My first @Folktaleweek Challenge

Over the last year, I've been participating in the 100 No Challenge , a challenge I learnt about through Illustrator, Katie Chappell, who co-founded the The GoodShip Illustration. The aim of the challenge is to collect as many rejections as possible, to thicken your skin and to learn to put yourself out there.

Although I decided to call mine the "100 Nee Dankies" - which means no, thank you in Afrikaans, I thought that would make it less scary, but boy oh boy was I wrong. I've not been super active on this, but so far I've stacked up a lovely 20 no's - from agents, publishers, competitions, clients etc, and over the last few months I've felt quite discouraged and felt the deck stacked against me on numerous occasions, with a few too many no's of late, that felt personal and difficult. ( I even have a "Nee Dankie" email folder thats tucked away from my view, so that I'm not reminded of it). I'm usually pretty good with rejection, I've had buckets and buckets of practice, but this time, the feeling of disappointment was hanging around a bit too long, which made me feel a bit disconnected from my work, with little motivation to keep going, when the world feels quite overwhelming and the noise of it deafening.

My mom always said that "I feel everything", my husband says the same thing, he can't understand how I'm so attached to certain things, or so emotionally invested in things and people. I do love that I'm passionate about causes, but sometimes I do wish that I could just separate myself a bit, a break from the disappointment, from the hurt, from the constant noise.

So how do you separate yourself from disappointment, while balancing the desire to do something, to draw something, to make something! I've been following the Folktale week for some time, and have always admired the work of Sarah Dyer especially during Folktale Week, so when my mentor encouraged me to participate I thought okay - why not? Just have fun Mieke - who cares if it leads to nothing!

The prompts aren't shared until about a week before, so leading up to it I did have a little think about the possibilities I could play with, paging through a second hand find of Randolph Caldecott's collection of Nursery rhymes, I came across a illustrated scene that I absolutely love, the most beautiful colours and atmosphere, I decided to create my own version using collage and gouache. And of course I was inspired by the beautiful hues of orange and reds that are so prevalent in the winter season.

But the second challenge came when my mentor suggested that I try printmaking, I've done some printmaking since my masters, I've tried lino, milk carton printing and the kitchen lithography ( which to this day, I'm yet to figure out!) Well, I bought myself a Gelli plate about a year ago, thinking ah I think I want to try this, I did one evening of flops and decided okay, maybe another time when I've got plenty of time to sit around and watch youtube some tutorials, but I desperately wanted to do something different, challenge myself and have fun and play. And after listening to an episode of the Tiny Pencil Podcast, where Emma Carlisle and Harriet Lowther chatted about gelli printing, I was hooked - I just knew I wanted to try it!

The weekend after the prompts were shared, which were: MIST, GATE, BLIGHT, TRAIL, DEPTH, BONE, BLOSSOM - I kinda came up with a story of a red-haired girl but I didn't really know where it was going! And decided to let myself just have fun with the colours and the printing method. Of course there were countless countless flops and failures, and pretty sure I've been using the wrong paint, hence the lovely stained gelli plate but we live and we learn.

I did look through some tutorials of Marsha Valk but I've always been a bit hasty so in hindsight probably should have listened more carefully to the material instructions and read the tips. Gelli printing is essentially adding paints and crayons ( Inktense pencils) to a gelli plate which is made of silicon, and working in layers from front to back, you can make a image that is then transferred onto paper by either rubbing with your hand or a roller. I have a printer roller, but to be fair I used my zam-buk case, that perfect little shape is perfect for my small little plate!

One ruined gelli plate.

I used blackwing pencils for the rough sketches, and unfortunately they seem to have stained my gelli plate, and errr...I used tempera paints, which you probably shouldn't do. I think acrylics are best, but I had a Naples yellow which I couldn't resist! I recently found my tempera paints in the move, and absolutely love the texture of them, smooth but leaving this grainy texture, and the pigments are beautiful!

At first, I thought I would do a limited colour palette of analogous colours, but then I found my red-haired girl in the woods...

I knew she was on an adventure, but I didn't quite know the story, I knew it would be orange, I knew there would be ferns, and I knew she carried a secret....

There were SO many flops, that I actually got quite used to 'failing' and in some way it did help with my mindset of disappointment, I know that I'm in a super competitive industry, and finding my place here will take lots of work and time, much like printing...after many many flops, something interesting does come up, and I've just got to keep the faith, keep drawing and keep at it. Someday, somewhere I hope I will find my spot.

I'm so glad that I tried my hand at the Folktale Week, it's such a lovely and enjoyable challenge that can push your imagination and storytelling, there were so many amazing projects, seeing illustrators write stories with the prompts or create beautiful illustrations in booklets or in concertina form, I am so inspired and encouraged! Are my illustrations perfect? Nope. Did I mess up the colours? Yes. Was it good fun? Yes. It was fun to mess around and have a bit of play before the year draws to a close.

Folktale Week reminded me: failure feeds the spark that helps me to keep going!

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