Making some head way with illustrating my new book. It's fun creating new work. There are times, when you're working and you start to doubt your self, your style, the process and that is the time when you tell your self, 5 more minutes. You push through this feeling and carry on. Let the process unfold and keep plugging away.
As I worked on these illustrations, thoughts filled my head. I should be working on something else, put this aside. I'm tired. But a part of me also started to wonder, what will these look like when I add color? When I add all the wonderful highlights and shadows? This excited me and made me want to see how they will evolve and change. I'll take a break but come back to the illustrations. Many of the images, I based on scenes from the 1930's. The story is based on my grandparents experiences on their farm. During the Great Depression they helped people and farms worked together to barter items they needed. I looked up farmers during this time and the stories they shared about what they would do to survive. I found it humbling to learn about how basic needs were very valuable. It wasn't easy before this as many farmers lost money on crops and some were paid to destroy their crops/farm animals. Extreme dryness and bug infestations, made many farmers give up. I believe this is what happened to my families farm. They lived in South Dakota and primarily raised sheep. They moved to California after this climate disaster. They sold whatever they could and abandoned their farm. Many people didn't do this but toughed it out. Other people, left to places like California.
I'm sharing a poet, Ted Kooser, who wrote a poem about his love of his state of Nebraska. I found it interesting how he talks about why he originally wrote the poem, and in writing, he realized something much more profound.
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