Picture Book Mix Tape
07: This Time it’s Personal
Every month, our critique group Illoguild answers a question. This month’s question is: What is the value of personal projects?
Our Next Illoguild Live session all about “Personal Work” is:
MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 2024 at 4PM EST
Sign up here: https://lu.ma/fotn71g6
Personal projects are just the best. There’s no pressure to create something that needs to be presented to someone who needs to show their boss who needs to share it with a committee to then come back with a gazillion changes. Making something just for you or for someone you love is where the weird and wonderful happens. It’s magic.
A word of caution, however: there can be danger in personal projects! They often turn into paid work-Whoops! Sometimes that’s great, (My small business of almost 20 years started because I made toys for friends and family!) but other times, making money from your creative work can become a mental block. You can feel like everything needs to be monetized and that can add a layer of stress onto something that should be just for you.
It also tends to backfire if you’re trying to think of what a large amount of people will like, and what “will sell” well. The reality is that people actually love weird and unique things! The more specific and unexpected, the more in love people get. If you go weird, you’ll find your true fans. Editor Melissa Manlove has mentioned (and this is not a direct quote) if there’s division in an acquisition meeting that can sometimes be exciting. At least the project is getting a reaction and people are having strong feelings vs. thinking “Meh, it’s fine. I don’t care either way.”
So how do you develop personal work? For me, it used to be to either make something for myself that I wanted, or to make a special gift for a friend that I thought they’d like. In recent years it’s been by keeping a sketchbook. I could never keep a sketchbook before, but after taking some classes and getting over the pressure of it having to look beautiful, I’ve found it to be something I wish I had done my whole life.
In a recent Zoom meetup with creative friends, we were talking about sketchbooks and someone brought up Elizabeth Haidle’s upcoming Secret Sketchbook class. I signed up and I think some more friends did too! Let me know if you also sign up! I had the privilege of taking an afternoon workshop with her in 2023 at the Illustration Institute, so I highly recommend it to anyone interested.
I personally love assignments that give me a ton of creative freedom. Things that also come with deadlines and appointments I can schedule into my calendar. I don’t know about you, but if I don’t make time to do personal work, it can easily slip away. If you want to keep making personal work all year long and have drawing sessions delivered right to your inbox, I recommend these two services put together by wonderfully kind and generous artists as well:
Beth Spencer’s Introvert Drawing Club: Honestly, it’s the best. Beth pulls together reference, sets timers and there’s absolutely zero pressure or rules. Just the joy of you and your sketchbook. At the last one I went to I turned all of the children in the vintage photos into geese. Because that’s what I felt like drawing that day. I love Beth’s sessions because you get to be with other people but there’s no pressure to perform or talk, even though you can if you want! It’s pure joy.
Art Gym with Adam Ming and Katie Stack (fellow illoguilders!) There are monthly drawing sessions over Zoom, with replays for paid members. Super fun, and if you’re feeling stuck and want to do something just for you that no one has to see, this is all packaged up and taken care of for you.
Today I’m going to recommend a few books that touch on the subject of personal projects. If you have some more from your own shelves you’d like to recommend, please add them in the comments!
This is not a Valentine by Carter Higgins and Lucy Ruth Cummins (Chronicle 2017)
I’m From by Gary R. Gray Jr. and Oge Mora (Harper - Balzer + Bray 2023)
Millie Fleur’s Poison Garden by Christy Mandin (Scholastic Orchard 2024)
Invisible Things by Andy J. Pizza (Chronicle 2023)
Cardboard Kingdom Series by various authors and Chad Sell (PRH 2018-23)
Love this Jen! I am here for personal projects and using them as learning not work!
As always, you are on point! Love the idea of personal projects, always! One way I get around the "so easy to try to think of selling things and that can rob the joy" is to consider ways I might save money in fun ways. Because it's about not spending, that definitely takes the pressure off, because I'm the only customer then. So, for example, this year I plan to slowly build out a suite of printable cards for myself, instead of always buying them, starting with a birthday one that I just did the art for (I think...though I'll probably monkey with it a little). Then I'll make some thank yous, "thinking of yous," all that, slowly over time. I also just made my first felt Kindle cover instead of buying one, which was good because it turned out (#hoardertendencies) that I had all the supplies I needed already. Hugs, creative kindred! Hope your 2025 is full of magic and good mischief!