Category: Art

Any serious athlete would tell that motivation is easy to attain but difficult to sustain. This is true in creative activities too. For example, writers are famous for elaborate rituals they design to avoid procrastination and to ensure regular productivity. And quantity is indeed important if we hope to generate quality at some point. Adam Grant gives an example in his “Originals“, showing that most popular composers were also the most productive, with very rare exceptions.

Sustaining motivation in the audience is a slightly different matter. In order to keep the readers/viewers evaded, they should be exposed to a more-or-less continuous flow of material that is, at the same time, familiar and novel.

My four-year-old daughter and I are working through these issues in the picture book that we are making up (she creates the storyline through her make-believe games that she plays with her mom and I sketch it up). Sometimes, our motivation wavers, but we know that if we keep going, interesting things are bound to happen, just as in the book itself. Here is the latest episode about the newborn dinosaur discovering the world and her place in it.

“Baby Ella wanted to play with her new friends, but first, she had to learn how to walk. That was not easy, especially because she didn’t want to leave her cozy eggshell. The Girl gently nudged her to place one foot on the ground…”

In the picture story that I have been drawing in collaboration with my daughter, based on her make-believe games, new characters are introduced almost on every page. Perhaps, this is not surprising, since the main character is a baby dinosaur, who, being a child like her creator, is being exposed to the world for the first time and is building her social network. Here is the latest episode, which I drew, very fittingly, as my daughter was playing at her friend’s birthday party.

“The Baby Bunny also came to visit the Baby Dinosaur. The Bunny and the Baby Squirrel waited patiently until Ella woke up and showed her the presents they brought: the carrot and the flower.

The friends wanted to play with Ella, but she had to remind them that she was only one-day-old and although she could was exceptionally smart and could speak perfectly well, she was still not sure if she could walk.”

I noticed that some of my favourite cartoons, anime, and children’s stories have a rather slowly developing storylines, without dramatic culminations. One example is Hayao Miyazaki’s “My Neighbour Totoro.” I’ve always wondered how it was possible to tell such a compelling story without either beginning or ending, at least in the Western, Hollywood-nurtured sense. The audience is simply allowed to watch over the main characters’ shoulder at a few days of their lives. Of course, there are a several places, where the plot thickens (e.g. Mei gets lost, for example), but I feel that this is not the main point. Overall, the pace of the story is quite even.

My four-year-old daughter is also a fan of Totoro, and her make-believe games also prominently feature friends and neighbours of whoever she pretends to be at the moment.

Here is the latest episode of the Girl and the Egg story that I have been sketching out based on my daughter’s play.

“The Girl’s neighbour, the Baby Squirrel, came to visit and asked if he could play with the newborn Dinosaur Ella. The Baby Squirrel brought some flowers as a gift. The Girl put them in a glass with water.

Baby Ella was sleeping at the time. One-day-old babies sleep a lot, as the Girl and her friend Squirrel found out.”

At this point in my daughter’s make-believe game about the baby dinosaur, who hatched from an egg after a mandatory incubation period, multiple possibilities exist in the storyline. One day, we play a certain scenario, another day – a different one… By making this book of sketches, I feel that I am starting to shape the story, and not just the look of the characters, as my daughter is getting used to seeing a new episode every day. Here is the latest one:

“Mommy and Daddy Dinosaurs were very grateful to the Girl for taking care of the Egg and protecting it from the Cat. They were delighted to see their Baby Dinosaur. After much thinking about different names, they named her Ella.”

My daughter is taking a progressively more active role in our collaborative making of the story of the Girl and the Egg. She specifies the colors of the characters and asks every day whether I have sketched the next panel.

As her requests become more detailed, I have been thinking about what makes a good cartoon or children’s book character. Among other things, I think that it is the sparingness of the details and the strategic use of negative space, in the broad sense. The viewers are allowed substantial freedom to fill in parts of the characters, the scenes and even the storyline for themselves. There is a fine line between providing the children with enough details to feed their imagination and over-defining the rules of the game (because, as I am finding out, nearly everything is a game for a four-year-old).

Here is the long-awaited hatching episode of our story:

“When the shell finally cracked open, it was not a chick, who peered from it, but a curious, purple-coloured, Baby Dinosaur with blue spots. The Girl was delighted and danced her happiest dance, which she learned just the day before.”

Anticipation is the big part of the overall experience. For example, Tim Ferriss repeatedly made the case in his podcasts that planning a family vacation is at least as pleasant as the vacation itself. In the illustrated story that I have been sketching, following the games of my daughter, I have been prolonging the incubation period as long as I could. Next time, we are going to have a new character.

“One day, the Girl noticed that the Egg started shaking. Then, tiny cracks appeared on its surface. The Girl held her breath in anticipation.”

In sketching up the plot of my daughter’s make-believe games, I am actually collaborating with a four-year-old. The process is fascinating for both of us. I like observing the way a child’s mind weaves the storyline, and she is curious to see the next sketch and realize that she already knows the story – it is the one she made herself.

Here is today’s episode.

“The Girl was always there to protect the Egg. The Cat had to retreat, leaving the Egg alone.”