Creative Postcards #1 - Drawing cute and reading as a writer.
Morning Monday Hello!
Welcome to Creative Postcards! This is where I’ll share snippets of the things I’m doing and thinking, with no long essays, just a hello-how-are-you kind of post.
Drawing Cute Stuff
Recently I’ve been studying how to draw cute stuff with How to Draw Adorable, by Carlianne Tipsy. I’m honestly not sure if the book is focused on a younger audience, but I’ve been having a blast with it!
The book was on my hold list in the library for a while and it became available this week, which was awesome since I’m currently working of a few Stray-Kids (yes, the Kpop band) inspired stickers for a friend and they have very cute animal icon for each band member.
I’m not the self-taught kind of artist, but I’ve been doing my best to keep a somewhat steady learning curve, even if not that steep of a curve. Earlier in the year I went through many Skillshare videos on drawing fundamentals and it helped a lot, it was a great way to get back to exercises I hadn’t done in over 10 years, and helped me see shapes and drawing with an illustrator eye, something I didn’t do when I was first learning to draw.
Writing Things
I used to tease my partner on how many books he had from the library at home, but for the past few months I’ve become just like him. haha. I started the year renting all the Graphic Novels I saw online that I thought could help me learn again (and more?) how to write comics. I still think it’s one of the hardest mediums to write, but it definitely helped with my “going back to writing” process.
For now I decided to focus on reading middle-grade fantasy/sci-fi books. I’m about 30 years over the age demographic of these books, but I’m focusing the next few weeks on working on a project that is a middle-grade book. One of the most important things as a writer is to read/watch what has already been done before in the medium that you want to create for. Not because you need to follow some sort of rule, but to understand the form and what’s been and is currently being written.
I believe that when writing for children, or a younger people as whole, you need to remember not to underestimate your audience. Don’t be condescending and don’t try to hide away from subjects or characters that people might think are not what children “should” be reading. I’m sure most adults would agree that I shouldn’t have The Fly (1986) as one of my favourite movies as a child, but I just loved it. Maybe that’s why I write horror stories for children. XD
Oh! I’m actually looking for middle-grade sci-fi books to read. If you know of any, let me know!
See you next time! ; )
