Learning is uncomfortable, sure. But regret is way worse.
What 'children's book creating' has taught me in the last month!
How’ve you been diddling my love? In the last month, I’ve learnt A LOT about what I know I don’t know 😁 and even more about what I’m yet to know that I don’t know! 😮💨
Tbh, it feels a bit like I’m standing beside a growing pile of stuff that I need to eat, chew and digest to be able to move forward, but I’m already full to the brim and it’s growing way too fast for me to take any kinda bite!
[Current live scenes:]
Basically babes, my overly protective unconscious mind is having none of this ‘learning something new’ business. In fact, she wants me to have nothing to do it.
Far too dangerous innit.
I mean, what if I got as far as to create a children’s book and it actually got made? Other people might have an opinion on it, judge it and ACTUALLY SEE IT?! No chance she’s gonna let that happen. Not on her watch.
Despite my studying the human mind for years as a coach and understanding exactly what’s happening here (a whole load of very normal resistance), I’m right there in the trenches experiencing the human condition too, and let’s be real – it’s fecking hard sometimes!
So there’s two options on the table here;
Oppose everything my body is encouraging me to do (which is give up and not change anything), swim against the tide and just start leaning into the discomfort of not knowing enough, learning and sharing. Or…
Give up. Put this so far down my list it becomes invisible, and stop sharing my diary entries here.
So which did I opt for?
= I am not defeated babes! 🦁 RAWR!
Far from it.
At times like this, I often sit quietly and imagine having a natter with my 80-year-old self. And for me, it’s just not an option for us not to be giggling about ‘that time when I let myself play as an artist/author with creating children’s books’. However inconvenient, ‘impossible’ or impractical it was.
The regret of not trying would just be intolerable for me.
Because of how everything has played out for me and my professional life over the past few years, I’m now acutely aware now of how much creating and creativity is more than a career, an interest or a passion to me, it’s actually a necessity.
In all its beautiful forms.
I stop functioning without it. I love that my career is now stewarding creativity every day, and I love that I now know how crucial it is for me to create for me too.
And while my resistance evidently feels more peak than it’s ever done in my life, my commitment to overcoming it is fucking peakier! Ha!
Plus – the little wins through the resistance? When they do come; those lil microbites of progress through the mounds of ‘stuff’ in the way – they’re as sweet as honey bebe! 😋
This month’s microbite to big bite:
Like this month, grasping how much children’s book illustration needs to tell a story through the FEELING the visual creates, rather than expecting words to do all the work, has gone from being a nibble of a discovery / a nibble of progress, into a kinda lightbulb moment that feels quite pivotal.
And how do you create a feeling with an illustration?
With colour, texture and composition of course. With characters’ posture, size and scale – sure, but mostly?
With expression.
So yep, I was today years old when I started to learn the importance of, and begun to learn how to draw – expressions babes!
What a revelation 😅
Of course, the obvious are ‘happy’ and ‘sad’, and I can of course draw those two. But ‘embarrassed’? ‘Cocky’? ‘Shy’?
I realised I didn’t quite know where to go.
Here’s some v.rudimental sketches of my learnings-in-progress.
Understanding the six ‘core’ emotions…
Happy
Sad
Angry
Fear
Surprise
Boredom
…and how the characteristics of those emotions blend to create more complex emotions…
Embarrassed (surprise + fear)
Cocky (bored + happy)
Shy (fear + happy)
…has opened up a whole new dimension in my visual thinking!
All of this is just developmental play-work that typically wouldn’t be shown to anyone, and I do still feel quite far away from creating a character to develop a story around too (which I’m okay with)…BUT!
I’m now looking forward to bringing more complex emotions and expressions to the mix now over the next month, and seeing if anyone/anything I create ‘comes to life’ more as a result ya know?
And that’s the coolest bit about learning more when you realise you’ve always more to learn! It gets MORE enjoyable!
This month’s co-creating call!
I’m also hosting this month’s co-creating call on Thursday 20th February at 7:30pm GMT 🥳 so if you’re about and you’re craving some down-time/creative-time to yourself (that you otherwise struggle to give yourself), then I’d love to see you there!
After a bit of colouring in warm-up time, I might try creating a character! HBU?
If you’re not yet a subscriber and would like to come along and try it out, you can subscribe on a 7-day free trial by tapping the button below (and if you choose to unsubscribe during that, I don’t mind at all! I promise we’ll still be mates) 😊
Right, I’m off to go bowling with the fam so I need to warm up my bowl-ey-tippy-toes!
Look after yourself, and hope to hang with you and your creativity on Thursday! 🫶🏻
