Illustrating for another culture

In Pilgrim's Progress there is a guy called Ignorance, who keeps going on about his good heart. So I drew a picture of a heart. You know, standard loveheart, universal symbol.

Only it turns out that 'doesn't fit for Africa'.

Maybe not so universal after all.

Focus

Work produced by faith ... labour prompted by love ... endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 1:3

Is this why I do what I do? Hmmmm....

Busy busy busy

Got a number of posts I want to post, but better get the work done first.

Another Quote*

The non-reflective person says "What can be worse than unanswered questions?"
The reflective person says, "Unquestioned answers"

Chuck Swindoll

*May not be word for word, as it's from memory.

Pricing your work

Everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as your highest estimate.

Daniel Will Harris

I've just done some calculations on a project I did a couple of years ago. Assuming each picture took a day (which I think is too low, especially when you take into account all the planning etc), I should have charged twice as much as I did - if I was wanting to be paid just the minimum wage! Oops!

Seeing your work in action

We're doing Esther in Sunday School. Happened to be my illustrations for this series.

  
Esther is taken to see the king.
Fiona: She put on beautiful robes. (She adds the robes to the figure)
6 yr old girl: Ewwww :-(
Another girl: Why's she wearing blue?*
Fiona points out that blue was quite expensive in those days, and I add that it says somewhere in the book of Esther that blue & white were royal colours. We then have comments about "why does the king have flowers on his clothes?", some query about the pattern on the walls, and "I didn't know men could wear purple."

Pearls before swine... :-)

It's fun having your work critted (is that a word?) by people who didn't know it's your work!

Actually, using the materials myself is so useful. You get to see what works and what doesn't (like the 10 leper finger puppets, which seemed a great idea, until I tried using them while turning pages in my notes and holding up flashcards...). And what puzzles children - three times in the last few weeks they've been convinced male characters (not my pics) who had slightly long hair and no beards were female.

Those are the crits that really matter - adults' opinion is all very well, but it's how the children see them that's important.

* Actually, the reason I did them blue was because that's the natural bkg for stars. And her clothes have stars on them because "Esther" is Persian for "star". But I didn't think I needed to get into that!