The importance of distractions

This month I'm distracted, but in a good way, so I stepped away from my regularly scheduled work to create a hand lettering experiment.

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I’m currently working on two picture books, one of which is another entry in my Over and Under series with author Kate Messner. It’s going to be a fun one. It might be the biggest, longest book in the series with 24 full color spreads including an impressively large gatefold. In addition to the many animals and plants highlighted in the text and pictures, the narrative involves 16 distinct human characters too. I typically sketch pretty loose except on my books with Kate which require a bit more accuracy and fact checking in order to bring the story to life. It’s a titanic sized process but worth it in the end. However, I’m exhausted.

I often use my sketch book to keep things fresh and stay energized. However with the amount of work I’m facing at the moment, the last thing I want to do in my sketch book is draw another human or animal, or write a story.

So when it came time to play in the studio, I decided to shift gears and put energy into something unrelated to drawing characters or narrative work. I needed a distraction–a break from the labor of creating a picture book.

I structured my play with a few simple steps/rules:

1. Choose a band/musician (contemporary, no classics)

2. Create hand-lettering based on the name of music artist

3. No representational drawings or elements. Only hand drawn letter forms and abstract shapes.

I chose Thundercat who, for those of you who haven’t heard his music, is a jazz bassist virtuoso with a big personality contributing to many hiphop and R&B records including songwriting and bass on Kendrick Lamar’s, To Pimp A Butterfly. He actually got his start in a Thrash Metal band and has since appeared on the kid’s show Yo Gabba Gabba. It doesn’t make sense until you get to know his music.

Photo by Ruthie Herman

I began with a rough sketch, playing around with letter shapes. I tried not to over think it. I just had fun. These letter shapes popped in my head and I put them on paper.

After a bit of juggling with compositions, I ended up with two finished versions and after a poll on Instagram, the one in red received the majority of votes. I like them both though and decided to sell both versions as a print: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/csneal/

So that’s it. A little play turned into something a little more and gave me a much needed break. I’ll have plenty of need for distractions as I continue to work on my books and I plan to do more of these lettering experiments.

So which band/musician should I work with next? Let me know in the comments.

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