Freely Emotional, Distorted and Intentionally Child-like Illustrations

In the process of working here and there on written out expressions of various life stories, going back to my first one done in 2006 called Crime and Punishment of the Problem Child, I continue to illustrate various parts in a very spontaneous (few preliminary pencil details, just enough to put on the marker) and loose style.

My goal in these is first speed (I work these in as some type of reward in between doing commissioned watercolor – a fun mental break on some days to quick sketch the next idea and use up colors already wet on my plates!). I see no reason to be-labor these in some perfected way. However, as I assemble what I have thus far, I can tell by my own work how much time or attention I had at a particular point to perfect and depict things. It’s an interesting process, with amounts of evolving and changing of both style and approach!

My other goals are a child-like style (yet executed with my adult art expertise in terms of color, layout, design and other illustrative caricature-like cartoons), emotional accuracy versus literal accuracy of details (I allow backgrounds, details, hands and more to be intentionally distorted so as to capture a humorous yet loose representation of a number of the elements I plan to write about), and consistency in the sense that I intentionally illustrate myself in a specific red-white-and-blue shorts set I recall having somewhere around 4th or 5th grade.

In recent months I found an actual black-and-white photo of myself in this outfit at a Slifer Family Reunion, and the look on my face in the one photo in this set seems to capture the chaos the was around me (and filtering into me!), as I am standing with my mother and a couple of her brothers. Actually, these photos were likely taken after we left that reunion. I vaguely recall going into Frederick or somewhere to meet up with them. Or, perhaps they drove to the Slifer reunion to see her at the end.

I look disheveled a bit – my hair made me look like some wild child!

It may have been as simple as I’d been running around with my cousin, Laura, and didn’t have a hairbrush. But some of the dark circles under my eyes and other micro-expressions give me confirmation of the continual emotional chaos that effervesced into the atmosphere whenever my mother was present.

In Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, the age of around nine to ten years old is when a child moves from more concrete, operational thinking into capacity for more complex and abstract (formal operational stage) thought. It is no wonder that some of my most significant stories I can best articulate seem to come from around that time and beyond.

As for the braids, I went through various times as a young girl (and also in my early adult years) where I loved to braid my hair, once I had learned how and had been successful in refusing to keep my hair chopped short…somewhere around 3rd grade.

For me, the braids represent my inward playful and humorous side, and I intend to carry out this little cartoon figure into stories from adulthood. Sometimes I debate whether to occasionally change her attire, but decide that in scenes where attire is part of the subject, she will be holding other garbs or surrounded by props.

I’ve also debated whether to give her gray braids at some point, but that, too, is not even literal in my life. I think that keeping her (myself!) perpetually child-like (not immature, but child-like…as we all have the inner child we carry to our aging graves…) and expressive. It seems to fit the aspects of my self and my storytelling very well.

Below, first, there are two artistic and verbal expressions I made between ages 10 and 12 years old. And, some of the photos I mentioned of me in that outfit.

Next, I feature the next set of illustrations I’ve been squeezing in during the last several weeks that will go with a cluster of stories I am working toward releasing at some point when they are finished. The particular stories take place between 1976 and 2001 in my relationship with my mother, regarding/surrounding specific interventional events.

I just feel like somehow need to go together, for the full effect, rather than to exist in gradual increments.

I will also list my current title ideas for some of the drafts, but, that is subject to change as they are actually written.

Lastly, I will put in the final section below all illustrations I have done and used to date, with a link to the stories.

I’m so glad I got some breathing time this weekend to produce this piece. It’s a “feel good” accomplishment as I prepare for another Monday and thickly busy week with so much…

Section 2: Illustrations for Life Stories currently in process

Upcoming Title: I Was Immediately Hauled Off to Family Court from the CHS Bandroom! (She Said, “I Can’t Believe You’ve Been Living Like This!”)

Upcoming Title: We Have No Idea Where Eileen Is…MRS. SLIFER!!!

Upcoming Title: My Daddy Got Us KFC From Gino’s – (I Mostly Liked their Drum Sticks)

Upcoming Title: When Words Fail, Try Some Glossolalia

Upcoming Title: I Suppose I Figured I Could Keep Putting Myself Up For Some Type of Adoption

Upcoming Title: SOS…Straight From Martinsburg, West Virginia

Upcoming Title: Who Do You Think You Are, ‘Billy Graham??’

Below, illustrations from Life Stories written thus far…

I have given thought to what I might someday title my collection of Life Stories…and thus far the number one idea in my mind is:

If Only My Mother Had Taken Me to Woodstock, I’d Be Normal

The idea is from a meme I once saw that gave me pause…in all my understandings of Woodstock, which mothers of my friends in the sixties and seventies might have had some direct or indirect experience with (at least in the music…my parents listened to Lawrence Welk, being so much older) the idea that children were brought along to this epic concert never crossed my mind..

The meme shows a child dancing at the event.

I contemplated what type of dysfunction and traumas might have surrounded the taking of a child to such a thing and how that affected the child.

This child seems to be rockin’ it…but who knows where her mother was…!