A Bird in the Hand

Sorting out my accumulated work since the 1990s brings back a lot of memories of where I was, what I was doing, who I was. It's like a map showing my path, with all its meanderings and discoveries -- not all of them pleasant, such as the failures, which didn't stop me, I might add.

When I was a full-time magazine journalist, I did what I did best and that was writing. I loved art and I wrote about it, but I also I believed that I couldn't draw or paint. One day out of the blue, I bought a small set of watercolours and started sketching. I started very simply, and kept going, learning, enjoying, and learning some more.

When I became a freelance writer, one of my assignments was a monthly food column. The column was illustrated by someone who didn't understand what I was writing about; illustrations, after all, have to echo the subject matter. There has to be a connection between the two. I thoroughly disliked those illustrations, not least because they were boring. Come one, I thought, let's dance a little, let's have a little humour, like this:

 
But what to do? It wasn't as if I could do it. Or could I?

There was only one way to know: I was going to try, and if I failed, so be it.

 I did.

And I presented my editor with a package deal. I would both write and illustrate my column. He looked at my sketches and agreed.

This was my first illustration.

 And somewhere along the line, I began to enjoy creating the artwork a little more than writing the column....



Simplicity is the removal of the useless and the unnecessary--source unknown