Am I illustrating yet?
28th July, 09
Eek! Our big wholesale show is less than 2 weeks away! And even though the products I designed for the New York Stationery Show last May would technically be considered “new product” for this show, I can’t help but go for the gold and design some new-new products for this show as well. After all, designing product is the best part about my business. Hell it’s the whole reason I’m in this business! Yeah it drives me nuts and is painful sometimes to go from concept to completion. But in my opinion it’s like child birth (from what I know about child birth which is nothing but on TV it looks quite painful), the harder the push the better the results.
I don’t want to talk too too much about the new products coming down the pipes (incase I jinx it), but one of my ideas required that I draw. Yup you heard me, DRAW. Don’t get me wrong, I draw all the time on the computer. Cards, website, packaging, all drawn on the computer. I draw so much on the damn computer I can convert anchor points while I sleep. But this product specifically dictates that I draw using something called pen-cil and pa-per.
What’s pen-cil and pa-per you ask? If I remember correctly from my art college days, pen-cil and pa-per is what people used to draw with, back before the days of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Of course these days we don’t call it “drawing” anymore either, now we call it “illustrating”. Illustrating is like an invisible line you cross, one minute you’re drawing and oops! You slip and cross said line and suddenly you’re in the illustrating zone. How does that figure?
It’s been so long since I’ve drawn I was quite convinced that I couldn’t do it. I make excuses all the time to not pick up that dreaded pencil and paper because i was scarred of the results. Can I still draw? What if I didn’t do it right? Would I find a lynch mob of angry artists beating down my front door for my unsolicited drawing activity?
The whole concept was foreign to me. No more choosing a wide selection of brushes strokes from a drop down menu, for that I simply change the pen-cil I am using. No more ctrl+alt+Z to undo an action, I had to use something called an e+ra+ser. Wow it’s fascinating!
In the end I’m pretty happy with the results AND I had fun doing it. Maybe too much fun ‘cos now I’m thinking I would draw recreationally. Now wait isn’t recreational drawing called doodling? Drawing, illustrating, doodling. Oh who cares!
Speaking of which, what about that whole “scrapbooking” vs. “collaging” debate. Aren’t those two the same thing? Don’t even get me started…
Categories: In my studio.
Tags: Drawing, Illustrating, New Product.
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