This month, it took a bit longer to come up with a good story, and that has everything to do with the subject: inspiration and creating a new collection. Okay, and the delay also had to do with going on vacation. Which, in turn, resulted in inspiration for my new collection. And so the circle is complete again :)
Often when I create a new illustration, it's a standalone drawing. Inspired by something I see when I think of a specific topic, by something I think I see on the street, or by something I see on Pinterest, for example. I then check if the image in my 'mind's eye' fits Studio Kvinna - think hygge/fika/Scandinavia - and start sketching and developing, often directly on my iPad.
Creating a collection
But sometimes I like to work differently. For example, when I want to create a collection. By that, I mean multiple illustrations within a theme that match in color and style, that reappear on different products and possibly in different combinations. For example, for a calendar, Christmas cards, or, like now, for the summer collection.
This also works when inspiration is hard to find or when doubt creeps in about whether I can still create striking illustrations. If I don't feel it, how will it come across to you?
Because it's easy to choose a theme, write down keywords, and work with those words until you have about eight drawings that happen to fit the chosen theme and look nice on a card, and you're done. But that's not how I work. I believe every illustration should tell a story, or at least be able to bring a smile to your face. And it doesn't have to be a complicated story; I just think it should look like it's been thought through. That might sound pretentious, and unfortunately, it doesn't apply to all my work, to be honest. But those are also the illustrations I'm least happy with and that disappear from the website the fastest.
5-Step plan
So how do you do that? Tell a story, based on a theme, to create a coherent and matching collection - in my case, of stationery items. While thinking and working on my own collection, I came up with this 5-step plan.
- Create a word cloud >> put the theme in the middle of a piece of paper and write down as many matching words as possible. All the words that come to mind, not just the words you think you might want to use.
- Look for images on Pinterest and possibly Creative Market >> This is great for getting inspiration and exploring your theme further using the words you've written down.
- Seek inspiration in other, offline, places >> Go out and take photos of what you encounter and what inspires you. To the library, into nature, the garden center, in the city, you name it!
- After a while, revisit your word cloud. You can add new words if necessary, and then it's time to choose which words you want to continue with. Also very important: choose what you don't want to continue with, cross out those words, and let them go.
- See if you can create combinations of words to tell your story within one illustration; words can reappear multiple times in different drawings. And of course, you don't have to use all the words you've left.
And all this time, I haven't put a pencil to paper yet. My experience is that when I start sketching too early, I get stuck, as it were, in the first things I draw.
Only in the next step is it time to convert the words into lines and sketches and to continue the story from there. Because even in the sketching phase, the story can take on more shape :)