Violette Clark's Page

The Idea Factory Illustration

Yesterday i went to the library and took out some cartooning books. I used to do lots of cartooning in the past so it was fun to revisit it. One of the books i took out is "Toons: How to Draw Wild and lively Characters for all Kinds of Cartoons" by Randy Glasbergen. I've admired Randy's clean style for many years now. His gentle humour tickles the funny bone without being offensive. Anyways I thumbed through his book and saw the how-tos for drawing animals. Everyone can do it really. You simply have to reduce the animal into simple shapes like Randy did for the kangaroo. It's basically a pear shape. After you get the rough shape in you begin to refine it. It's easy if you do it this way don't you think? Why not get a cartooning book and teach yourself how to draw all kinds of things you never thought you could? I drew stuff like this many years ago. Now i don't have to reduce things to their basic shapes anymore. Yesterday i just did it for fun and to show you how easy it is!

Where do your ideas come from?
People often ask me where i get my ideas - pretty much everywhere. You just have to keep your eyes open and listen to your intuition. For example yesterday i had to get out of the house so the cleaning lady could come so i went to the library without any idea in mind apart from looking through magazines i don't ordinarily buy for art ideas or for possible places to pitch art/projects to. As usual i got sidetracked in the artbook section and began browsing. Before you know it i had 5 cartooning books. Usually i leave with books on collaging or jewelry making or general crafts but this time i was moved to only pick cartooning books.

When i got home i looked through Randy's book and was thoroughly entertained. I loved the parts where he spoke about the genesis of his ideas. When i came to the page on the kangaroo tutorial i thought "Wow......the kangaroo's pouch is where the baby kangaroo is incubated - ideas are incubated there - hence the Idea Factory emerged!"

Unconsciously Incubating
Sometimes you think that you're being uncreative or you're blocked but little do you know that you are incubating. You go for a walk in nature and see beautiful fall colours which will later appear in a painting, or the delicate shape of a deteriorating leaf will be used to transfer a ghostly image onto a collage. A candywrapper found on the floor reminds you of something just hanging on the tip of your mind. You pick it up and smell it (well i would anyways). The smell of mint instantly transports you back in time to being a child where you played amongst an abandoned truck with wild mint growing in profusion (this really happened to me). You go home and create a journal page around that memory and glue the precious memory laden candywrapper in your journal. Oh man! Ideas abound........it's simply a matter of allowing your intuition to take you places your conscious mind may not have thought of.

Isn't life grand?

Art on!