What is an illustrator?
I have been an artist for over 13 years now. Trying all sorts of styles and mediums, unaware that I had ADHD. I would bounce from watercolor, to mixed media collage, then fabric and encaustic. For many years I thought I had found my place with encaustic. It made sense because I could add my watercolors, fabric bits and anything else I could collage into wax.
Life happens and the pandemic happened, and my art shows and teaching gigs canceled. I was in the middle of a business class on how to build my art business at the time and I thought of how I was going to build an encaustic website and teach in person and online classes. Everything was brought to a halt.
Then one day the teacher asked a question, where do you see yourself in 10 years? Describe what you would be doing, what it looked like, where you would be living and how would you spend your days.
WOW, it hit me. 14years ago I had a dream, but I had tucked it away. I wanted to draw silly little animals doing funny things that would end up on products to be sold in stores and children’s books and much, much more. What I was describing is being an illustrator.
But what is an illustrator? Do they just draw illustrator for kids’ books? I found many definitions of what an illustrator was. Here are a few definitions I found.
Sounds pretty close to what I was thinking.
This too sounds right too.
My thought on this is illustrators are everywhere. When you buy a coffee mug, giftwrap, clothing, journals, calendars, greeting cards, magazines and even the video games you play. If you walked around your house right now you will see some sitting right in front of you.
Here is the upside my ADHD brain feels more at home with illustration because I can walk into my studio each day and it is a new adventure. I can draw dogs and the next day do hand lettering or if I want to paint watercolor or play with markers I can. I can choose each day to draw realistic or not. I want to draw joy and fun without worrying if it is right or wrong.
There will be more to come on illustrators vs. artist and how building a sketchbook practice is invaluable too. I would love to help you find your your place in illustrations. ~ Judy