I wrote about the writing of my writing an academic paper for the Journal of Illustration for the new website DX: Diagnosis and Writing while being diagnosed with ADHD. The link is here for your perusal. It’s all a bit meta, because I’m writing here about writing about writing! It was a long drawn out process, as is my process, but always worth the feeling after I send the final draft in. I hope you enjoy reading it and do get in touch if you have any questions, or thoughts, feedback : )
reducing exterior noise to increase interior clarity
The Things that unravel me…
When I started writing this blog post back in May 2023 I had just deleted my social media apps, declaring it would be just for one month. Well it has been four months and I haven’t looked back, yet! I slowly realised I was in, what Jim Kwik calls, digital deluge where my brain was flooded by information and I was suffering information overwhelm. I felt like I was inhaling too much visual information which wasn’t curated by me. I had no control over what I paid attention to and the choice of imagery when scrolling for example was just too much. Instagram and facebook were obliterating any creative autonomy or energy I had. I felt like I was not performing efficiently in any area of my life and losing professional connections and creative reputation. Whether this is true is not clear but it felt that way.
So the break down of my digital exposure on my phone was 4-5 hours a day! 30% on emails and managing work related tasks, taking notes for freelance and teaching etc, a whopping 50% on messages from friends and shared groups, leaving social media at 20% of my time, so although not a heavy social media user, what was most worrying was that I constantly had my phone in my hand. Instagram and facebook being the hook, the distraction and the time waster, which I didn’t see it as a problem. I was enjoying scrolling just before bed, on the toilet (we all do it!), in the adverts in a film, on the train etc etc. It wasn’t until the penny dropped and I connected the professional inefficiency and lack of clarity I was experiencing to scrolling thousands of posts on social media that I felt compelled to do something about it.
Since deleting the social media apps from my phone I have been happier in myself, I have felt less taut and less in need of constant digital stimulation. As soon as I deleted them I felt less agitated and more inclined to get back to writing for my blog, which I hadn’t touched in years. That week, by chance an opportunity to write an article for a new website about ADHD diagnosis and writing came into my email box. It felt like an omen that this was a good move! (link to follow).
As time unravelled further and further and I was online less, my brain felt free and more flexible and I started to pay attention to the choices I was making and that I needed to slow down and ground myself. Thinking more carefully about the apps I was engaging with, which was mostly Instagram and facebook and realised that they had become too quick for where I am currently. Apps like these are a daily commitment with a continuous stream of consciousness required to maintain a ‘following’ or to interact with any continuity or meaning. Essentially they are too needy. What I needed was time and a slower pace. I work better with a longer, slower lead in time where I can spend some time mulling over what I write, then edit, think, edit, think and rinse and repeat until I am ready to post. Posting only once a month perhaps. That felt more healthy, creatively and personally.
It is also impossible to share everything you are working on when working with projects that don’t go live for a while. Having just finished working with a large paint company on a new campaign, where the project doesn’t go live until Sept 2023, along with just signing a new book contract for a US publisher, so although I am excited by all these things, I can’t share anything yet and posting anything else feels like unrelated noise.
Years ago in 2009, when I was a first year master’s student, I was creating work that was in hindsight completely disconnected from my core values or beliefs and was just noise. In a tutorial my then lecturer said ‘Caroline, stop looking around’. I sat with the comment for a while and realised he was so right. I was using exterior inspiration to lead my head, my heart and my hands, when I needed to look more inwards to what drove my true inclination. So this simple and honest feedback helped me break a cycle of useless habits and helped me build new ones. I started to pay attention to what I paid attention to, looking at where I always laid my eyes with inclination, looking at the colours and textures I chose to wear or have in my house. The artists I loved and was first inspired by and stuck with. I reflected on patterns of behaviour and set new ones, creating new methodologies while following my inclination and intuition rather then what I felt the world wanted me to make. It was the start of the authentic path I am still on today.
Since I graduated from my master’s in 2011 and especially over the past five years, I have worked hard to build solid creative business foundations that can sustain a healthy and happy practice embedded in truth and integrity. Reaching out to creative mentor Ceri Hand was integral to this and helped me hold a mirror up to myself and my critical inner voice. Helping me look and listen objectively to the conversations I was having with myself, paying attention to the language I was using and translating them into more positive affirmations, using kinder language with myself. Most recently, in response to a more anxious outlook to life, a chiropractor I was seeing suggested I listen and watch my body get older with curiosity and grace, instead of trying to stop it or control it so much. To give myself a break from trying so hard. All of these suggestions have made sense and slowly enabled a more healthy balance of life and work for me.
So providing the space for all this to unravel was well overdue and I feel like I am finding the path back to my creative myself again. Listening to those pesky internal conversations, being more objective and focused, which is reassuring and refreshing. Writing this blog has helped me again untangle some more recent thoughts and new habitual ways of being and given me much joy. My writing process has always been how I ground ideas, my values, beliefs and insights. First herding them all into one space through free writing, making lists of personal insights and mind mapping keywords, helping me make sense of my thoughts at that time, then critically editing and redefining them into sentences, paying attention to their efficacy in order to validate and expand my understanding.
Writing for an audience means I have to be accurate in what I am sharing. The process of being accurate means I have to delve deeper and spend more time analysing my words and composition, which unlocks the meaning in the blindspots of my memory, knowledge and experience. Helping me make better critical and creative decisions going forward and where I feel a higher level of authenticity is located. It also allows me to feel seen and heard on my terms, which gives me a great sense of personal satisfaction and fulfilment. So an important reminder is that making space for personal clarity is essential for growth in my creative practice and for my personal and creative mental health.
So what now? Well in the week ahead I am in Lostwithiel with creative friend and soul mate Faye Dobinson on a creative retreat, living in shepherd huts for the week, walking across tors and through woodland and perhaps even a swim in the river. We will be spending time responding to the landscape and seeing what fun we can have in good company and what art we can make. It could be a moment to share some work online but I will see how it evolves before I make any promises to myself or others. I have been tempted to go back onto social media and have posted a few bits but I continue to feel fearful of losing myself in it again, so maybe an idea to limit any posts to a project timeline could work. I do miss connecting with fellow artists and creative friends all over the world and seeing what everyone is up to and above all I love sharing what I’m up to, what I am thinking and how I see the world. I love the storytelling aspect of social media, so I haven’t deleted my social media accounts and the window is still open for when I have the work to share. So no reinstating of apps until I feel strong enough to be in control. A little like my inability to keep biscuits in the house! if they are there I’ll gorge on them until I feel sick!
So thank you so much for reading and watch this space….if you want to : )
Disconnecting to Reconnect
I will be using my blog instead of social media now for the foreseeable future, so watch this space for all my updates and work in progress and musings about art and creativity. I used to write all the time and post, but with social media it’s all too much choice, so I have limited the choice by posting only here on a monthly basis : )
I will write some words later about why and what I am hoping it will do for me. Thanks for dropping in : )
Gone Swimming
Reconnecting eye, heart & hand.
It’s been a dry year in terms of making new work and I have been relying on the work I have created over the past few years to sustain my creative spirit, by rearranging, reposting re imagining. I have also been looking, listening, digesting and focusing my eyes to the things that my heart cannot let go of, therefore aligning my inclination to a more focused horizon. That horizon is painting. I have been drooling over various paint applications of simple shapes with varying levels of opacity and weight for some time now. Dreaming of a tentatively placed whisper of paint versus a gloopy plop in the exact right spot! while sending shivers down my spine.
Down Pendeen
I am happiest when I am responding to the world through the skills I have accrued with my hands and a love of paint and muted colour. Interpreting and composing colours, shapes and contrasting textures with a gestural stroke. Not knowing what will happen, whether they will carry the sophistication I need in the chosen ones and simply enjoying the response my hands are having to my eyes’ inclination. Any clarification of skills or sophistication come much later and all I am concerned with in the moment is whether my hands are respecting my heart and eye, in translating the correct angle, weight and pressure of my hand. The holy grail is a feeling of resolve that I have been true to my eye, heart and hand.
Rothko says ‘For skill in itself is but a sleight of hand. In a work of art one does not measure its extent but counts himself happiest when he is unaware of its existence in the contemplation of the result.’ The Artists Reality, 2004.
The content this time is where it all began, back in my childhood. Reconnecting to the landscapes of holidays and weekends as a family in Cornwall. The sea greens, dark infested blacks, stone beige and anemone purples. It was only a few years ago that I realised my colour palette came from my childhood and it’s feels like my work is coming full circle and it feels wonderful!
See the series here
Mermaid of Zennor & High Tide
A Week in Gerswalde
An article I wrote for a college paper publication.
My Studio is my happy place….
...but sometimes it’s not enough.
An opportunity came up on my Instagram feed in June 2018 that was almost too good to pass up. It was for a workshop in Germany, run by one of my favourite illustrators, Jesus Cisernos (Hay,zoose). I decided there and then to go, and made my plans, spent numerous pennies and pounds on travel and accommodation. A tonne of emails later, and I ended up near the Polish Border in a village called Gerswalde (Gayz,valda). It was quiet, remote and almost chic without knowing it. On the way into the village centre, there were some big green metal gates that opened into a garden that wouldn’t look out of place in a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett ( The Secret Garden). This was the garden we would work in for 6 long and very hot days.
We spent 6, sometimes 12 hour days working to the direction of Jesus, creating imagined worlds, limericks and illustrated narratives in the company of 15 other artists from all over the world. It was the most unique, rewarding, hot and sweaty week of my life and I loved every minute! Even the gripes we had about mis-organised buses and distracting babies screaming over talks in three different languages, was not enough to mully my ideal view of a week in Gerswalde.
We worked hard in the day and cycled to the lake to swim most nights before returning to our accommodation a few miles away in Böckenberg. We ate together and showed our work to each other after each project set. Shared our creative life experiences, laughed about stories we told each other, probably moaned a little bit too, but generally everyone was so accommodating, accepting, forgiving and open to each and everyone’s quirks, and there was always a tree to shade under or to escape to, and a lake to cycle to when the day got too much.
Coming together and seeing what everyone else had done was so important for me, it gave me a marker for my own work. Something I could reflect on and work with when I got home. While I was there I wasn’t sure how this week would impact my life, or whether it would at all.
Cafe Zum Lowen within the garden walls was where we ate everyday, Ayumi (Saito) and Sayuri (Sakairi) at the helm feeding us a variety of fusion Japanese / /British / Vegan wholefood Delights. One review said it feels like you have ‘just stepped inside and got lost in a Ghibli movie’. The cafe offers a certain grubby ’Patina’ as another person reviewed, which added to the timelessness and character of the whole experience. Ayumi became a friend, as did everyone who took part. I have already arranged to visit Yoshiko and Robin in Japan in 2020/21. Some of us are planning a catch up in Berlin in April, and I have starting learning Spanish, the most spoken language of the week.
The week here taught me above all that with a common ideal, cause or love of subject, cultural differences could be transcended by creative endeavour, and a good narrative could breathe fully and with vibrancy regardless of language barriers. This is continued to be mirrored in seminars and conferences I am beginning to attend at Picture-Book fairs such as Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy and Shanghai.
It was the illustrators I spent a week in Gerswalde with that are right in the middle of a way of thinking and representing the world through Picture Books that is exciting, different and pushing boundaries of the picture book aesthetic. Celebrating through individual style, while continuing to use content that is globally resonant, and I felt privileged to have experienced that week, with those exact people, in that very place and that specific time.
The participants were and worth a google:
@Maria.Dek - Poland
@ValarioVidili - Italy
@KatjaSpitzer - Germany
@Sophie.Jackson - Chile
@Cyndoor - Cynthia Alonso - Argentina
@csrdraws - Cristina Sitja Rubio - Venezuela
@MarieVanPrague - Belgium
@Nomonki - Cristobal Schmal - Chile
@varyadrawing - Vavara Yashchenko - Russia
@HannahGopa - Chile
CarolineHeinrich.de - Germany
@lu100ac - Lucienne Abdala - Peru
@Johanna_Schmal - Germany
@Isabel_zazel - Isabel Peterhans - Austria
@Kunstgriff23 - Heike Isennmann - Germany
Robin Weichart - Japan
@Yoshiko_Hada - Japan
Interesting publishers around the world and also worth a google:
Tara Books - India
Pato Logico - Portugal
L'Ecole des Loisirs - France
Magikon Forlag - Norway
La courte echelle - Canada
Les Fourmis Rouges - France
Topipittori - Italy
Planets Tangerina - Portugal
Liels un Mazs - Latvia
Peter Hammer Verlag - Germany
Baobab - Czech Republic
Pequeno Editor - Argentina
Will O The Wisp
Shanghai - An interview with Plymouth College of Art
Will O The Wisp - Baoshan International Folk Arts Museum - Shanghai
Read More
Aliens Can Be Friends Too - working title of work in progress
NEWS! 2018
Children’s Illustration - Personal work:
Lots has happened in 2018 and I have lots of new personal projects that I am working on. Probably too many to concentrate effectively on. I have had my newest Illustration work exhibited in Bologna, Italy in the Illustrators Exhibition at the Children’s Book Fair, which was just fantastic. To be among some of the most prestigious and talented illustrators around the world felt very accomplished. I have also had my work chosen for a competition in Russia, The Image of The Book. I won a diploma for the work I entered there, and that will be awarded in a ceremony at Bologna Fair this year. I also have been asked to enter work in to another contest in Shanghai, The CICLA - where my work will be exhibited in the Folk Museum there for the Chen Bochui International Children’s Book Festival, if it makes the final curation.
I am currently working on the story that the Illustration above came from. It was born from personal experience of chasing dreams and desires that were manifested in childhood. Only to realise that the answer to fulfilment and enlightenment wasn’t in those dreams, but in the enjoyment and focus of the everyday instead. This idea was also played out in some paintings I created under the title An-Ti-Dote, shown in the Picture Room, at Newlyn gallery in 2015.
A story of hope after tragedy, celebrating the reality of everyday life, while encouraging the main character to follow the reveries of his heart.
The other story is about a little girl, also from my own childhood, of how I used to draw all the time and how that has helped me overcome overwhelming feelings as an adult.
Practice: A week in Gerswalde
Practice:
I struggle to make time to practice regularly, and that’s not even physically, it’s mentally too! I have time sometimes, but don’t feel compelled enough to get to the table, so I waste it on Instagram or catching up on emails. I did however go on a workshop in July / August that was tricky to arrange, but so so worth it. It was in Gerswalde in North Germany, near the Polish border.
There were 16 of us plus other people and families staying in the accommodation. It was rural, by a lake and remote. I loved it and worked very hard every day. I made some very special friends, and met so many lovely and warm, creative people. It was a life changing or maybe mind altering affair. It made me see the UK book market from a new perspective. I realised I was trying to fit my work and compromise it into a market that didn’t want me, in the style that was most honest and raw to me anyway. I could change it to fit, to change the style to be more accessible, but I want to see what happens when I do the work that I love doing, To see where it fits. It already fits abroad and has been doing pretty well as you see above, so long may it continue. The workshop was run by the very talented Jesús Cisneros. Sketchbook to Picturebook - hosted by the also talented duo Cristobal Schmal and his wife Johanna Schmal. it took place in Cafe Zum Lowen where Ayumi made us the most delicious food everyday! It was the best week : )
Interview: I did an interview with the lovely Mel Chadwick of Creative Conversations recently, which meant she came to the studio (that’s all ripped up) and we talked about my creative projects and what it means to be a creative. It was lovely to chat to her and we went sketching in Helston together a couple of weeks later, which was great. you can see the interview on video here.
Commercial Work:
I have completed another book last month, Sept, and I feel free of a looming deadline, but also rudderless, so weaving my college work in and around chores, catching up and getting my head and body to the creative, making table of my own work. College takes over considerably, so I have to balance that also. I have realised that I have missed writing blogs, as they are a punctuation and celebration of work achieved, jobs finished etc and take a little more investment than say Instagram, which I love but sucks the life from my day!
Also the cheese I illustrated for Curds And Crust has just won Best Cheese on the planet award! ha!
Charity events:
I did a couple of charity events where I was asked to donate small pieces and because both were for projects that my friend and fellow Illustrator Rebecca Cobb was involved in of course I obliged. One was for a local postcard event for Constantine School and the other for an event co run or at least facilitated by Beccy and author Nicola Davies and Foyles Books in London.
Can you see which one is mine?
What next?
Possibly Shanghai in Nov, if I find out in time? more time spent on my own books. Getting my studio and garden straight and giving myself more structure so I don’t feel quite so messy everywhere. Bologna to get ready for also!
Thanks for popping by x
It's been a while!
Sooo much has happened since my last post. I am up to no.317 on my Collages and I have been posting an image for about 350 days! so here are a few more recent ones : ) I'm liking these guys and finally finding my feet with a style and application. Follow me on collage_366 for more of the reasoning behind a few. Here are a few of my favourites.
#365creatives - A Collage A Day
Just a few images from my daily collage posts...in progress.
You can see all of the Instagram pics on https://www.instagram.com/cpedlerpics/ with a few bits of normal life thrown in, or just collage here https://www.instagram.com/collage_365/
an-ti-dote press / little ant press - in progress
I am in the middle of writing and illustrating a short story, with a little humour. Just an offering and published myself, when I make the time to finish it off. Here's a little snippet
#365creatives catchup.
These are the few I've missed...
#365creatives Days 22-25
I'm loving the collage and the aint and it feels like finally I have realised it's the way I enjoy most. It is still very young yet, and lots to improve on, but it's getting more enjoyable and more exciting. : )
#365creatives Days 20-21
THis is where it started to happen. I had a real struggle with these, but pushed through and came out with a way of working I really enjoy.
#365creatives day 19. Wonky buildings and sunrises
I love all the different buildings in Plymouth around the college and the Uni. The sky was doing funny things too.
#365creatives day 17-18 A Good day and flying squirrels!
I met some more friends for coffee and walk and then more beer. Such a good weekend seeing old friends. Good for the soul. I then looked out my window and saw Cyril flying through the trees!
#365creatives day 15 - 16 Assessing, and beer in good company
I have been assessing at Plymouth College of Art, so my headphones are a very important part of that. Over the weekend I went to the local pub with a few friends and it was so nice. I hadn't been to the pub often and hadn't seen the friends all together in a year or so, so the beer tasted good!
#365creatives day 13-14 Stamps and Honesty
Two very quick sketches, I have issues with both of these, but they will get posted no matter what I think, they is the rules!
A very very quick sketch of some 'honesty' that I keep by my computer in the studio. I've always loved it dried. My Nan used to have some in her house and I was always drawn to it, without knowing why, other than it looked interesting. I now love it because of its name. I feel honesty is my best and worst trait all in one. I hate hiding things and believe honesty to be one of the most important things for happiness. It can also hurt others which is an unwelcome byproduct!
#365creatives day 11-12 David Bowie died today
It was an immense day of everything David Bowie on Monday. I have always realised how much of an influence Bowie has been on our culture, in world, not only in the UK, but until you see it and feel it and hear about it, you'll never really understand. Grown men crying over childhood loss. Maybe even a small part of their inner teenager had died that day.
So I had no other choice but to draw the first image I felt compelled to draw of the man himself. I loved him for being a game changer. For sticking out of the crowd, so I chose this outfit. Satisfyingly dynamic.
The next day I was at work and there's lots of great little things hanging out on the shelves in the office. So after a rather profound event yesterday, I wanted to lighten the mood with this fella... Ben's handmade elephant!
#365creatives day 10
...and the next two.
Day 9 - This is my beloved leather bag from Paris. I love it but it's too small to fit everything I need. So a new bag on the horizon. This was a 40th bday pressie. It's hard when you are attached to something that doesn't serve you anymore. Time to size up. : /
Day 10 - I wear my wellies everyday during the Winter and Autumn. Where I walk the dog is so so muddy. The woods are knee deep and all the paths are slippery and so wet. Wading through the mud reminds me to accept and just wade on through. Embracing the unbalanced nature of the whole affair, to hold my stomach muscles and steady myself until I reach firm ground. This makes it feel ok. : )
Logo go!
Just playing around with some book re-issue designs and thought it best I had my own logo for the back of the books, so I've made this and ordered a stamp : ). Is it sad that I'm really excited to get it and try it out.