Making the First Mark

Illustration can be daunting, but all I need to do is make the first mark.

One of the hardest parts of doing art is making the first mark. Overthinking about what should be placed where and how you are going to go about creating the vision you’ve made in your head can cloud over the importance of actually starting a piece. This is something I’m learning to overcome as I go about illustrating my children’s book. As I worry about how I am going to start my drawings and how they are going to be formatted in the final product, I am also trying to figure out what exact media I plan on using (although I’ve settled on that for the most part). As someone with little experience in the field of illustration, I’m worried that what I have to put out will not be up to par with my expectations for what my book should look like. What I need to do is throw away that glamorized unattainably perfect version of what I think my final product should be and just learn to be content with the art I can produce. I would not have gone into this if I was not confident enough in my abilities to create, therefore, all I have to do is make that first mark.