My tastes are always changing, and so my style is always changing.

Sure, I’m borrowing artistic styles, but by blending those qualities in different ways an entirely new art style emerges: MY style. If I stay focused, those aesthetic qualities will begin to appear in my work. As I’m sketching a book dummy, creating final art, or simply doodling in my notebook, I keep that list in mind. With my list of aesthetic qualities I love most, I then try to make art that incorporates those qualities. Compositions with areas of openness vs.Flat Perspective and Muted colors (from Indian Court Paintings).The list of qualities is constantly changing, but it usually looks something like this… Slowly but surely, I develop a list of qualities that I love in other people’s art. I ask myself what it is, exactly, that I love about each of my favorite pieces of art. I love Lizbeth Zwerger and Kay Nielsen’s work, among others. I seem to love Folk Art and Indian court paintings. I surround myself with my favorite artwork.

I might dedicate one image board to my favorite color palettes, and another to my favorite compositions, and another to my favorite drawing styles. So every now and then I make color copies, and tear out magazine pages, and print pictures from the internet, and I plaster my favorite images onto boards that I can move around my studio. We’ll walk around a museum and say “Oh I love that painting SO MUCH” but we don’t always explore WHY we like it. Many of us have strong reactions to particular works of art. Here’s what I’ve done to understand my creativity, and to devise my own “guide” to making children’s books. In fact, I’m beginning to think it’s most important that we each learn to understand our own creative process, and when we understand our own unique ways of working we can each make our own unique “guide” to creating our own unique children’s books. I’m beginning to think we all have to figure things out for ourselves. But I’m beginning to think that no such guide exists. We’d all like to have a step-by-step guide to creating super-fantastic blockbuster children’s books.

You will be my friend by peter brown