A book in the making

How am I spending this winter?

Book making!

I am illustrating my first book for children, which is a trail transformed in a story about the Isle of Wight Biosphere, commissioned by the National Literary Trust and The Common Space.

It is an exciting experience: I am learning a lot, drawing a lot, and understanding my process, and what might need some adjustments

 (i.e. my neck is saying to me that I can't be 10 hours in the studio per day!)

The part that I enjoy the most so far, is the research, sketches and colour tests. 

I also found out a way to trick my brain when is time for final art: I just say to myself that's a colour test! and often I get into the flow more easily. The only thing is, it doesn't work for bigger spreads, as every inch of space needs to be calculated well...So, when it comes a big spread, I print my sketch and trace it on paper, and then paint it...but it feels less spontaneous.. So I will keep looking for solutions!

The thing I loved the least, so far is the mental pressure of final art!

I am so happy to have been trusted for this project, and I feel lucky to go to work in my studio and being immersed in the wonderful stories of nature. On the other hand, I know I worked incredibly hard for this, for many years, in every inch of free time I had from my day job.

I recently chose to prioritize my time more, aware of the economic downside of this choice. My life got simpler, time stretched, my mind had less thoughts, and as a consequence of this slowing down, I think my mental health is... thankful! 

One of the reasons for choosing this is that this year I am stepping out of my comfort zone a lot, and pushing my introvert boundaries in order to do my work as an artist and educator in the community; in the last 2 months I have been working with children and adults in more than 11 new organizations... so I allow myself a lot of resting time in between each event.

At the moment, I am also leading a home education group once a week at Ventnor Botanic Gardens. In future, I would love to work with smaller children too , as I found a special connection with 3 to 5 years old children...we seem to share the same sense of wonder!

At the beginning of the year, I set myself the goal to develop more human characters in my artworks, and I made a good start on it, by going each week to draw in my local Primary school and train my hand and brain to draw moving children, an almost impossible but fun challenge!

In my next post, I would like to talk about my experience of the latest Folktale Week, a week art challenge about folktales for which I created a story all inspired by Nature, meanwhile

just reminding you that my little online woodland shop is open and stocked for Christmas !

Brightest wishes!

Lucia