Drawing with Wet Stuff

Hurricane winds and most of Britain under 3ft of water is not conducive for thinking nice Spring-y, Mad March Hare thoughts, but that is what I have been doing. Book number 5 is well under way. I've been buying daffodils and looking longingly at photos of lambs to try to bring forth the spirit of all things yellow as my colour pallette for The House on Hare Hill is yellow, blue and green. Somehow, I've always seen it as a very sunny book.

I've hoiked the dip pen out of retirement and started drawing with waterproof ink. I've forgotten how beautiful the lines are - and how challenging the medium is. Woe betide those who forget it's still wet and rub their hand over it. With my trusty Staedler pens, you can chuck it around as soon as you've drawn with it. Dip pen is a much more measured approach, needing a lot of coaxing and patience.

 In my Right Brain Business Plan (see this BLOG POST) I have suggested, perhaps unwisely, that I will have this book ready for sale by the end of May. It seemed ages away, but time flies pretty quickly, especially when I have quite a few school visits coming up and exam revision to supervise! 

I am learning a lot about Hares, and in the new book there will be a lot of lovely facts, both true and slightly made up, about the superior cousins of rabbits. Check out the Hare Preservation Trust for more information HERE. For instance, did you know Hares do not live in burrows, but in 'forms', where they scrape away the grass and top soil and hunker down in the undergrowth. Did you also know that Hares can accelerate to 45mph. That's faster than my car!!

Now for the hard stuff

I recently came  across a blog by Leonie Dawson, a totally eccentric, mad Aussie who I instantly thought talked a lot of sense. She said something in her YouTube video HERE that did something to my brain. She said when she first started her business, she spent a lot of time exercising her creative muscles and little time building up her business and marketing muscles. To make her business succeed, she needed  to go to the biz & marketing gym and within 12 months she had a really successful business.

With that in mind, I realise I have spent much of my time creating, which is all very well, but if it can't make us survive as a family, it ain't much bleeding good. So now I see I need to spend quite a bit of time and energy on learning how to market my books properly. I shall embrace the prospect with joy and not the overwhelming desire to stick my head in the oven that would have befitted the old me.

I've started writing myself an achievable daily list of things to do and I've been rereading a marvelous book which I used when I first left University as a poor and destitute graduate called The Artist's Way Click Here . This helped me to focus on the processes I needed to go through to become an illustrator. One of the best bits of advice I read was to stop saying "I'd like to be an Illustrator" and start saying "I AM an Illustrator". (Substitute my career choice with yours.) Hard to do when you have no printed work under your belt, but the shift in sentiment helps you to get that first job.

If you feel you are stuck in a rut and want to change your life or enhance the journey you are already on, here is Leonie's website www.leoniedawson.com. A good place to start.

My list for today reads:

• Book festivals and fayres
• Update blog
• Start on House on Hare Hill pics
• Email retailers who I need to retrieve my books from
• Send images to retailer.

At least I can tick one of those off!!

Cheery-bye for now my lovelies.