Emily Brooks- Children’s Book Illustrator
How have you remained creative during lockdown?
Staying creative over lockdown has been a varied experience. While I was working on my most recent deadline my creativity had a sense of urgency and necessity to it. However, now that I’ve handed in, my creative work has had a significant change of pace. I am now enjoying slowing down and focusing my attention to projects that help broaden my practice. My friends and I have been using Google Maps and Zoom to travel the world and draw whilst reconnecting with each other. This has been a great experience and helps create a sense of artistic community during lockdown.
Where have you been able to get your inspiration from during lockdown?
Currently, I have been finding most of my inspiration online. Alongside the virtual drawing dates, I am also inspired by how lockdown has been affecting people on a broader scale. I am an MA student on the Children’s Book Illustration course at Anglia Ruskin University, so I’m particularly interested in the effect the lockdown has had on children. I have just started a personal project of drawing the children interviewed in Channel 4’s ‘Views from the Window: Kids on coronavirus’ video. Their mature view of lockdown is a moment of calm amid the chaos.
I have enjoyed drawing subjects from photos much more than I thought I would. However, I’m eager to start drawing from life more, and visually documenting the natural changes to everyday life.
How have you found it working from home?
Working from home is second nature to me as I commute to and from university and do much of my creative work from home. The biggest change has been the lack of a physical artistic community. I’m missing my course mates a lot, but we are continuously finding new ways to chat, give feedback and check in with each other from afar. If anything, lockdown has reminded me of the importance of community.
Do you have any advice for those people that are getting creative at home during this time?
Trust the process. We say this a lot as artists, and it can easily sound cliché but it’s a phrase I go back to time and again. We are always learning, and to learn you need to make mistakes, these can be frustrating, but they are part of your individual process. Try to take positives out of these moments, how can they help you next time? How can you improve on them? This helps you view your mistakes less as failures, and more as stepping stones.
Also, be easy on yourself. Along with lockdown has come this insinuation that you must be productive because you have so much more free time. But being creative can often mean taking time out to think, read, relax. Often, it’s these moments that feed your creativity later on.
Have you been able to designate a space for being creative?
I’m incredibly lucky to have a studio (shed) at home. It’s a bit cluttered and cramped, but just how I like it.
