Once every year in mid-November, a talented group of children’s book illustrators host a week of challenges on Instagram. There are seven prompts, one for each day of the week, that are typically released in mid-October.
I’m a toymaker, not an illustrator, so I decided that if I was going to go along for the challenge I would set myself some constraints: phone camera only, no Photoshop (not even Elements) and no buying anything new. Only using the limited set of default filters on my old phone’s camera. Just working with what I have and being gentle and brave about the process.
You can scroll to my daily postings on Instagram @craftdesignworks, or check out the blog entries that follow this to see the final results. Disclaimer: all the images were intended to be viewed on phones, so they look pretty overwhelming here on the blog.
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The excitement starts even before the prompts are published, as soon as the dates are made public. Creators announce “I’m joining Folktale Week” with a preview image, and I was eager to get started. I’m not a photographer, and I remembered from last time I joined Folktale Week that I was in for a lot of trial, error and imposter syndrome. Game on!
Well, that didn’t work, you can’t read the type. So I tried quite a few different ideas and options before finding one that was “good enough”.
Once the prompts were released I started writing the story and brainstorming the storyboard (which of course evolved as I worked on it). That let me make a big mess of potential parts and pieces I could work with, and this chaotic image background, which suited the moment:
I won’t drag you down into all the details of what didn’t work, but I wanted to share some of the behind-the-scenes madness that did NOT show up on Instagram. It’s not pretty, but it’s pretty representative of the kind of thinking and trying and failing and trying again that I had my little animals do on Day 5. I like to explore small elements of what might work without trying to get the whole thing right.
In other words, I unapologetically make a giant mess and crash myself through messups and dissatisfaction until I get to “OK”. I think I average about 20 photos per final post. I learn a lot as I go! And I’m pretty satisfied with the project in the end, in spite of a phone that is very near the end of its life. I managed to post each day and finish the challenge on time. I loved getting feedback from so many people as the week rolled on.
I’m deeply grateful that I got to ride along with the creative flow of this group of amazing creators and read so many wonderful tales. I hope you’ll treat yourself to a taste of inspiration by checking out #folktaleweek. Here are the folks who made this all possible by making space for our community to come together in imagination and celebration of magic:
@jennifermpotter
@kalyquarles
@pinghe.art
@sirjanakaurart
@anazenun
@andrea_stegmaier
@tanja_stephani
@matejalukezic
@thebrotherskent
@louve.draws
@debrastyer
@devonholzwarth
…til next time!
craftdesignworks 