It's been four years since my first children's book came out. One thing I've learned since then: to pay more attention to the people and things around me.
EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE can be a source of wonder and inspiration: a snippet of conversation, a secret smile, even someone's shoes. Ask yourself questions about the people and things you see around you, invent reasons why people look or act the way they do, what happened to them, why they chose to wear that particular piece of clothing today.
Now that I illustrate as well as write, I also try to pay more attention to physical details when I observe the world around me: what people REALLY look like, for instance, to help me add authentic or unusual details next time I draw a young girl or stay-at-home parent or businessman or older person or person of colour, etc.. My goal: to increase the breadth and depth of my internal visual library, the one I access when I'm doing a sketch without a physical reference right in front of me.
And this doesn't just apply to observing people. I've always preferred drawing characters much more than backgrounds. I used to hate drawing backgrounds, which is why I rarely drew them in my comics early on. Now I'm trying to get better at it and lo and behold, I find the more I practice, the more comfortable I become. Go figure, eh? I've been drawing a lot of TREES lately. I draw big trees, little trees, scary trees, alien trees, saplings etc. Experimenting with different ways of drawing foliage as well. NO, I don't have any book projects where I have to draw trees right now....but I know I will someday, so why not get better at something I don't enjoy doing? And it's working. I'll post more on this topic in the future.
So go forth and pay attention, all! Your creative inner lives will be enriched as a result, I promise.
By the time the average college student makes sophomore grade, at least one thing should have been learned. No matter how tenuous one’s grasp is on reality on any given day, the world will stop for a split second as soon as a professor utters the fatal words “Take note, people!”
I don’t have a clue where the phrase began. For my purposes here, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is whether an individual is able to do the task.
In a world which revolves around speed, competition, and one-upsmanship, a person has to cultivate the practice of taking note. The fortunate person develops the ability early in life; hence, my reference to college sophomores and professors. Observation skills can always be used in daily life. Be honest. Without them our species would have died out long ago.
I bring up the subject because some of us stumble across oddities everyday simply by using the practice of observation.
Take last Sunday evening as an example. Sis and I were at a concert in the park. It was a lovely evening; light breeze cooling temps hovering in the low 80s, people out enjoying the camaraderie of the crowd—lawn chairs in hand—and the music.
And there, in the midst of wonderful musical notes filling the air, a mosquito landed on my forearm. I whacked the little sucker, smashed it flat, and felt vindicated, all in the space of three seconds max. I know what you’re thinking. You think all I took note of was the fact that it was a mosquito.
Wrong! I took note of the fact that it didn’t whine at me. This is something that has been “on my radar,” if you will, since we moved up to Montana. I was taught as a young person that only female mosquitos whined. They were also the only ones that supposedly drew blood from their victims. Since returning to this state last year, I’ve learned that around here, mosquitos are now different.
They weren’t like this when I lived here in the early nineties. No sirree! Always before, they whined like every other variety of ‘skeeter known to man. Not anymore.
I’d taken note last year that around here, it doesn’t seem to matter whether you hear a whine or not, the ‘skeeter will drill you for all it’s worth. Sunday night I had two of the little beasties try for the red stuff in a span of ten minutes and neither of them made a peep of sound.
Trust me; I can hear those devils in a twenty-foot radius. Nada, zip, zilch. No whine.
So, what changed? Are male mosquitos here now drilling prospective donors? Did the females finally learn that their shouts of potential ecstasy warned their perspective donors? These are the kinds of questions for which grant monies are doled out.
Remember that one-upsmanship I mentioned earlier. Well, Sis did it again. The next evening she went out to snap some sunset photos. As a photographer she’s got that camera ready at a second’s notice, and she loves doing sunsets.
As a trained observer, she takes note of things on a regular basis. Her background demanded that skill. When she finished shooting, she came back in with this little observation “Sun’s in the wrong place tonight.” She didn’t wait for any answer from me. She dropped the statement and went into her office to process photos.
Familiarity has bred acceptance into my responses ab
Finally finished my Winter Observation illustration.
