Letter from a new old friend.

Podcast interview, drawing salads - trust the process, PLAY!

Hello friends!

It’s me, Amber Aü, again. I’m glad that you are still here. I truly am. As I mentioned from my previous post, I’m going to write in a more casual way in my future posts —like catching up with a friend!

Hope you have a great start of the week! How are you doing? Are you reading this while having your morning coffee? Or are you reading this in the toilet? Although it’s chucking it down now while I’m typing this letter—properly paying off the awesome weather we had for the past few weeks— I had an awesome week as I felt like a kid again! I’m gonna share that with you later in this letter.

So, what am I up to this week?

Podcast Interview

I have been interviewed by Helen Stephens from The Good Ship Illustration podcast! No, I’m not joking. That

Helen Stephens

who wrote and illustrated How to Hide a Lion. Although it’s just a 5-minute interview— I’m just one of the 6 students who were being interviewed— it’s HUGE to me. A proper podcast interview! Of course, I was excited, but nervous too.

The interview was mainly about my experience being selected in few competitions last year. As a human being with goldfish memory, I have to must write things down before the interview to prevent my mind go completely blank. This sounds silly but yes—I even drew a timeline/note to recall all my memories.

Professional notes I prepared before the podcast recording

The interview went well and I had a great time! And you guess it—yup, I didn’t use any of the notes I prepared. It ended up just like chatting with a friend, sharing my thoughts and experience. Might not sound like a challenge to you, but fully, fully expressing myself in English is not an easy task for me. I’m glad that I did it and have been my true self!

Drawing salads —Trust the Process

Also, I have been working on a client project this week— creating some food illustration for a Mediterranean restaurant. It’s all about salads, bowls and pitas!!

Let me tell you, drawing salads is a nightmare. Drawing a pile of greens above each other is hard but trust me, making it looks lively, energetic and appetising is even harder. After struggling for while with those boring greens, I found a solution— outlines. I’m not talking about those typical-neat-tidy-goodgirl-outlines which stick right next to the objects, I’m talking about naughty-off-the-track-outlines like this:

Can you see those naughty-off-the-track-outlines?

I didn’t know illustrating food would be challenging for me before I took on this project. Food is something that I am confident drawing—at least that’s what I have believed for a while—but when money and expectation are involved in creative process, the self-doubt monster creeps in. Drawings look bad and ugly when they are not finished. They were just blob of colours being smashed on the canvas. The thing I learn, or relearn, from this project is trusting the process and trusting yourself.

Trust yourself you can draw even if you don’t.

Believe yourself you are going to find a solution even if you don’t.

Convince yourself you are going to finish it even if you don’t.

It’s a mindset game.

Left: How blobs of colour turn into grilled chicken; Right: I was super happy with the paper cup I drew so I need an awkward selfie with it

PLAY!

I have not been allowing myself to play for a while because the logical side of my brain convinces me that playing is unproductive— It’s a waste of time. You cannot make any money from playing. You need to make something that have commercial value or at least a “like” on social media.

But the truth is—playing is almost a necessity for creatives. You cannot create anything if you don’t allow yourself to play, explore new materials, make bad drawings, and many more. Whenever I have brain fog or feel stuck, collaging and making paper cut art always help. Why? Because I usually work digitally, using scissors and glue can shut off my annoying logical brain. No iPad. No Procreate. It’s PLAY TIME! I can create any shapes I want with a pair of big fat scissors, and adding quirky faces to them. I feel like a kid again :’)

I lost track of time while playing with ink, brush and dip pen. 4 hours. And you know what? The annoying logical brain started to criticise me of wasting the morning and being unproductive again.

Nope. Shut up.

I slapped it in the face. That’s not time wasted. I feel refreshing, creative and most importantly, happy and alive again after that. Playing is the best therapy session. And it’s free.

What do you do when you are feeling unmotivated? How long have you been not allowing yourself to play like a kid? Take 15 minutes 10 minutes to do something that has been sitting on your wish-to-do list. I promise you won’t regret it.

Play time!

So, that’s it for this week!

I will let you know when the podcast I was interviewed is available. And I will share my client project with you when I can! Hope you enjoy reading this letter, my friend!

I apologise if there’s any grammatical, logical or slpeling mistakes because it’s written by me, a human being who makes mistakes.

Extra things I want to share —

I listened to this podcast episode twice because it’s that GOOD! Creativity seems like the least thing that associated with science but it is. I have learnt about a lot of interesting and fun facts about creativity—which makes me think about my own process and practice. Highly recommended!