I shouldn’t think too much about it but what exactly do I think about when I’m illustrating.
If I think too much about what I’m going to do, I tend to get into a poor habit of freezing. What should I do? Where do I start? What do I do next?
I try my best to avoid thinking about what I do “artistically”. I find questioning myself too much makes me less productive.
There are some themes with my drawings and my ideas come out in waves. One month, I’ll stick to “these” type of idea and then the following month I’ll create “these other” types of drawings. It’s mostly random stuff.
I’ve been using my illustrations for Free Jazz Vancouver’s (http://www.freejazzvancouver.com) YouTube clips for the past while. I’ll be quite honest. 75% of the time, there is very little connection to the illustrations and the music (25% isn’t too bad, I guess). Should I feel guilty about this? I think I’ll try my best to avoid thinking about it.
I’d like to talk about a drawing that I finished a few days ago.
There’s a big man who’s goofy. He’s never left the area where he lives. He lives with his parents who are also big and goofy. They warn him not to leave the house because the people in the village will not like them.
But one day, our protagonist ventures out of his home. He travels to the village and when he arrives the people run away from him. Yet, there is one girl who is a little different as she wears blue pants.
She approaches the big man and welcomes him. The people who ran away slowly start to approach this new person and realise that he is no different from other people.
The big man goes back to his parents house after having fun with the people in the village. His father tells him that he’s disappointed in him for disobeying him.
The end
Well, I just created this story on the spot (it took a whole six minutes or so… maybe seven). Sure, the ending sucks and it’s a little dark… but it’s a quirky story.
Did I think about those questions that I wrote about in the second paragraph deeply. No, not at all.
I guess the whole point of this write-up is… let’s avoid thinking too deeply. Create, create, create and have fun.
Oh, here’s a YouTube clip of Free Jazz Vancouver that uses the above illustration. Enjoy!
