For the first time in 8 years, I didn’t pick up a watercolour brush over the Christmas holidays. In the beginning, it was difficult, it felt as though I was ‘slacking off’, or procrastinating, or simply not spending my life in the most productive or useful way. But two weeks later, I have a very different perspective.

What did I do instead? I spent very present time with family. I spent a disgusting amount of time (for me) ‘wasting’ it playing playstation. I spent a bit less time exploring Procreate – not to see if I could mimic my watercolour work, but just playing around for fun to see if there’s a way I could enjoy it for image-making. I spent time learning how to take pictures on 35mm film (and bought a lot of camera gear). I even read 3 or 4 graphic novels (and not a single ‘normal’ novel).

In case you’re wondering, all of that is very much out of the ordinary for me.

What I could’ve done instead? Well, my list is long, even beyond “completing the two books I’m currently working on”. I could have lodged my tax return, painted the office, built a frog bog, cleaned the gutters, organised a tradie for our internal doors, weeded the garden, taken some e-waste and paint waste to the recycling facility… there’s a lot more, too. But I didn’t do any of that.

So, did I waste time? Well, if you’d told me that’s how I was going to spend Christmas break before I begun it, I would’ve said yes – all of that sounds like a huge and pointless set of distractions.

But now, the answer is an unequivocal no, because, as I’m writing this, I’m feeling so much energy to get back into watercolour work; an energy that wasn’t there a few weeks ago. And, because of the time I ‘wasted’, I have 2 really fun new hobbies (film photography and my cinema-frames project on Procreate), and a different way to think about storytelling (game-storytelling is a rich space for learning great dialogue and great story arcing).

Maybe I was getting into a rut before but wasn’t aware of it? Or maybe everything is connected in some way? Maybe, no matter what I do, what I’ve realised is that my brain is geared for learning and cross-pollinating ideas across domains that others would not be able to see connections in. Maybe I can’t help it.

Or, maybe there are certain “distractions” that are generally healthy and attempting to optimise our lives with such focus (like we’re driven to do by our commercial and ‘high-performance’ productivity culture) is harming more than helping; or, at the very least, limiting the richness of our possible human experience.

I’ve recently jumped, head first, into a 35mm film photography rabbit hole and it’s glorious. Why? Because it exploits the tactility of physical things. There are knobs, dials, clicks, and clacks. There are no LCDs, no hidden menus, no touchscreens. The feedback isn’t immediate – I have to wait weeks for my film to be processed – so while I’m using the tool, I remain in the moment; assess the light, contrast, and composition, then… click. That’s it.

People often ask why I still work in watercolour when digital is so available, cheap, easy, and, well, risk-free in many ways. Don’t like a line or colour? Change it. Ctrl+z. Undo. Redo. Undo again. The level of refinement is endless and, if you want to, you can control each and every pixel until it’s exactly how you want it. The problem of course is that it implies that the image you can see in your head is the only correct answer, we just have to work long enough to get to it.

The same goes with image-making in digital photography. Like a scene? Snap at it – 5, 10, 50 times if you want – until you can see on the LCD screen what you can see in your head. If you beat the nail hard enough, it’ll eventually go in. Snap away on the shutter until your finger falls off.

And, whilst you may eventually be able to get your perfect result, the sensory experience between physical and digital image-making is vastly different.

As it turns out, what I love about any sort of image-making is the process. In watercolour, there is pleasure in the filling of my water pots, the weight of the water in the brush, the sound of the sloshing, the scraping against the paper; it’s inescapably multi-sensory. In fact, those things bring me much more pleasure than seeing the final book appear on a bookstore shelf.

Film photography has tapped into the same feeling. With film, the result is weeks or months away. I don’t see the photo I snapped until it’s developed. In the meantime, I can focus on the physicality and multi-sensory experience of making the image as I’m making it: assessing the light, contrast and composition. I find immense pleasure and presence in the clicks and clacks required to expose a piece of film to some light for 1/500th of a second – or more, or less. The roughness of the lens against my fingers, the weight of the camera in my hand and around my neck, the shape of the shutter speed adjuster compared to the aperture ring. And, after all that – SNAP – a mirror flicks back and forth as it’s done for almost 50 years.

I have no idea whether the image is good or not, but, as happens with watercolour, there’ll likely be things I see that I never planned to see but end up discovering with unbridled joy – stuff I could never have made had I retained full and complete control over the process. They say watercolour is best when the painter gets out of the way and lets watercolour paint itself. Maybe it’s the same for film photography. In the meantime, I can get lost in the process of both without caring so much about the product that comes from it because by the time the final piece comes around, it feels like I’ve already won.

It’s been a while since I’ve journaled a ‘listicle’. Most of my entries are either about starting, making, or marketing art. I have, for quite some time, felt a lot of guilt about ‘not being a reader’ as a young person. Instead, I spent most of my time watching movies which, in hindsight, was much better training for understanding visual storytelling. And so now, instead of leaning away from film, I’m leaning much more heavily into it (that, and comic books), as a way to satiate my curiosity about how visuals contribute to telling a great story.

And so, this year, I’m posting about my favourite films I watched this year. Not necessarily influential ones, or ones that were released this year, just ones I watched for the first time this year and that had a profound effect on me for some reason. The short version is:

1. Quo vadis, Aida?
2. Fire of Love
3. So Long, My Son
4. The Lost Daughter
5. Everything Everywhere All At Once
6. Drive My Car
7. Petit Maman
8. I, Daniel Blake
9. I Am Love
10. Bait

Honorable mentions:

• Memoria
• The invisible life of Euridice Gusmao
• The Batman
• Mariner of the Mountains

The Top Five

Quo Vadis, Aida?

By the 90th minute, I was bawling my eyes out in the cinema at this movie. It’s been almost a year between writing this and seeing this film but it was complete tragedy. I have a personal connection to the ‘civil’ war over Yugoslavia which is likely to have affected how I felt about this film but, that final scene, with the kids singing at school, and the us/them sitting in the crowd watching along was heart-wrenching. I couldn’t help but imagine a life where you would need to co-exist with the barbarism you experienced, even once the war was over. It made me reflect on how lucky we are, living in this period of history, in the safety of Australia.

Fire of Love

I loved this so much I saw it at the cinema twice. Once on my own (there was one other person in the cinema), the second time with my partner (also only one other person in the cinema). The story of the Krafts is amazing on so many levels – the coincidence, the love, the travel, the partnership and life together, their acceptance of danger, their wanting to help humanity using science – it touched every one of my love bones. The music, sound, editing, and typography were perfectly retro and rock at the same time. Just after Boxing Day I watched Werner Herzog’s version of the same couple and again, was completely enthralled. Watching the two different films side-by-side is something I recommend to every person I meet now.

So Long, My Son

What would it mean to live a whole life in misery because of an accident that happened in your youth? Could things be another way; perhaps in another time or place? This 3-hour family tragedy was another that had me bawling at the end. It’s gorgeous, slow, & sad, but also politically interesting to see the sorts of affects the one-child policy had and continues to have in China. The actress who played the mother is just completely outstanding and all I wanted was to help her, to console her, to make her not feel so sorrowful again – before it was too late. I can’t wait to watch this one again.

The Lost Daughter

I was so surprised by this movie. I mean, sure, when you say that Olivia Coleman has the lead role and it’s directed by Maggie Gyllenhall, the idea of being surprised by the magic of cinema and story seems ridiculous but, this was truly great. Suspenseful, beautiful, wistful, tragic, and a little bit creepy, I was sucked in from the beginning and it didn’t let go until the end. The cinematography was gorgeous, even though it was a little raw is some spots, and, well, I don’t know, it’s just a really lovely and original way to touch on what is often a taboo subject – unnatural motherhood and the competition with career.

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

What. A. Ride. It appealed to my love of absurdity and time/space travel simultaneously. The editing and cinematography stood out to me and I couldn’t help think that this is the sort of crazy movie I’d love to be a part of. It, in many ways, reminded me of our contemporary society – chasing extremes and the increasing need we seem to have for novelty – but nonetheless, it was a lot of fun.

Drive My Car

If I love anything, it’s a 3-hour saga where the opening titles appear 60 minutes in. This gives you a good indication of the sort of movie Drive My Car is – slow, gentle, & subtle. I think my partner fell asleep at moments in this movie but I loved it, the 3 hours flew by. Once again, beautiful cinematography (I’m sensing a theme here) paired with a gorgeous but spare soundtrack, it’s a lovely time to reflect on one’s relationships, the role of women in society, and friendship.

Petit Maman

I’m a huge fan of Director, Celine Sciamma and whilst this movie was incredibly short, it felt like the fairytale I needed. I actually saw this with my mum who I thought would love (alas, I was wrong). It’s such a gorgeously gentle film about motherhood, friendship, and time, I came out of this film smiling and I smile every time I’ve thought about it since.

I, Daniel Blake

Just like Celine Sciamma, another Director I can’t get enough of is Ken Loach. I first encountered Ken’s work in a much more recent film (Sorry, We Missed You), and just absolutely love how he can use film to make a comment – especially about socialism and class (his specialty). I, Daniel Blake probably struck more of a chord with me having just gone through the Centrelink process for my parents (from which I still carry scars). But, this wasn’t just relevant to me, it also *looked* how it the main character felt. Raw and cold on the outside, warm and heartfelt on the inside. The deep personal relationships and friendships that are explored here, as well as an individual’s relationship with the State (and the paperwork that goes along with that!) left me with a lot to think about; mostly that, above all, kindness is what the world needs.

I Am Love

Wow, this was amazing, and totally not what I expected. Of all the films, the warmth in the colour of this film had me from get go. My partner went down a costuming rabbit hole with this one and once you find yourself at the bottom of that, you realise how well-considered this film was on so many levels. I’m a sucker for a Tilda Swinton movie and this did not disappoint. Again, themes of tragedy, motherhood, and familial bonds are explored here (gee, I didn’t realise it was *that* sort of year for me), but it does so without one feeling depressed or hopeless. Also, because of this movie, I almost constructed a grapevine out the back of our place just so I could sit under it.

Bait

Bait just goes to show that you don’t need a big budget or a huge acting cast to pull of a great story. Bait, shot all in black and white on a really old camera (a hand-cranked Bolex camera, using 16mm monochrome film for those interested), explores the menacing tension between locals and tourists (something obviously topical with things like AirBnB doing a lot of disrupting in this space). It’s a tale of hardship, entrepreneurship, friendship and, ultimately, lobsters. I can’t remember where I saw this (might have been SBS), but even though this is ‘number 10’ on the list, I still think about it as on par with many of the other films mentioned above.

The near misses

So, because Top 10s only have 10 spots, there were a few standout films that would be weird not to mention as exceptional films that I saw in 2022. This list is mainly here so I can look it up later and re-watch some of them, they’re that good.

• Memoria
• The invisible life of Euridice Gusmao
• The Batman
• Mariner of the Mountains

Things you never know until you write about them

I didn’t realise how many of my favourite films are touching on deep questions I’ve been having this year. The familial bonds we hold dear, even though, often, our friends act more like we expect family to be. Motherhood and the role of women as I’ve been exploring system of patriarchy and its negative effects men. Mortality and death and, in the end, what might a well-lived life look like based on the everyday choices we make for ourselves.

It’s incredible to me that, even subconsciously, I’ve been drawn this year to films that are also exploring the same questions I have for myself. I love seeing their answers, and adding their answers to my own as I shape loose thoughts and opinions about them in my own art. In the end, that’s what art is for, isn’t it? To answer those questions that rise up inside of us and find the others for whom those questions burn brightly also.

Growing up, I was taught that big was beautiful; that it would be an achievement to run a big business, make large amounts of money, buy a big house (most likely through a big mortgage), and, generally, live a big (and therefore, important) life. There have been very few people in my life, if any, who have encouraged me to ‘think small’.

But what I’ve learned is that small is efficient, and efficiency is beautiful. When you’re small, it’s easy to change and adapt when something unexpected happens. Most ‘big’ businesses go under when they’re disrupted by something or someone smaller who is able to move more quickly and respond to a changing market. When you don’t have a lot of money, you tend to use it more wisely (i.e. waste less of it) than someone with ‘plenty to spare’. And when you live in a small house, it saves you money in heating and cooling, repair and maintenance.

I’m starting to think that thinking small might be a better way.

I don’t know about other artists, but the ones I know are looking for big – a big audience or a high price tag for their work. That’s what success looks like. I started off that way, too.

But then I got to thinking – what does it mean if I make my art and ‘only’ one or two people see it, not hundreds. Was it still a ‘success’? Am I less of an artist because if my audience remains small?

No matter which way I look at it, I was making work before people were interested, and I’ll continue to make work after. The original need to make art wasn’t driven by a big commercial outcome or audience, it was driven by an interior need – to seek answers to questions I had both of the world, and more importantly, myself.

Not everyone is (or will be) interested in what I make, and that’s OK. In fact, it’s helpful, because I also can’t scale me. I can only do X books a year, or paint Y paintings. Smallness is baked into the artist’s way of producing the work.

When there have been attempts by some to scale that inherit smallness – through merchandising or hiring employees to paint/draw their way – history seems to point to a growing perception of inauthenticity in the work, even though it may have begun in the right place. Through saturating a market with one’s work, it ends up diluting it. “Household names” like Garfield & Peanuts are all both examples of this from the comics world. Sure, they have attained ‘global status and reach’, but does the link from merchandise to engagement with the original work really not change the original work? I doubt it.

The thing with a capitalist culture that celebrates scale is that, quite oddly, it also celebrates scarcity. Scarcity creates value, too, and it seems to me, that for art, small can be beautiful.

Things are getting faster. No, I don’t mean the pace the world is moving faster, although that’s true, too. What I mean is that I’m getting faster, and I almost didn’t notice.

Over the weekend, I did some rough illustrations for a picture book. In the past, those illustrations would’ve taken a few days. Now? They take one. And the drawings, in my opinion, are better quality than they were when I first began in 2016.

I also used to wonder how the watercolour masters I admire – Joseph Zbukvic, Alvaro Castagnet, and Amanda Hyatt – could work the way they do; such a fine and intimate understanding of how much water is on the paper and how much paint is on the brush.

But now, I’m noticing that in myself, too. I don’t need to touch brush to page to know there’s too much water in it, I can tell by the weight of it in my hand. That’s not a sensitivity I set out to achieve.

What school never taught me about learning is that it’s a multi-sensory experience. That it doesn’t need to have an ‘intellectual’ or ‘intentional’ focus. Yes, sure, it’s important to have goals and criteria to help us shape a path and define a structure to attain them. But, there’s another type of learning, ‘osmotic’ learning, where we learn not through goals and criteria, but practice and consistency.

I never created a 5-step plan to ‘achieve better weight sensitivity to the water in my brush’. Never once did it cross my mind that I could go from drawing roughs over a few weeks to roughs in a day, and if I never imagined it I certainly didn’t design my learning path to achieve. Yet, both of these things have happened.

How did I notice these things? Well, one thing I’ve always had is planned time for reflection. Blocks of time where I write or draw about a process or project I’ve been working on. What was fun? What worked well? What didn’t? What could I do better next time?

In the software world, this is called a ‘retrospective’. A way for a team to come together and look back on the past fortnight to see how things could be improved for the following one. Maybe out of habit, I’ve taken this process into my picture book work, and it’s revealing things I never would have seen otherwise.

I wonder how many other illustrators are missing out on seeing and feeling progress by not taking the time to reflect on what’s going well and what’s not in their practise or business? I wonder if anyone who reads this will begin doing it?

Whenever I’ve worked in a team to solve complex problems, especially in my picture book work, one thing remains true – people communicate their problems in solutions.

I’d be surprised if it hasn’t happened to other illustrators or writers, too. We receive feedback on our work and it’s often in the form of recommendations about how to fix a problem, not what the problem is. For example, “Could we change the shape of the trees in the forest to something like X, it’ll feel more ‘natural’.”

With this form of feedback, I first need to work out whether it’s direction, suggestion, or comment, before I’m able to respond in a productive way. But, there’s also another way to be productive when we receive solutions to unarticulated problems – find out what the problem is.

See, the issue with providing ‘written notes’ as feedback is that we’re limited by language. Not all of us are great writers and so feeling, meaning, and intent can slip through the cracks. I can’t remember where I read it, but the quote was, “When an editor can see something wrong, they’re almost always right. But the way they suggest to make it right is almost always wrong.”

Asking questions like, “what do you mean by natural?” or “can you explain to me why you’re feeling this way?” (the ones that have ‘why’ in it) finds the layer below the solution and, inevitably, uncovers the problem.

Once we have the problem, we can use what we do best to solve it.

No matter how much I draw, whenever I sit down to the blank page, it’s difficult. It’s difficult to get started, difficult to think about what to draw, difficult to trust in my ability to draw it and, therefore, difficult to feel like there’s any point at all. That feeling, 7 years into a professional illustration career, hasn’t gone away. I suspect it never will.

But, what I’ve learned in those 7 years is that almost everything hinges on the first mark. Not whether it’s a good or bad mark, but just a mark. If I can get to the first mark, those other questions go away and now the conversation is just between me and the page. It works even better if the first mark is with something I can’t rub out with an eraser as soon as I make it.

Why the first mark? Because it’s feedback. Sure, it might be a crap mark, but the next one will better because I won’t repeat the first one (at least not exactly the same). With a first mark, I’ve learned something. With a second one something else. And, like a fencing match, the page and I parry back and forth until suddenly, almost without noticing, I’ve filled a page of my sketchbook… and then another… and then another.

No mark-marking is ever wasted, but boy it can be difficult getting to that first one – even after seven years and counting.

I had a recent experience of posting something to Instagram that I thought was really great – humourous, empathetic, and important; the stuff I’m really proud to share. It’s been an idea sitting in an old sketchbook for years and I think I’d just been too afraid to execute it for fear of not being able to produce what I could see in my mind. Anyway, when I did and put it out in the world, I was really disappointed with the response.

In terms of ‘likes’, it performed poorly compared to other stuff I’ve posted, recently. Was it the wrong day? The wrong time of day? Was it Instagram’s algorithm? A lack of hashtags? I went into ‘analysis overdrive’ trying to work out what to do differently next time.

Then, almost 24 hours later, one of my picture book heroes, Bruce Whatley, came across it and we had one of the most meaningful exchanges I’ve had on Instagram in a really long time. Not only that, but it inspired him to go dig up an old book and share it with his audience, which resulted in even more nostalgia and conversation. No marketing guide ever asks us to measure that.

See, when I first posted the image, I was focused on the wrong thing – numbers. How many likes and how much visibility will this work receive? But, it was decidedly the wrong metric/s.

Whenever we think of ‘marketing’ we think about it in the way that social media companies have trained us to think about it – impressions, likes, clicks, conversions. We focus on the numbers. That may be meaningful for them and their business model, but that’s not the only way. There is another lens through which to judge success, a lens trained on relationships, meaningful conversation, and connections amongst one another that run far deeper than surface-level numbers.

It feels ‘riskier’ to focus on qualitative, not quantitative metrics, but if the work is good enough, it’ll cut through anyway. I don’t know about anyone else, but good qualitative metrics to leave a deeper and more lasting impression than the fleeting quantitative ones.

I used to think that my ‘style’ was defined by the materials I use. I found watercolour early and have loved it ever since. I used a small amount of pencil to sketch in line work, came up with characters that had ‘floating eyes’ and voila – that’s my style. I was, at some points, nervous about drifting from these materials for fear of losing ‘my style.’

But now, I realise that style is more than materials. Style is more akin to a ‘gaze’. A way that one looks at the world; a lens through which we consume, interpret, and then, create.

Some artists’ gaze are graphic – they see line, colour, shape vividly. They interpret this world in bright contrasts and simple forms. There is often little narrative in their work. I love this sort of work but I cannot mimic it for very long.

Other artists’ gaze are serious and brooding – even if the medium they use is not, there’s a darkness to their voice that comes through their work; a scepticism, negativity, critique. Again, I love this work, but I also find I cannot gaze upon the world like this for very long.

So, what is my gaze?

Well, there is humour, I know that for sure. It comes so naturally to me that I have to be reminded of how little humour I see in some artists’ work to know that it’s something unique. I also know now that I gaze upon the world with a veil of optimism and hope. It is, perhaps, the reason why I’ve collaborated on a number of books where the main character is a ‘grump’ but goes on the journey to be less so. Perhaps it’s better described as silliness?

I certainly interpret the world as a series of connected stories and see strong connections where others do not. This enables character to drive most of what I do. I’m still often surprised when I hear that book illustrators find that bit difficult because, to me, it’s the whole point of telling a story.

But, again, we all have slightly different gazes and there seems to be a place in the world for them all.

The freeing thing about disconnecting style from medium is that it gives me room to explore ways to express the gaze. How does my gaze come through acrylic, or coloured pencil? I’ve done some ink and watercolour recently in Herman Crab and Rosie the Rhinoceros, and I can see my gaze in them, despite the bold ink lines that weren’t there a few years. The question now is how might using different mediums alter my gaze because, surely, as one moves through life, there’s a chance that things shift?

In art marketing, we’re taught that consistency is king. “Develop your style”, “Curate your Instagram”, “People should take one look at your homepage and know exactly what you do.” But people are more complicated than that, and artists’ work even more so. So, whilst I understand where art marketers are coming from – viewing the work as something to be purchased by a consumer – I can’t help but think the value of art isn’t how much or how quickly you can sell a painting but rather a way to find out who we were, are now, and who we might become.

How much money does one ask for in exchange for a painting? $50? $100? $5000? And then I realised I’ve been asking the wrong question.

By the time my art is ready to sell, I’ve already won. The process of working through the art – discovering an answer to a question that kicked off the need to create the piece in the first place – is the reward. The final piece is kind of a secondary benefit. The question isn’t what is worth, the question is what did I learn?

So, why does the sale price of the piece still feel me with anxiety? Is it because if I price it too high, I’ll look arrogant? If I price it too low, I’ll be percieved as undervaluing it? Especially when we start to ‘compare the market’, or in other words, understand what people are paying for ‘similar pieces’.

But what’s similar about 2 different pieces of art from two different artists? The materials? The size? The complexity of the work or the time it took to complete? Even if these were exactly the same in material terms, should they cost the same? How does one value sentimentality or the meaning of the process to the individual artist? How does one value the ‘reputation’ of the artist? Some things don’t map easily to money – art is one of them – but we do it anyway.

Like most human/object relationships, the value of any one piece of art is fundamentally an individual choice. There is no set ‘commodity’ price for art, only averages. We attempt to map mental models of consumer goods around them – oil painting ‘last longer’ therefore are generall worth more – but it’s still all just theatre.

In the end, every artist will have their reasons for pricing their art a particular way, and every buyer will have their reasons for buying it. As long as those are clear, then any time art is made or sold, for whatever price, it’s worth it.