The Sketchbook Project | Stella and 阿姨
Stella is my 3 year old niece, and we were gifted #TheSketchbookProject. I thought about a concept for weeks and months before even beginning to sketch. I wanted a plan because without one, we would’ve ended up with a book filled with firetrucks and “fire pups” (dalmatians). I thought of all the stories that Stella tells, and imagined how we could illustrate them together. I thought of sketching out the storyline and having her doodle here and there. But the more I planned, the more ridiculous this all sounded. My desire to create something in line with my aesthetics meant that I was actually trying to control a 3 year old’s imagination. She will have a lifetime of society telling her to stop dreaming. I did not want to be her first. So I set up the paint and watched her explore how colors mixed together and how the color of water changed when rinsing out the brushes. It was magical.
Then it was my turn to doodle in her world. It was a creative challenge to open up my imagination, and I got to experience creating possibility when there wasn’t a clear way forward.
Magic.
