Ideation

Originally Published on my Patreon Page…

January 4, 2025

Happy New Year!

I didn’t realize that my process of ideation is very different than what I have read it should be for an artist. Feeling the pressure of time and wanting to publish at least one valentine’s day illustration for this year, I pushed myself to do work a bit differently than I usually do, during the ideation phase. But that did not work for me, I have a couple of pages of thumbnails that will not see the light outside of my sketchbook. I also had a ton of reference material that I discarded today. None of the thumbnails had that “je ne seis quo” that keeps me engaged from thumbnail to final illustration. And although I pushed through, because persistence has always been a quality that I posses, not sure if it is a good quality or a bad habit. The only thing that held me back from developing the non-convincing thumbnails further was the lack of a larger variety of pink color pencils. Thank God! I placed an order on New Years Eve, which I’m waiting for.

And then, just like that, as I was journaling on the 2nd day of the new year, I started doodling on the lined pages instead of writing, revisiting one of my character ideas, catching in my mind what the character was telling me it wanted to do. Then just like that, she became a knitting lady. Needless to say, I’m not a knitter. It is not even a hobby that I enjoy, but I see that my character does. She loves knitting. And just like that, I developed the doodles into thumbnails, then into sketches, enlarged the best thumbnail to see how it behaved as a rough sketch, which then I developed into a final composition. With the exception of improving some key details before I do a final drawing to then move to the color choice phase of my process. The entire ideation phase done in less than two days!

I still feel that internal pressure to pursue the other thumbnails, because those I can turn into patterns, etc, which in my mind would be more sellable in different formats. This is the pressure of illustrating for sales versus illustrating from the heart. All of my illustrations have come from my heart and are very specific to what I would buy, what you will find framed and hanging in my home. This year, I would like to focus more on what others would enjoy to have in their homes. There is a lot of reflecting that I have to do so that I find the balance between the two or figure out where to find others like me who would enjoy my illustrations. But not today, and not as this idea runs its course. I wonder if this is what inspiration feels like, I feel withdrawal just by having placed the drawing aside, but I have to, at least until tomorrow; this is the only way I will be able to see areas that may be off. It looks perfect in my eyes, like my own child, but it needs to be placed aside for a bit, this is also part of my process. However, this time, the pull to finish, to see it through is quite strong!

Big lesson for me to continue with the way the creation process works for me and follow my own path rather than do what I think others are doing and think I should be doing too.