I know, I know.
This will explain it all, in the form of a story. Grab a cup of cocoa and sit back and relax.
Once upon a time there was a girl named Kathy Ellen. She loved to draw, like every other little kid, and she loved to color. She was a bit famous for her coloring actually; she won every coloring contest in her first grade class, taking third only once, and that was because she was sick and was forced to leave mid-coloring (and she’s not bitter about it or anything….)
She also won coloring contests at restaurants and papers, bringing in impressive prizes of candy and ice capades tickets (Mario and Luigi on ice!)
When she got older, she kept drawing, but didn’t like drawing real things. She did win another sort of contest, getting her pencil drawing in the school district’s calendar. It was one of those perspective drawings with buildings coming together on a corner, only she blocked most of it out with curtains. The art teacher thought this was genius; Kathy Ellen was just trying to make the picture look nicer by hiding the stuff she didn’t like.
When she grew all the way up she didn’t draw that much; only cartoony things. She had a really hard time drawing real things, and, if anything she ever drew looked real, she would run around and show everyone, saying, “Doesn’t this look real?”
No one was impressed.
Then she started the reading journal and quickly decided to do pictures along with the books. The first few pictures weren’t that great (feel free to look back at them!), but she felt like she was getting better with practice. She worked fast, in crayon and pen mostly, and realized that drawing is just translating what you see into something you draw. You literally draw what you see. (Somehow that fact escaped her before….)
She then got bold and ventured out into watercolors, with a kids book on painting, and more pencil drawing, with a book about all kinds of drawing.
Then she got gifted a ticket to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and lllustrators Conference and saw that there was a portfolio showcase you could enter. She had been reading books on illustrators, and saw that some of the really good ones didn’t have any formal training. With that in mind, she decided, “Why not?”
Before she worked on it, she attended another SCBWI event where people asked her how long she had been illustrating, and gave her confidence to really go for it.
After three long weeks, she had a portfolio and two dummies that she was happy with. She had fun and was excited for the conference!
What happens next? We’ll have to wait and see….
Good luck! You will rock it OUT!