Fresh ideas come when your brain is relaxed and engaged in something other than the particular problem you’re embroiled in.
Debra Kaye’s article, “Why Innovation Brainstorming Doesn’t Work” in Fast Company.
Etsy video profile of Sophie Blackall, whose work I adore and admire.
(Via @brainpickings.)
Illustrator Sophie Blackall on the origin of her lovely Missed Connections project.
The Tallest Man On Earth & Idiot Wind - Working Titles (by ilcorvojo4)
(via magicandchocolate)
The Bird King: An Artist’s Notebook
Shaun Tan
Shaun Tan has made some very strange books. “The Arrival” was his ode to the immigrant experience; a giant, wordless comic strip that told the story of someone trying to fit in to a new place. “The Bird King” shows Tan’s rough-drafts, sketches, and storyboards for all kinds of new ideas.
(via magicandchocolate)
![millionsmillions:
Sometimes, Virginia Woolf took a break from her busy schedule of constant brilliance in order to write children’s stories for her nephews’ newspaper, The Charleston Bulletin. A taste: “When in a good and merry mood Trisy would seize a dozen eggs, and a bucket of flour, coerce a cow to milk itself, and then mixing the ingredients toss them 20 times high up over the skyline, and catch them as they fell in dozens and dozens and dozens of pancakes.”
[Image via The Guardian.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/e929d2935fc3d0dfa251c772396797fb/tumblr_mi2zym0BaV1r6xvfko1_500.jpg)
Sometimes, Virginia Woolf took a break from her busy schedule of constant brilliance in order to write children’s stories for her nephews’ newspaper, The Charleston Bulletin. A taste: “When in a good and merry mood Trisy would seize a dozen eggs, and a bucket of flour, coerce a cow to milk itself, and then mixing the ingredients toss them 20 times high up over the skyline, and catch them as they fell in dozens and dozens and dozens of pancakes.”
[Image via The Guardian.]
(via tinydynamo)
To me the process is the interesting part. The finished product is more like when you’ve finished a jigsaw puzzle. It’s become something else. It’s sorting through all the possibilities that’s the fun part. And the painful part!
Shaun Tan, in this Q & A over at Publishers Weekly.
Since I began making picture books I have come to realise over time that I call them just that. Picture books. Not children’s books. The reason for this is twofold; firstly I don’t believe they are just for children. I have met countless adults that collect picture books for themselves, and they are growing in confidence about openly admitting this in a book-signing queue. It’s not for my daughter, or a friend’s nephew. It’s for me. Often these individuals are teachers, librarians, publishing employees, art college students / aspiring picture-book makers themselves. But increasingly, they are doctors, civil servants, bus drivers … just people who have discovered the joy of a story unfolding visually over a few dozen pages.
Oliver Jeffers, in this article from The Guardian, “Maurice Sendak’s Jumper and Me.”
Huzzah! Picture books for all!
There’s no better time than now. Quit waiting.
