S Britt Illustration
Okay.. that’s a wee bit misleading. But sometimes, we like to say ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘I can’t do that’. And do you know what? Maybe we only tried to do that thing once or twice. For five minutes. And then got discouraged. Or maybe we haven’t even tried the thing. We just assume we can’t do it. Or perhaps we don’t want to try, in case we can’t do it perfectly the first time. Well that’s just silly, isn’t it? I mean, nothing comes easy, right? And if it did, we’d never feel the satisfied thrill of achieving something.
For instance. I thought I couldn’t draw. ‘No, no… I can’t draw’, I would say to anyone that would listen. Strangers in the bank queue. Parking attendants. Freely broadcasting my lack of nouse to one and all. ‘Nup, nada, nope, NO!’. But when the book came along – well… I thought… how about if I have a bit of a go at drawing some of the diagrams. After all, I thought, they don’t have to be technical drawings – just cute sketchy drawings of what to put where and how to hold knitting needles and things like that. And all the better if they are in my very own hand and my very own style, I thought, because then it’s like I did that little drawing just for you, dear reader, right?
So I went to the art supply store – and I bought:
a pencil
some paper
an eraser
a black fineliner
And I spent days and days drawing, erasing, drawing, swearing, erasing, scrunching up and chucking on the floor, sighing, sipping thoughfully, drawing, rubbing out, snorting, concentrating, doubting, re-drawing, picking up all that scrunched up paper, penning…
And I did do all the drawings for the book. Yes I did. It took a long time. It was hard. I was frustrated and discouraged a HUGE lot of the time. But I kept at it. And now I feel like I really earnt my stripes. I like what I came up with. I did it all by myself! Go me!
Anyhoo, what I am trying to say is this:
‘You can do the things you think you can’t.
Yes, you can.
You just need to practice and allow yourself plenty of time and sips of wine.
So you should try that thing you think you can’t do.
Because I think you can.
And don’t say that you’re no good at stuff.
Because I think you’re dead sexy just as you are’.
That is all.
xx Pip