While checking out an antique store today, I saw a case of books out front for 50 cents. Most were used and heavily beat up, but there was one in particular that stood out to me. “Cheer Up, Little Duck” by Sue Harris. (2001)
During college, I started a small collection of kid’s books. The books in my collection help with my inspiration, structure, and motivation. When I looked at “Cheer Up, Little Duck” the book immediately got me thinking about a lot of things, and also sparked a lot of questions.
Going to art school definitely had its good and bad moments, but I would never say it was a waste of time or my parent’s money. (Thanks for helping me through it all, mom and dad) There was so much to learn, so much to do! Most importantly, there were a lot of valuable interactions between me and the community in my college.
But when it came to my children’s book courses, things sometimes got a little rough. Between the two courses I had, it quickly became clear to me that according to my college, there was something missing; something I wasn’t doing “quite right”. I faced tons of critiques and feedback, and was told that a lot of things within my assignments wouldn’t fly in the market by any means. It wasn’t always easy to keep up with everything that needed to be changed. There were times when it all started to feel like I wasn’t meant to be in the kid’s book industry, let alone be an artist.
Often times I would examine kid’s books in stores and see how pages were structured, how characters shaped the pages, and where text was placed. Strangely enough, I saw a lot of similarities between them and my ideas/assignments. This was no different than today’s encounter with “Cheer Up Little Duck”. Reading such a charming book and seeing its artistic elements really made me think about how my skills were seen in college versus how I felt about those skills.
Perspectives clashed quite a bit during those courses. To this day, I still tend to question things my skills were critiqued for due to the fact that I see similar things being praised within the wide market of books. As this year comes to a close, I hope that I can take in the different perspectives and keep my head up rather than falling flat and thinking “Maybe I’m not good enough. Maybe I can’t do the things I dreamed of.”
