Tag Archives: drawing

THE BOX

May 29, 2013 By in MAKING THE BOOK Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Lighter Than My Shadow Display Box

In working on Lighter Than My Shadow as a college project, I knew I couldn’t tackle the whole thing. Instead I picked a few moments from different stages of the story to work up into comics, giving an example of what the finished work might look and feel like.

At that stage, I was a lot more shy about things being made public than I am now. I don’t think I ever really believed the book would be published, and I was horrified enough that my college work had to go on public exhibition. I set about thinking of a way to display the work that felt less exposing than hanging the images on the wall. I wanted people viewing the work to have the intimate, private experience of reading a book, but equally I didn’t want my exhibition to seem unenticing and visually dull.

I came up with this book-box-thing, housing each of the short extracts in a separate compartment. I think this helped the viewers/readers to understand that these were disparate parts of an incomplete project, rather than something finished. The box was displayed on a plinth, and above it I hung a wire sculpture of the snarling black cloud that appears in the first illustration. I WISH I had taken some photographs – the cloud was an unwieldy 3ft across and so I decided to throw it away after the show. Perhaps I will recreate it for the book launch…

These extracts, along with a vague synopsis and some notes about why I wanted to do the project, became my book proposal. I graduated in June 2009, and showed the pages to Jonathan Cape in September of that year. In January 2010, thrilled and in utter disbelief, I signed the contract that made everything real.

HOW TO DRAW AN EATING DISORDER

May 23, 2013 By in MAKING THE BOOK Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I finally, formally decided to start working on my (then untitled) book in 2009 as a college project. I wanted to find a way to commit myself to getting past the false starts, and aimed to produce something representative of my big idea that I could show to potential publishers.

Every time I’d started the project, I started differently. I used a different medium, represented the illness in a different way. I’d made ‘finished’ artwork in coloured pencil, gouache, ink, acrylic, pencil – each time certain that this was what the book would look like. When I started working on the project for real, I needed to commit to a consistent approach. Wisely, my tutors at college counselled me to let my choice of medium be guided by the content of the story.

I returned to the idea that the eating disorder was a monster, as I’d painted to try to explain it to my family when I was unwell. The original painting – now lost – showed a big green scaly dragon-thing exploding out of my head. I knew I wanted something a little bit more subtle…

LTMS sketches 1

Very quickly, the ‘monster’ became some kind of shadow, much more abstract in form, capturing more of what living with an eating disorder had felt like.

LTMS sketches 2

I also tried interpreting the feeling in colour using paint and mixed-media collage and, though I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome it really helped process my ideas. By trying this out, I knew I wanted something that was more visually simple and muted in colour. I went back to sketching, and the next thing that appeared on my paper was this:

LTMS sketch 3

After I’d drawn this image, I couldn’t stop looking at it. I knew it was right.

I scanned the image and manipulated it in photoshop, trying various approaches to colour and texture. In the end I grabbed a random scrap of grey collage paper lying about on my desk and dropped that in as a background. I really liked the effect, especially when I added a little semi-opaque white to define the figure. The only problem was the pesky piece of grey paper had a big crease down the middle …

…and so happened a very happy accident:

LTMS first image

The crease became a horizon line, and later on my panel borders, and this image became the first in the book.

WHY V: CATHARSIS?

May 17, 2013 By in THOUGHTS Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Catharsis?

The question I was asked most often whilst working on Lighter Than My Shadow was, ‘Is it cathartic?’ Usually with the assumption that it was, and that was why I was doing it. It’s true that it feels important to get the story ‘out’, but out in the world, not out of me. It’s one of my biggest worries that people will see the book only as an act of catharsis.

That said, I’d be lying if I told you there wasn’t catharsis in the first draft. There was the messy, stream of consciousness getting-it-all-out. But after that, I had to try and put the emotions I was stirring up to one side. I had to make objective* decisions.: whittling down the story to what was essential. What, frankly, was actually interesting.

What I’m trying to say is that working on the book was not therapeutic, and I didn’t expect it to be. Oftentimes I was voluntarily reliving trauma that no longer affected my daily life. If it was catharsis I was looking for, I would have given up when it got hard. If it was catharsis I was looking for, I would have filed it all away in a box when I’d finished, or burned it, or something to that effect. I certainly wouldn’t want to publish it, and I doubt anyone would want to read it either.

So what was I looking for? I’ve written a lot this week about all my lofty reasons for creating Lighter Than My Shadow: breaking the silence, challenging stigma, maybe, possibly helping people. What I haven’t said anything about is this: I wanted to tell a good story. I also just wanted to write a book.

*I had supreme editorial assistance.

WHY IV: SPEAKING THE UNSPEAKABLE

May 16, 2013 By in THOUGHTS Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I was sexually abused

There are some things it’s just never the right time to talk about.

There have been times I’ve tried, and I find myself unable to open my mouth and speak the words. I am afraid of what people might think. I am afraid of what people might say, or not say. Moreover, I’m afraid of putting people in a position where they don’t know what to say or not say. I have been afraid that naming it makes it real, and perhaps if I don’t talk about it I can pretend it didn’t happen. There have been times when just saying the words would trigger a flashback, and it would feel like it was happening all over again. By comparison, talking about anorexia is as easy as telling you what I did at the weekend.

The story of my recovery from eating disorders is impossible to tell without including the abuse (though I did briefly consider that as an option). They are inextricably tangled up together. It’s always felt important, if not vital, to communicate how my vulnerability in early recovery was preyed upon and taken advantage of. What else can I do to try and prevent the same happening to someone else?

Somehow drawing a figure on a page and putting the words in her mouth gives a degree of separation that makes naming it easier. Not comfortable: I don’t think it will ever be comfortable. But easier.

WHY III: GENERAL HAM-FISTEDNESS

May 15, 2013 By in SNEAK PEEKS, THOUGHTS Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

It's Complicated

Despite my experience of mental illness colouring the majority of my life, I can be remarkably inarticulate when I try to talk about it. I’ve always felt frustrated at not having the words to explain what I went through, or to express the complexities of the recovery process. And I’m not speaking grandly about trying to educate the public here: I struggle even talking to my friends. This is such a huge part of who I am, I’ve always felt that I’m not fully myself around people who don’t know about my ‘stuff’.

When I first tried to explain anorexia to my family, I painted a picture (quite how it took me a further 6 years to realise I should make a graphic novel, I don’t know). My family and I used the painting to communicate, because usually I would clam up and find myself unable to speak at all in a hospital or doctor’s surgery. Sadly the original painting has been lost – perhaps ceremonially burned, I don’t remember. I would have loved to include it in the book. The moment, however, of finding pictures more adequate to express how I was feeling, remains a significant part of the story.

Sneak peek from page 161

Sneak peek from page 161.

From that first painting it took me 12 years and I don’t want to talk about how much drawing, but now there will be a less ham-fisted telling of the story that I am (mostly) satisfied with.

WHICH IS HARDER?

April 29, 2013 By in MAKING THE BOOK Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Which Is Harder?

Of course there is a large gap between deciding to write a book and actually writing one. There was a gap of years: it was 2001 when I first thought of making a book, 2009 when I formally started. Creatively it needn’t have taken that long, but there was also an emotional gap. In 2001 I was fully in the grips of an eating disorder, and couldn’t possibly write about recovery. As it turned out, getting better was not quite as straightforward as I’d planned or hoped for (afraid you’ll have to wait for the book for that bit of the story). On the way, I abandoned the book idea a number of times, for a number of reasons:

“Writing a book I such a cliché, I can’t believe I thought it was a good idea!”

“I’m so messed up, I can’t even do recovery right. Nobody’s going to find anything useful or interesting to read in how many times I did everything wrong.”

“I’m totally fine and sorted. I’ve moved on and closed the door. I need to just leave it all behind, pretend it never happened.”

After several variations on these themes, including a ceremonial burning of a stack of journals that would have been invaluable in writing the book, I came back to the idea. Perhaps, after all, I had something important to say. Perhaps I could say it better in pictures than words. By 2009, enough time had passed that I was steady enough in my recovery, and confident enough in my work as an illustrator that I felt ready to take the project on. I’m glad I waited. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for…

BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING

April 25, 2013 By in MAKING THE BOOK Tags: , , , 4 Comments

Begin at the Beginning

25th April, 2001

I wish everyone would stop staring. I want to run and shout and kick and scream. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was just trying to be good. I’m trapped, terrified and everyone’s looking at me. Everyone thinks I’m stupid. Nobody understands. I hate them all. No, I don’t hate them, I hate myself.

They’ve been trying to tell me for months, but this is the first time I believe it. Why this doctor out of all of them, I don’t know, perhaps because he frightens me more than the others. He says I’m dying. I am dying. I’m surrounded by great yawning blackness and nothing. Nothing. That’s what I want.

That’s not what I want!

Suddenly it’s crystal clear. I only have two options, and I have to choose now. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.

I decide to get better.

I decide to write a book.