instagram account for at least a year but none of their posts had been showing up on my feed for quite some time. I mean that’s crazy serendipity!! Do you believe in that?
The course I signed up for was the MATS (Make Art That Sells) course – Illustrating Children’s Books. It was a 5 weeks online course, with a weekly live Zoom meeting with instructors: Lilla Rogers (an Agent) and Zoë Tucker (an art director and writer). The course was amazing and I would definitely recommend it. But that’s not what I’m going to talk about.
Leading up to the course, I wanted to dive deep into everything illustration. Up to this point, I hadn’t worked on illustrations for the children’s market at all, and I’ve been mostly doing digital illustrations. I knew going into this that I wanted to get away from just doing digital illustrations. I wanted to go back to my roots, and do analog only, or at least combine analog with digital. I used to love painting and creating with my hands and I know that’s a big part of what I have been missing.
So I signed up for a bunch of Domestika classes about illustration, YouTube tutorials and I started following illustrators online (which turned into slightly stocking a few artists to figure out what their creative process is). Thankfully for me, artists are very generous and willing to share the love! I’m a learner at heart, and I’m always taking workshops, paying for subscriptions like SkillShare and Domestika, looking for interesting YouTubers, anything. I love to learn, and not just within my industry, I believe you can always take at least one thing away from anything.
Out of all the courses I did and videos I watched, I wanted to share 3 things I took away and things I’m now incorporating into my own practice:
1 - Mind map
I’ve done a lot of mind maps, but I hadn’t come across one for making illustrations. I really love this idea! This was from a Domestika class by Ramona Wultschner, in her Atmospheric Scenes in Procreate. Sometimes it’s so hard to come up with an idea for what to draw, but with this mind map as Ramona says, you can start with something as simple as ‘What are you passionate about today?’ I used it for last year’s Folktale Week challenge and it helped me so much. This is my mind map for the challenge, the black writing is the prompts you follow.
2 - Figures
I learnt this trick from Tania Yakunova, in her Character Exploration class in Domestika. The idea is to cut out the basic shapes of a figure as individual shapes, head, torso, hips, upper arm, etc, you can then play around with poses and it gives you a really great starting point. It’s brilliant and I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. Sometimes drawing a pose is hard, especially if you’re looking for something exaggerated or very specific. I know I spend way too much time looking for the right pose online, and yes, I could take a picture of myself doing it but I’m too lazy and honestly, I hate taking pictures of myself. LOL. This was a game-changer for me. I could see taking it a step further and if you’re working on a book, I would cut out the characters, that way I’m being more specific to their body shape, size, etc. I will be trying that in the future for sure.
3 - A daily sketch
The only way to get good at something is to practice daily, and that’s no different when it comes to drawing. You only get better the more you put into it. I used to only sketch when I had time for it, which was far and few times in between. Now I’m sketching every day, even if I only have 5 minutes, I make sure I open my sketchbook and draw something. Not all the drawings are great, and none are finished drawings, and that’s the whole point. This is the time to just play, try different techniques, experiment or simply loosen your hand for the day. I’ve seen my drawings get better most days, my gestures are looser and not so stiff as at the beginning. Oh and the most important thing… this practice is over and above client work, or even personal work you might be doing. This is a space for you to be free from any pressure. I’m currently trying to do a 30-day streak, the longest I’ve done has been 14 days (I’ve been trying since February). I’m on day 12 since my last one-day slip-up, ugh, but I’m going to keep trying!!
Here are a few exercises I’ve been doing when I’m stuck and don’t know what to draw:
- Take a walk and draw one thing you saw on your walk
- Pick one item, like an orange, and draw it in different styles and with different mediums
- Pick a theme for the week (animals, household items, etc)
- Pick a seasonal theme and only draw that for a few weeks
I hope you’ve learnt something interesting that you’ll try, or maybe you have a suggestion that you want to share. Please do so, always love trying new things! Bye for now, I hope you have a great May :)