So here is a question for all of my artistic friends. Do you ever wish your talent was in another area? Or that you had more areas you were talented in, for those of you multi-hyphenates?
I can tell a story. I can sit down with you and tell you a story or I can sit here at the computer and write you one, but I know I can tell a story. If I do a good job with the story I am telling I can surprise you. I can make you feel something. I can paint you a picture with my words. But one thing I cannot do is paint you an actual picture. Or sketch you out something that you would recognize. Visual art like that is not my strength. And sometimes that's very frustrating.
Writing books for children would be so much easier if I could illustrate them myself. Kids like pictures you see. Now, I could work with other people, either ones that publisher out there who is going to say yes one of these days hooks me up with or with people I know who I could reach out to. But that's not the same. I have an idea in my head how I want things to look. How I see them. And once someone else is in charge of the visual it's not mine anymore. Because no matter how much I describe them, they will be the one who draws them and it will be different.
And then there are times like right now. I have a story in my head. It came to me the way a lot of the stories I tell do. Whole and complete and just there. The only problem is this one came as a series of pictures. I have no way of getting these pictures out of my head and on to a piece of paper like I do a written story. And it's frustrating. So instead I'm going to tell you the story. Then I am going to describe the pictures for you. And I am going to hope you can "see" what I am showing you.
There was a woman walking through the forest. Feeling the sun on her face and the breeze in her hair. She saw a tree that was larger than all of the other trees around it, with a thick trunk and branches full of leaves. She went to the tree and listened to the birds that were making their nests high in the branches. Listened the the squirrels cheeing at her and at each other. She rested her back against the trunk of the tree and wondered what it would be like to be a giant tree in a deep forest.
As she thought the tree wrapped its bark and branches around her. She leaned farther against the tree and felt the stillness of the center of tree. Hundreds of years old. Then she closed her eyes and you could no longer tell the woman from the tree.
She tilted her head and felt the sun warm her face. She felt the birds start to nest in her hair. The squirrels running up and down her arms. She breathed deeply and slowly feeling the stillness of the tree. And she stayed. The sun warming her face. The breeze cooling her skin. The rain nourishing her. And she stayed.
Then one day she opened her eyes and looked out on to the forest. She shook her head and the birds that had built their nests in her hair flew higher in to the tree top. She stretched her arms and the squirrels ran away cheeing their displeasure at her. And she stepped away from the tree. And walked on through the forest.
(visual in my head)
I see these as black and white simple sketches.
A woman in a wooded area walking up to a large tree. We only see her and the bottom of the tree. It's much bigger than other trees around her.
As she touches the tree you see a wispy branch reaching toward her as well.
She leans against the tree and you see the bark (dark shading) start to cover her from foot to head in a few frames. As it reaches her head you see her hair spread away from her head like the sun.
The next frame see the tree with her eyes peering out.
Then just the tree
Season pass. Birds nesting. Squirrels running up and down the tree. Leaves falling. snow covering the tree then leaves budding again
Then you see the tree with the eyes again.
Then she is stepping out from the tree. She is taking shape out of the shadows, the dark of the tree still holding part of her. Her hair is the last to disentangle from the tree.
The last frame as she is walking away her hair which was all light in the first frame now has dark streaks from the tree and a few leaves are trailing behind her as she walks.
Can you see it? And if you could see it without the story I told would it have meant something different to you? Would you have told your own story?
Oh how I wish I could draw.
And sing.
And dance.
And act.
But mostly I want to direct....
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