(A few recycled thoughts from a conversation with my Facebook group yesterday.)
It’s always refreshing and reassuring to go back and color from one of my earliest books. So many societal influences promote the belief that our beginning efforts hold less value than our more mature efforts. Schooling and workplace cultures focus on progress as if it is something off in the distance that we need to head toward, and where we are now (or where we were in the past) automatically get classed as lower levels of achievement.
When I color an older book, or dig through old saved sketchbooks that go back about a decade or so, or find the occasional much older saved page from all of those years where I usually just cleaned off my clipboard monthly (throwing out everything, yikes!) I find that I am usually very pleased with my old efforts. Certain themes have always been present in my drawing.
I’ve never wanted to draw a version of some other person’s lines. And if I’m drawing from the world around me, I’ve always had the need to bend and distort my lines to make sure my shapes aren’t a match for any existing shapes.
(It’s funny how just writing that makes me have to grab my sketchbook and draw a shape that nobody would ever guess was inspired by a pine tree branch.)
As I paged through Whimsy to pick a drawing to color, they all still felt fresh and fun to me. I think a lot of that is because the only place you’ll see those exact shapes and lines playing together in that fashion is in that book. I don’t come to the page pre-fatigued from having seen those same shapes all of my life – but the character of the line is also familiar and friendly enough that it feels welcoming.
(And now I’ve got the urge to draw and the urge to color both – so time elapses and I color that last sketchbook drawing in. 🙂 )
It’s good to look back at early steps with fresh eyes and without the expectation that since you’ve grown in skill, older work is somehow less inspiring, endearing, imaginative or valuable.
One final thought. Those of you who have been in our group for ages and ages (and who perhaps lurk more than post now) might enjoy revisiting the memory lane galleries in the community section on my website. And newer members might enjoy them as well – you’ll spot some familiar names. The galleries actually all pre-date “the coloring craze” and clicking on any picture will give you the colorist’s name and book title. And to take time to page through your own personal collection of colorings if you haven’t done that in a while. We’ve all been quite busy making beautiful art, haven’t we?
Today’s coloring is from Whimsy (Angie’s Patterns – Volume 2) colored with Copic Sketch markers.