Phew, drawing this week felt like a real slog! I worked for a couple days on an illustration that just felt joyless, and after several attempts to salvage it I begrudgingly scrapped the whole thing.1 My daughter and I have been a bit sick and sleeping poorly, and it has been difficult not to feel ground down by the exhausting march of frightening U.S. headlines. But! We continue.
I had done a couple quick little drawings over the past week in the vein of birds and houses on stilts, which I posted in Notes.
The bird shop one in particular made me laugh. No idea why I drew it, as Lucas from Empire Records says, “Who knows where thoughts come from, they just appear.”
So I decided to expand my bird shop a bit. But as I drew it I started thinking, how would birds even pay for stuff in a bird shop? And why should they? So in the spirit of mutual aid, I decided to draw a bird (seed) pantry.
Not gonna say much more about this, wish I’d surrounded the pantry with trees but I figured I’d better quit while I was ahead. Sometimes you just gotta put stuff out into the universe and then move on. Until next time!
Whenever I am struggling creatively, I like to (re)watch one of the multiple documentaries about Hayao Miyazaki and his process, which seems to be like pulling teeth despite his long career. So I recently I re-watched Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron, I could do without the director’s constant frenetic cuts, but I recommend it if you need a push.
Beautiful beautiful drawings!
Funny that you say you felt joyless while creating these illustrations … because looking at them makes me feel joyful! I know the feeling though — sometimes when I write, I feel as though I’m just pushing words around. I think when I get like that, it has more to do with me than with the work. Lovely illustrations as always! 😊