in 2020 i was dating someone i really shouldn't have been, but weren't we all? the pandemic was actually the beginning of the end of my nearly five years' long relationship with that particular partner. we were long distance for all of quarantine, which actually meant that our relationship was a bit more stable than its normal state.
during that time he was really preoccupied with being a sort of mentor to me and helping me prepare to enter the "real world" as i approached college graduation. to that end, he pushed me to get involved with a children's book his mom had been writing. it was based off a poem she had written years and years ago, when my partner had been a little boy. i had never illustrated anything like that before, and at the time i really only drew portraits, but my partner insisted i could do it and he wore a weird sense of pride about it.
that relationship ended before i could finish illustrating the book, and in the years since his mom has actually gotten it published with a different illustrator. the artist they went with was much better equipped to do what she wanted, so i'm happy it worked out for her.
pushing myself to figure out how to draw what i wanted to draw for this book was beneficial for me, regardless of the fact that it never came to fruition. the plan had been to ink everything traditionally and color it digitally with some new chalk pastel photoshop brushes i had been really into. i had finished sketches for every page of the book, and inked linework for nearly the entire thing. i only ever got to digital colors for a handful of pages, but i roughed out some page layouts with the text for her, and i was really happy with how it was coming together. i was going for a sort of roald dahl thing.
the relationship surrounding this project was so bad and so long and so eventful that truthfully this little blip was quickly forgotten. i stashed away the unfinished sketches and linework, moved the folder of photoshop files to somewhere i wouldn't see it, and moved on with my life. there was simply too much to process to spend a moment thinking about unfinished children's book illustrations.
since losing my job last month and entering Operation Beef Up the Personal Portfolio Website, i've been going through years and years worth of old files. when i stumbled upon these finished storybook pages, i expected to feel sad at being reminded of the relationship, or guilty that i never finished it, or embarrassed that i really thought i could do it. but i didn't feel any of that. i looked at the work i did four years ago in the midst of a pandemic and an extremely tumultuous relationship, and i was overcome with relief and a wry sense of pride upon realizing that they were actually kind of GOOD???
i've grown so much as an artist since taking a stab at these illustrations, but even so there's more potential and care in these drawings than i expected to find. i had no idea what i was doing, had never ever tried combining analogue ink with digital colors, barely had a sense of anatomy and no experience drawing anything other than people, but that didn't stop me. i tried and i figured it out, and i did it!
having the time (and the reason) to go through the last few years' of my work and growth as an artist has been one of my favorite unexpected benefits of being suddenly unemployed. sometimes it feels like where i am right now is the only place i've ever been. seeing what good work i was doing when i was so much younger and SO much unhappier i am now is a comforting reminder of how untrue that is. i've been so many places, so many versions of me, and they've all been crafted with care. every version of me has been bursting with potential, including this one.
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