39. Make a Joyful Sound 🪼🎶

We Are Jellyfish: Picture Book Process

This is the 39th update on my book-making process for my next book, We Are Jellyfish—a picture book about those weird, blubbery creatures of the deep.

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Another good week of work—I finished two more final art spreads, including the daunting, detailed one! On my last post, my dear friend Beth commented:

“Your body now knows how these work so can just step aside to let the creativity flow.”

I didn’t realize it before Beth pointed it out, but she’s totally right! When I was making the first 6 spreads it was a constant struggle of trial and error (heavy on the error). But somewhere along the way—I think it was the second time I painted spread 4-5—everything clicked into place and became a whole lot easier. I had discovered the way I wanted the spreads to look and how to do it. So instead of bumbling my way through each piece, I was able to sit down and just let it pour out.

As I painted this week, I listened a lot to The String Cheese Incident which Declan informed me is a “frat boy band”. Are they? I wouldn’t know… I spent my one evening at a frat in college throwing up on the curb because the theme of that night’s party was Heaven and Hell and somehow I ended up in Hell (the basement) and was given a Tabasco shot (I heard they gave out champagne up in Heaven) and well, my little tum-tum didn’t like that too much. Perhaps I should have found the frat that listened to String Cheese Incident instead.

Anywaaaaays, they have a song called Jellyfish, which is not actually about jellyfish, but it does have a good line (“my brain is just a jellyfish in the ocean of my head”) that is exactly how I felt this week painting so much!

Another song by SCI (yeah, I’m enough of a fan that I use the acryonym), that is relevant both to the creative process and also maybe life in general right now, is Joyful Sound. There are tons of great lines in that song, but a favorite is:

Well, every piece to the puzzle snaps tight in the groove
I close my eyes, breathe deeply and let my feet move
You know I feel a little better now for speaking my mind
A good vibes and circulation, see who they find

Could there be a better description of making art? Or the purpose and benefit of creativity? It’s maybe only better with the addition of this lyric:

Just one step at a time in the right direction
I'm gonna aim for the sky, keep my feet on the ground
Raise my voice to the heavens, make a joyful sound

Making art doesn’t always feel like making a joyful sound, of course. Sometimes, at the beginning of a project what comes out is less joyful sound and more dreadful noise. But, in the wise words of String Cheese,—don’t laugh!—we just keep taking one step at a time in the right direction and eventually, the puzzle pieces snap together and a joyful sound is made.

Ok, ok, enough rambling on about creativity… on to the artwork! As I said, I finished two final art spreads this week. Here is the updated storyboard with Spread 18-19 and Spread 24-25:

And below, for paid subscribers, I’ll share those two pieces up close, and share the process behind making them, and I go pretty deep into the process this time! Thank you paid subscribers for funding my work and being the patrons of my joyful sounds (and dreadful noises)! If you’d like to upgrade to support my work and see the process behind my art, tap the button below and join us for just $5! ❤️

Process of Spread 18-19