Children's Book - Day 30

Last day of drawing L I didn’t think I’d be sad, but things were finally starting to go somewhere, so now I feel like my momentum will be stopped. Maybe next year I’ll work on a project until I finish it ;) I think I made some good progress this month, and although I didn’t get as far as I thought I would, at the same time I still feel like I did more than I thought I could. I’m happier with the pictures than a lot of other things I’ve drawn. I don’t know how much potential this book has, but I think it has a little bit at least J

Children's Book - Day 29

I drew on the way home today, one more drawing done. I can’t decide if I should split this one up since I had two ideas for the picture or just leave it as one. I still need to decide if I should try for the 32 page goal or not. Only one more day of this, so I know I’m not going to finish so it doesn’t really matter I guess, but I still feel like I should have some final ideas in mind.

Children's Book - Day 28

Back to working while in the car again. I got one more page done . . . nothing much to report, just a little more progress.

Children's Book - Day 27

I drew earlier in the evening again and made more progress, not quite as much as yesterday, but still something I’m rather proud of. Oh course, this happened at the end of the month when I can’t really harness it and use it for the rest of the month . . . that figures. Perhaps I’ll have to try and work more on it next year, but I still have a few days left, we’ll see how far I get J

Children's Book - Day 26

Wow, doing this at 5:30 instead of 9:30 makes a world of difference!!! I wasn’t falling asleep when I was drawing and I actually had some motivation. I don’t know what clicked, but suddenly, I was producing stuff that I actually thought was quality work. I saw some rather gory stuff at work today so I had this inner drive to create something beautiful and I think that came out in my drawings (and my subsequent choir practice and flute playing). I’m very happy with what I did today and I wish I had gotten to this point much sooner. I don’t think I’ll have enough time in the month to finish the book, but at least I have a little bit to show for it now.

Children's Book - Day 25

I don’t know why I’ve been so tried lately. I’ve been getting enough sleep, but being bored at work and then bored while drawing leads me to have very heavy eyelids when I need to be getting stuff done. At any rate, in the times when I managed to keep my eyes open, I tried my hand at cartoonish drawings, and they were very poor. So I went back to my sketch drawings and they looked a little bit better. I think I have a better handle on what my main character should look like now, so that’s progress J

Children's Book - Day 24

I’m frustrated and tired again today. I began by looking over my drawings and trying to brainstorm what to do next. The drawing I’ve been working on is okay, but it’s just not fitting into my plan. I knew that I couldn’t possibly do a detailed, realistic-looking Jan Brett style book in one month, so I really need to stop trying to do things like that. That’s not what I’m trying to draw, but for some reason my perfectionist brain can’t figure out how to draw simple, cartoonish figures like what I need to be working on. For most of this hour I just felt like I was in a kid’s “time out” and it was just punishment to sit here and look at my drawings and be disappointed by them. I think one of the reasons that yoga was so good for me was because I got away from home and to a special spot dedicated for that where I could just focus on it and do it well. Here, at home, surrounded by a million other things that I need to be working on, I have a very hard time feeling like drawing and writing is what I should be doing. Plus, I have mediocre supplies and no place to really put my stuff to work. So I end up reclining on the futon, and that probably is not helping my tiredness . . . I just want to go to sleep. And being tired does not promote hard work and dedication. I don’t want to be lazy, I really do want a finished product (since I got none of that during scrapbooking month), but I don’t feel like I’m equipped for success here. I did spend a little time studying some more cartoonish drawings and my husband advised that I should make my drawings using simpler shapes and exaggerate the features I’m trying to promote in the particular drawings, so I need to work on that. I think it is really good advice, now I just need to figure out how to find my easy-going side somewhere and try to apply it to drawing . . . wish me luck!

Children's Book - Day 23

I just did a little bit more work on the scene I started yesterday. I added a giraffe, a little bit of a lion, and a stone wall. The giraffe is too small, but at least it’s there. It’s difficult going to this medium now after I’m so used to working with everything on computers and being able to change the size of pictures with just the click of a button . . . if only that were possible in this case.

Children's Book - Day 22

I think I finally started working on something that might be worthy of being in my book. I studied a little bit in a drawing book my husband found and actually added some depth and landscape for one of my scenes. It’s not great, but it’s much better than most of the other stuff I’ve drawn this month.

Children's Book - Day 21

Wow, I don't think that I’ve ever fallen asleep drawing before. It was a really long week and I did not want to draw at all. I drew some more wombats from pictures I found on Google . . . they are okay.

Children's Book - Day 20

I realized that I am much better at copying other pictures than I am at creating my own, so that is what I did today. I just Googled pictures of wombats and cartoon wombats and sketched some of those. They were okay. Some were cute, some were not, I don’t know if it really counts as progress though.

Children's Book - Day 19

This is hopeless. I had so many aspirations for this book at the beginning, and I thought this would be a fun month, but I’m not enjoying it at all. I just feel really inadequate. I read a bit about publishing today, and I don’t think I’d ever be ready for that. And if I was, I doubt anyone would read my book. And if they did, what if they expected a second? Have I told you that I don’t write much? I only feel inspired to write once or twice a year, and in those moments, I write something I really like, but once the moment passes . . . it’s over. After I was done reading (and getting more discouraged), I looked back over all I’ve drawn and written this month, and I’m happy with some of it, and mostly unhappy with the rest. Then I just stared at a blank piece of paper and tried to figure out what I’m going to do. I don’t know how much I believe in my story anymore . . . it seems to me that it lost its focus or subject when I expanded it. So do I just try and draw stuff for the remainder of the month, start on something new, or just sit here at the wall, not sure of what to do? This is not how I was hoping this month would go L

Children's Book - Day 18

I don’t know if I worked on it for an hour today or not. I know I had it sitting on my lap for probably a good two hours, but there was a movie on and I didn’t get as much drawing done as I thought I would. I’m just so caught up on not being able to put out a decent product that I’ve halted all production. I don’t know how to get past this…it’s like writer’s block and artist’s block all at the same time . . . any ideas?

Children's Book - Day 17

Tired, yet again, plus a migraine tonight. I’m so not pleased with my drawing. I need to find a way to make this simpler, and I also need to rework the story a little bit I think. Let’s see if I ever find the ambition.

Children's Book - Day 16

I’m tired again. I need to do this earlier in the day, but we had a very busy day today with our church’s Fall Festival and volunteering there and then a friend came over for dinner. I didn’t start my drawing until 9 pm again, and I’m not looking forward to going to work again tomorrow . . . I need another weekend. So I only drew for 45 minutes tonight, but I’m frustrated, I am not an artist, I am not an illustrator, and I am completely lacking confidence in my book. I hope whatever next month ends up being, it’s something that I’m better at than this. I know the point is to get better, but I’m really struggling with this one.

Children's Book - Day 15

More drawing lessons today . . . I worked on shading and a little more on my main character. I’m not getting very far on my book am I? Somehow I don’t feel like my heart is in this project and it’s not driving me as much as many of the other challenges have. I’m doubting my decision to add more to the story and thinking I need to do some more rewriting. I don’t think this project is going anywhere.

Children's Book - Day 14

I am very tired again tonight. Plus, I’ve been reading policies and procedures, every day, pretty much all day, for this whole week. I am really not in the mood to do more reading or even draw anything. Just frustrated tonight, but I still worked on it a little bit anyways. I’m trying to focus on keeping it simple, we’ll see if it works.

Children's Book - Day 13

Today was a little more intellectual than yesterday. I took a look at a book I got for learning how to illustrate and studied the pictures. I made note of and studied the pictures that I liked the best and that I think that I would like to emulate. I think this will help me in figuring out how to go forward. It also had some helpful tips on how to make a professional looking “dummy book”, which I think will hopefully be my finished product. Then I got out my “Drawing for the Terrified” book (which I really like the way it’s written . . . I wish I could take a class with this guy, I think I would learn a lot), and ran through some of those exercises. I think they were helpful and I feel more accomplished now . . . yay J

Children's Book - Day 12

Ugh, I’m sleepy. I did about half an hour of drawing. I managed to get some perspective drawing of the inside of the burrow, but it took a lot of brain power to figure out how to do it. Much more than I wanted to put into this project. Maybe I need to make my drawings simpler? After I was done drawing, I read some more in my “How To” book . . . interesting information, but now it’s making me wish I was writing a YA chapter book that didn’t require pictures! Anyways, I need to go to sleep now . . . good night J

Children's Book - Day 11

I know I am creative . . . I just can’t seem to channel it into drawing. I did some doodling today just to try to loosen up, I am far too tense and have no 3-D vision to try and rotate my drawings. I tried to replicate something I did yesterday but make it more my own, and it just looked flat and boring and seemed to get worse every time I tried. Somehow I doubt I'll get anything close to a book ready by the end of this month, but I really am trying.