Hello Lovely People, Hi Future Gab,
It’s been a while. My first summer in Edinburgh involved more drawing than I ever did during my summers back home. I managed to come up with a concept for my final fourth year illustration project: a picturebook.
This one has no title yet, I will allow some time for it to settle in naturally. The story is more or less defined. To talk extensively, the picture book is going to be about a girl called Ona, who lives in a tiny planet bursting with flora where everyone’s, including herself, main duty is to look after all that jungle that the planet is being swallowed by. Ona finds gardening quite ok, it’s what generations of her family has been doing, however, her biggest dreams reach far beyond her home planet. Ona wants to be a sailor, to roam seas and oceans and discover new lands. The planet, however, has only one water spot – the well, which is obviously too small for sailing. But Ona’s dream is so big she never gives up. Instead, she builts a little boat and begins practicing.
At night she falls asleep in a meadow looking at all the other planets passing by and sometimes talks to people living there doing all kinds of things – counting the coins, curing the ill, teaching pupils, There is a planet for almost anything. Ona has a strong hope there is a planet so full of water that she could sail her boat for days and never see the same view.
What will happen next will remain a secret for a while, However, what I just did was trying to paint a picture with words only, so the final story will surely have less text. Way less.
Overall, my aim with this story is to tell children that they have to listen to their hearts when choosing their life paths, no matter how crazy their dream ”job” would sound, it’s a legitimate goal if it’s what would make you the happiest you could be. And even one comes from a dinasty of doctors or lawyers or , in this case, gardeners, this doesn’t mean they can’t take a different path. It doesn’t even have to be a ”proper job”.
The visual part of it is going to involve loads of space scenery, fictional worlds and a cute little girl. Double page spreads soaking with mixed media. I’ve got a drawing of her. Quite a finalised one. At least for now. Still got her entire family and people from other planets on the list. It’s going to be such an exciting year.
Ona. Why Ona? Well, I thought the name sounds pretty fresh for a little space lady, even though it is a very very old Lithuanian version of name ”Anna”. In slavic languages it means ”she”. I would say why not. As long as it fits well within the story and hopefully with the title that I still have to come up with.
Why space? I try to recall my childhood passion and the magic I felt about space and astronomy.
I used to dream about how cool it would be if planets would drift by so close that I could almost touch them. My aim is to trigger children’s imagination with the same idea.
Why unibrow? It’s my professional weakness. Unibrow is an instant coolness when it comes to protagonist design. I love my characters to have quite rough, unpolished look as a rebellion against shiny mainstream cartoons for kids with no trace of human touch. Or it’s just me and my weird visual temptations.
Overall, my aim with this story is to tell children that they have to listen to their hearts when choosing their life paths, no matter how crazy their dream ”job” would sound, it’s a legitimate goal if it’s what would make you the happiest you could be. And even one comes from a dinasty of doctors or lawyers or , in this case, gardeners, this doesn’t mean they can’t take a different path. It doesn’t even have to be a ”proper job”.
Follow your dreams kids.