How I became an illustrator - part 2

How Writing and Illustrating The Little Cleveland got my illustration career started

For several years I dreamt about writing and illustrating a series of family stories.  Most of the action would be anchored in a place I called The Little Cleveland, an imaginary bar in Wellesley, MA, where I have lived since 1984.

Wellesley doesn't have any true bars, taverns or pubs.  Any establishment that sells alcohol for consumption on the promises has to serve more food than alcohol.

There is a lovely little library within a short walk of my home.  It has two fireplaces, built-in benches, and leaded glass windows.  It is the perfect place for a pub; a place that reminded me of home, where people went to pubs, not to get drunk, but to socialize, and have a pleasant and inexpensive evening out.  Writing and illustrating The Little Cleveland was a way for me to recapture that comfortable, welcoming feeling.

I had no idea how to write, or tell stories.  My father, uncle and grandmother recounted wonderful tales - about themselves and about relatives.  

I was too shy as a child to talk about myself, or even to say what I had done that day.

Even though I had no confidence in my storytelling abilities, I wanted to communicate our family mythology.  I found several books on how to tell stories.  The one I found most helpful is called The Power of Personal Storytelling - Spinning Tales to Connect with Others by Jack Maguire (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam - 1998).

I developed a simple rubric for the narratives I ultimately wrote:

1. Start with the status quo.

2. Take note when something starts to change.

3. Emphasize when a turning point is reached.

4. Resolve the story.

Once I had this rubric, I started writing.

I did not start with an outline.  The Little Cleveland quickly developed a structure, though.  It started with a preface - about my father.

It then followed a woman who thinks she is going to her local library for a book chat, only to find it transformed into a pub (much to her initial annoyance).  She is right to be annoyed and thrown-off balance.  The library has been transformed, as if by magic.  The Little Cleveland becomes her Brigadoon.

Finally, stories are told about  people in my family.  Everyone always ends up at The Little Cleveland - meeting friends, commiserating with Rusty (the bartender), playing cards and eating (fish fry, steak tips, and pierogis).  I wrote stories about Ruth, the woman who was initially annoyed.  She wasn't based on a family member, but someone I know locally.  As I wrote my stories, I found that adding stories about her helped maintain a narrative thread throughout The Little Cleveland.

One of the last stories in the Little Cleveland  has helped me resolve issues with my Dad - something I couldn't do when he was alive - he died when I was sixteen.

Next week, I will write about how I learned to compose the illustrations.  Ultimately, drawing pictures for twenty-four stories, and posting them weekly, launched me into my career.

How I began my life as an illustrator

Have you ever wondered how someone becomes an illustrator?  For me, it has been a circuitous path that started in fifth grade at St. Dominic School in Shaker Hts., Ohio.  That year, we actually had an honest-to-goodness art teacher.  She was a young sister - a large, friendly woman with dark, curly hair.  And, she taught us how to draw people!

Her technique was to draw loose loops and ovals for the hip, trunk, limbs and head.  A lightly drawn line was used to indicate the spine.

This picture shows what a drawing using this technique looks like:

Being able to draw people thrilled me.  I had been given a key to a new world, similar to gaining the key of reading.  I started annoying everyone in my family, making people pose for me so that I could draw them.  I copied Rembrandt and daVinci drawings.  I pestered an artist, Florian Lawton, who lived down the street, to guide me.  He did so with grace and patience.  I copied people out of magazines.  I drew constantly.

My mother enrolled me in Saturday life drawing classes at the Cleveland Institute of Art.  It was the first time in my life that I felt totally comfortable - I had found my people.

Years passed.  I took art classes in high school.  Then I stopped, because art was not a realistic career.

Happily, I took a watercolor class at a local community college when I was a young adult. Our teacher taught us how to draw in perspective, so that "things would look real".  He had given me another key.  Like that little kid I was so long ago, I started drawing everything in perspective until I understood the process.

From that point, I drew and painted with watercolors often.  One day, I told my ever-patient husband that I was going to do art for a living.  I assured him that I would quit if I didn't make any money in a year.  "But you have an M.B.A.!" he cried.  He gave me a year.  That was over thirty years ago.  He has only bugged me a few times about my promise.  (He is going straight to heaven.)

Next time, I will tell you the story of how writing and illustrating The Little Cleveland, my fictionalized family memoir, finally got me into the Illustration business.