Peter Catalanotto: Creativity is Messy

In my notebooks I write but I also sketch, because I think with pictures. Actually, half the people in our country think with pictures. If writing is frustrating for you, try drawing your ideas first--then when you write, you're simply describing your pictures!

When writing in my notebook it's important for me to write down imaginary thoughts as well as real ones because most of the ideas for my stories are a combination of my real life and my imagination. No matter how strange or silly a story is, it usually starts with something true from the writer's life. For instance, in my alphabet book, MATTHEW ABC, a teacher has 25 kids in her class and they're all named Matthew. The idea came from the fact that when I was in kindergarten there were two kids in my class named Peter. I was Peter C., the other boy was Peter S. I simply exaggerated real life to create a story!

Try this: the next time something happens in your life that disappoints you or makes you sad, write about it in your notebook--writing often helps us understand our feelings and things that happen to us. Then when you feel better, write what could have happened instead; what you wish happened!

Before I create a picture in a book, I sketch in my notebook how I want the picture to look. Here's a sketch from my book MORE OF MONKEY & ROBOT.

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I never use my first ideas when I write and draw. First ideas are not very good. Writers and artists need to find their best ideas! Writing and drawing is exploring ideas. Even though your first draft or sketch isn't the best, don't throw it away! Look at it so you can see how to make it better!

Some ideas in my notebooks are for stories, like these notes for my book EMILY'S ART, and some things are just for fun because I love to sketch.

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Remember, creativity is messy. A notebook is a great place to keep your mess! Have fun!

Peter Catalanotto grew up in East Northport, New York. He has illustrated 47 books for children, 17 of which he wrote. Peter has visited over 1600 schools in 40 states. In 2008, he was commissioned by the First Lady to paint the White House holiday brochure and currently teaches the first children’s book writing class offered at Columbia University and his alma mater; Pratt Institute. For more information go to: petercatalanotto.com

Much gratitude to Peter himself for offering signed book giveaways to two commenters on this post.  One will win MONKEY AND ROBOT and the other will win Peter's newest book, THE NEWBIES.  Please leave your comment by Sunday, December 6 to be entered into this drawing.

Please share a comment below if you wish.

Kateri Ewing: My Notebooks

Some of my notebooks.

I thought I would paint my tools. Only I made them blue. 

They are not blue at all; I only wish they were. 

But that's the beauty of art, isn't it? 

You can make things the way you want to see them.

They lurk everywhere. In my satchel, on my nightstand, in my car, under the sofa, on a shelf, the kitchen table, next to the bathtub, tucked into the hollow of a tree near my table in the woods, and hiding in places I may not ever discover again. My notebooks are plentiful, some warped and full from use, some with only a few pages written on. I even have notebooks that people have given to me as gifts that I worry are just too pretty to use. The ones I do use are utilitarian and, quite frankly, a mess.

I begin with the best of plans, one notebook for watercolour swatches, one for the seeds of poems. I bought one specifically for notes to myself, reminders of appointments and phone numbers and grocery lists, but when things get real there is no rhyme or reason. Every notebook contains my whole world. I grab the nearest to where I am and off I go.

I would be lost without a notebook. I am still lost even with having many. But they serve me well. The times when I have been smug enough to think a sudden idea that arrives will be safe in my memory, I have been sorely disappointed. If I had a dollar for every forgotten idea that I never wrote down…

Notebooks help me work out my thoughts, remember them, and even keep a record of paintings or stories. I can look into them when I need grist for the mill. or look back on them when I need to remember that, yes, I do actually get things done.

Here are some pages from three notebooks that I have been using most over the past few months. Nothing very interesting, but important to me.  You may click to enlarge the images.

A quick sketch of a female goldfinch along with 

swatches of the colours I will use to paint her.

Colour swatches for a ruby-throated hummingbird commission.

Pencil drawings of some twigs and leaves I brought in from my morning walk.

More pencil and watercolour play to remember 

treasures brought inside from my woods.

Watercolour and coloured pencil sketch of a fairy tale mushroom. 

Just because.

Pencil and watercolour study of parts of the horse chestnut tree.

Apples and oranges and value swatches of new pencils I bought.

Coloured pencil swatches and a bunch of leaves I found on my patio table.

Names of watercolour paints I wanted to buy. Like a wish list.

 I leave the first page of my writing notebooks for 

wiping the coffee off the bottom of my diner mugs. 

It also reminds me of where I have been.

Idea: If you are an artist, try keeping a small spiral notebook record your paintings. Before I begin any new work I create a special page with a loose sketch, a colour chart of the paints I will use, the date I began it and finished it, a note about who the painting is for and any other information I might want to remember about it. This comes in handy the next time that I paint a similar bird or plant, because chances are I will have forgotten everything. :)

Kateri Ewing is a self-taught watercolourist who specialises in the songbirds and flora of Western New York. Visit on the web at www.kateriewing.com  or find her on Facebook at Kateri Ewing - Watercolours.  Kateri has been a writer long before she became a artist. You can sample her weekly eZine, Unweaving the Nest, at www.unweavingthenest.com.

Kateri has generously offered a giveaway of two notebooks for a commenter on this post.  Please leave a comment by August 16th to be entered into this drawing.  I will draw a name on the 16th!  Thank you, Kateri!

Cynthia Iannaccone: I Often Revisit Sketchbooks

From a very young age, my father taught me to draw from observation.  Through the years, I kept many sketchbooks filled with drawings of family and pets.  Posing for hours, my sister was one of my best models.

Much later, I decided to become an art teacher.  I encouraged my students to keep a sketch-journal of ideas and thoughts.  Very often, these become valuable sources of inspirational material to work from.

I often revisit sketchbooks from years ago and discover something about myself in them that inspires me to develop an idea further into a painting, a story, or sometimes a poem.

My notebook pages displayed here are from classes and workshops in the not-too-distant past.  I've always enjoyed doodling in between notes....  When I draw, for some reason, it helps me listen and understand the instructor better.  I never really pay attention to what I'm drawing.  It's just relaxing.  My favorite type of language evokes a picture that I can see with my mind.

Here is something that you might like to try.  Draw an animal.  (You may choose to look at a picture to help you.)  Begin with one line using a large black marker, just drawing the basic shape.  After you finish the large outline, take your pencils or a thinner black marker and draw all kinds of repeating lines: straight, curvy, jagged, broken...repeating lines inside the animal shape.  You need not fill in the entire animal; feel free to leave white or blank spaces.  Once you're finished, you can color them with marker or not, however you wish!  Such an exercise might even become part of your regular drawing or sketching.

Here are a few samples drawn by my students.  I love their work!

Fine Artist Cynthia Iannaconne holds a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and an MA from Marywood University in Scranton, PA.  She has been a member of SCBWI, Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, since 1997. You can visit Cynthia's illustration website and portfolio of energetic sketchbook drawings at Cynthia Illustrates.

Alix Martin - "Reflect The Life You Love"

My sketchbooks are one of the most intimate parts of my body of work. Someday...when I leave...those will be the most intimate, first raw thoughts of things, the inspirations I leave for my kids. I like to paint and draw from life because then the a final piece is more reflective of where I've been than if it were painted from a photograph, and I like to carry that through.

I keep travel sketchbooks because you really have more of an opportunity to capture the feeling and gesture of a place, more so than in a photograph. The simplicity of the travel log, being able to do sketches, is nice for your own voice, capturing it straight from life, versus from a photograph. You really take the time to sit and look at it, unlike with a photograph. You're soaking in all of the details and the smells. Revisiting forgotten and dusty ideas in your sketchbook can be inspiring.

Travel Sketchbook

The painting below is from an illustrated journal I kept in Moux, France. These trees are specific to that region; they have such personality, are so tall, and they're ominous in the dark sky. I've used these trees lots and lots of times in other work.

Tree Painting 

Below is a pencil sketch of my husband, Josh. We were on the top of a double decker bus going to Barcelona taking a city tour. I thought, "What a cool moment to capture Josh on his first time out of the country." It was so awesome watching him watch everything....He was sitting still long enough for me to draw him.

Pencil Sketch of Josh Martin

Sometimes I sketch people I don't know. Once in Union Square Park in NYC, I saw a beautiful African American woman wearing a fabulous dress and sitting on a bench reading a book. She sat there for an hour and a half, and I just drew her. She never knew.

Mostly I do figures from life and from life models and cityscapes and landscapes. Those are my favorite things to paint.

These artichokes grew in my friend's garden in Moux, France, and I painted them in the summer of 2010. She grows all of her own food and feeds artists that stay there. (We ate artichokes from this same garden!)

Artichokes in a Painting Sketchbook

When I was asked to do the the East Aurora Co-Op community mural in the summer of 2011, I went back to my sketchbooks and painted the larger-than-life artichokes you see below. I often go back to sketchbooks when working on murals or picture books for artists are often attracted to the same colors and subject matter. When you draw and paint regularly, you all end up drawing a lot of the same things again and again; they tend to resurface in your work.. These things are a reflection of you and the life that you've lived and where you've been.

Artichokes in the East Aurora Community Mural

I did the below sketch in the town of Ceret, France, an active artist's colony on the border of Spain. I enjoyed the extreme angles of it and the way that it cut up the composition. It was so much more interesting than cutting straight across. I look for things that cut through the landscape like that.

Buildings in a Sketchbook

When I worked on the East Aurora mural, this hilly image came up again from my mind-files. Images do get filed, like an image library up there that you end up tapping, often subconsciously. You can go back and realize that you tapped it, but you may not realize it at the time. I am actually incorporating this hill in a new mural I'm painting at the public library in Elma, NY.

Hills & Buildings in the East Aurora Community Mural

In the two images below, you will again see a connection between a sketchbook and one of my paintings. This drawing is in pen and ink, and because I am a studio artist, I will fully develop paintings in my studio. Most of my work is like this as I am not a plein air painter.

Alley of Trees in a Sketchbook

Sketch into Painting

Illustrating a book that someone else has written requires that you think about the whole arc of the story, the whole plot of it. You have to think a lot bigger, concept-wise. You have a lot more opportunity to tell a story in a book than you do in a painting where you only have one shot. In a book, you have a succession of images that you get to use so you can give a lot more information in your composition.

Sketches are necessary in illustrating a book so everyone involved with the making of the book can see the direction it's going. It's like having your underwear on display.

A Pile of Sketches from THE SCARIEST DREAM EVER

If you want to keep a sketchbook, find paper you love and pens and markers that flow beautifully. Make your material an inspiration; materials are your tools. And most definitely write and draw every day.

I love paper with texture and all different types of pens and markers and felt tips and charcoal, and I'm really a pig-pen about whatever's there and just smoodging it around and making it into something. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

It's important to explore lots of different materials to draw with. You will be amazed by how much differently you draw depending on the materials and your dexterity. Experiment with what you're craving, and make art it like no one is looking.

Enjoy it. Let it reflect the life you love.

A professional artist for many years, Alixandra Martin has traveled throughout the U.S. and Europe studying and creating art. Her recent endeavors include illustrating the award winning children's book, THE SCARIEST DREAM EVER. Born on the west coast of Florida in Sarasota, Alix spent her early years painting and drawing in the marinas and observing all the creative eccentricities of the local artists of Towles Court, the artist colony near her childhood home. As an adult, she studied art education and taught painting at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota.

Alix hosts regular art travel trips to Western Europe where she explores different regions and the history of art in a particular area where she teachers and attends workshops. Her murals can be found in San Francisco, California; Olonzac, France; The Florida Keys; and redFISH Art Studios and Gallery in East Aurora, N.Y., the gallery and studios she founded in 2002.

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