Humble Beginnings
The stars have aligned, telling me it’s time to start a blog! As an artist and (now occasional) creative writer, blogging sounds like a fantastic outlet to squeeze all those extra creative juices out onto the page – or the screen!
So, where to start…
At the beginning, I think.
I genuinely think my creative journey began as soon as I came out of the womb. I was born holding a pencil (that’s a joke, I wasn’t really!). Like any other child, I spent my preschool and kindergarten years making finger paintings and trying not to colour outside the lines. Colour washes over crayon drawings were my favourite. Don’t forget the butterfly paintings – massive globs of paint on one side of the page, fold that paper over, and wow, a masterpiece in under a minute!
When I was younger, I had multitudes of notebooks. Lined paper or plain paper, spiral bound, hardcover, boring cover or pretty cover, I wasn’t picky (I am these days – A5, spiral bound art paper or nothing!). Most of them were lost in the recesses of time, or thrown in the recycling bin in disgust.
I wish I had of kept better records of my old drawings.
Recently I found a folder full of old sketches – some of them dated back to 2014. That’s seven years ago! This was during the phase when I didn’t like art journals and would only draw exclusively on plain cartridge paper.
These are watercolour pencil drawings from the Studio Ghibli film My Neighbour Totoro. This was one of the first Studio Ghibli films I ever saw, and Hayao Miyazaki’s art style (one of the co-founders of the studio) has been a huge inspiration to me ever since.
(There’s 220 pieces of paper in this folder. I would have been better off with a bound journal!)
As I was going through these old drawings, there was a lot of face-pulling. Lots of frowning and cringing. A lot of oh dear-ing. (Did I know how perspective worked? No, no I did not).
More sketches from Studio Ghibli films, this time it’s Kiki’s Delivery Service and From Up On Poppy Hill.
But underneath those reactions, I was surprised. Some drawings were bad. But some were good. Really good. I may not have known what I was doing, but I persevered. I may have been unsatisfied with a lot of these finished works (something I’m still working on) but I kept them. I realise that this period of my life was essential to my art practice. I was beginning to develop my style and experiment with different mediums, and find out what I really loved. Hindsight is 20/20 like that.
I’m so glad I kept these old drawings. Because I can see how much I’ve grown and improved.
That version of me in 2014 would never have imagined that in 2021, she would be one semester away from finishing a university degree where she majored in visual arts.
My head is bursting with all the knowledge I’ve acquired in these three seemingly-short years at university. I have so many ideas for future projects, sometimes I feel like I will never have enough time to complete them all.
Making art has been such a vital part of my life, and I feel like I wouldn’t be the same person I am today without it (Especially if I didn’t draw on so many pieces of cartridge paper!).
Sketch and coloured pencil drawing inspired by the cover of Tender Morsels, written by Margo Lanagan.
Keep up to date with my art journey!
