Changing my style...again

The blank page looked exciting and promising after a long, long time.

I spent a good chunk of my creative career trying to arrive at one visual style. I tried different mediums and styles over the years but none of them felt like mine. They always felt borrowed, in the sense that the idea would be mine but I felt disconnected with the process. Very recently I came close to discovering my process during my mentorship program with Creature Conserve. And it had little to do with the medium and everything to do with the subject.

Its fascinating how life nudges you in the same direction until you take the hint. That said, I will add that our calling, or in this context, subject might not come in a neat package for us to unwrap. It is more often than not, messy and raw. And if we’re paying attention we might discover something beautiful. It took me a long time to realize that how I spend my time and what I create at my desk aren’t separate. Collecting random facts about wildlife and trying to sneak in a fact or two in conversations with people always gave me joy. (Did you know that a crow’s eggs are blue in color?) So it seems pretty straight forward that I do this now with my illustrations, but with structure, and in a way that piques people’s curiosity.

When I think about it, birds, animals and creatures of all sorts have always been a part of my illustrations, but as background elements, as cute additions. What changed is that they take center stage now. The human became the accompanying element or sometimes, isn’t in the picture at all. I’m also not as drawn to anthropomorphism in my works as much as I was a few years ago. But I still enjoy drawing an occasional toad in a shirt, a guilty pleasure of sorts.

I cannot talk about my process without talking about the medium at least a little. In this case, its not a new medium but just me going back to watercolour on paper. The digital skills I picked up over the years are a huge bonus, and a good chunk of my work is made possible because of Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Procreate. BUT, working with watercolor gives me joy. Nothing to do with accomplishment, or finishing something, not even the subject sometimes. Just putting a coloured dot, a wiggly line, even a messy blob on paper is enough. In the last 5 years, almost 90% percent of my work was created digitally. Watercolour felt “slow”. I wanted to finish projects fast and gave myself short timelines to get done with them so I could take on more commissioned work.

In October last year, at the start of my mentorship program I sat with my watercolours again. I fought the urge to “correct” imperfections and let them be. There is no undo here. I’d sit and stare at a mistake wondering if I should abandon the drawing altogether. I forced myself to draw live sketches on nature walks. This is something I’ve always had difficulty with because there’s no way I’ll be able to draw a decent sketch when my mind is overwhelmed with activity around. So I tried this on my bird walks early in the mornings. Not many people around, just fellow birders who were more than happy to see me go old school with field sketching! It was still difficult because the birds won’t sit still for me to draw them “beautifully”. I had to get as many details down in quick sketches before they took off. I would then take these sketches to my desk and illustrate them in detail.

In time this process felt like meeting the creature (and myself), getting to know it and by the end of the project, a small relationship has formed between us. On the surface my illustrated creatures still look adorable and whimsical, nowhere close to the dignity of a scientific illustration. But perhaps this change in relationship is for my own sake than for an audience. However, I will take home this one comment I received on a recent illustration as proof that my process is working - “Your bird looks like its ready to take off any minute.”