Today I learned to be myself.

I was working on a drawing for another textbook illustration, with very specific guidelines. I was getting frustrated trying to make my drawing look the other ones in the textbook sample provided. It was a completely different style than I am used to drawing, and it was difficult in its simplicity.

I’m used to drawing exactly what I see. I’ve never worked in a mine, so I had no point of reference there. Research time!

I’m used to drawing with painstaking detail. These images needed to be clean and simple for printing. Nothing fancy, just get the idea across. I started and scrapped several sketches, even tried some digital ideas, but nothing was looking right to me, because I was stuck thinking there was only 1 right way to look.

As soon as I let go of the notion that my drawing needed to look a certain way, like those other drawings, I was able to get into the zone, be myself, and created this scene with pencil.

(c) 2014 Amanda Balough

I’m really enjoying these projects, so I hope they continue to send me more!