Writers of the Future, Volume 29 (31 page)

Journey for a New Artist

W
orking toward becoming a professional
illustrator is like taking a journey without a map. There is no GPS to plot your
course. It may be a long, rocky, difficult journey, or you may have an easier path
to follow, because it is your personal journey.

For many occupations there is a set course to follow: go to college, get
a degree, make good grades, then apply to companies for jobs in your appropriate
field. But lately, it seems that this old tried-and-true approach is becoming even
more difficult. There has never been a set path for creative people such as artists,
musicians, writers, actors and all occupations that would be included in the Arts.

I can only talk about my personal journey that has led me to this point
in my life /career. I always refer to my
career
and my
life
as one and the same. My life is my art; there
is no separating the two. I have spoken to many groups of people during my career on
this topic and I will go over a few points that I feel are important, which may help
a young artist /illustrator on his journey.

Try to educate yourself in your field.
Go to
college or a good art school, if you can afford it. Usually this opportunity comes
when you are young, and because of your youth, you can more easily absorb the basics
in your field and get a good foundation of art in general. Going to school at this
time of your life does one more thing besides giving the obvious education: it buys
more time for your “eye” to mature. You will learn to see your art more objectively
and become a much more efficient self-critic. This helps you grow.

Drawing is the foundation.
Good drawing skills
are a
must
. For example, if you start a painting and
your drawing is weak, your painting will be weak. It is much more difficult and
time-consuming to redraw or correct a drawing with paint. I cannot emphasize it
enough:
never
stop drawing.

Learn perspective.
If your work is
representational or realistic, then you must understand perspective. You can
exaggerate perspective for certain effects, but the foundation of your exaggerated
perspective must be correct. Everything you draw, every object is in perspective.
Don't guess at perspective, learn it.

Learn to see.
This applies to objects, shapes
and colors.

I had a lot of problems when I went from drawing an object to painting
an object. I made the same mistakes that a lot of young artists make: I tried to
color a drawing. My thought process was almost the same as coloring a line drawing
in a coloring book. I was thinking symbolically. Since then, I have taken classes in
color theory and learned by reading and observing other artists' work, but what I
have found that has taught me the most is learning to
see
.

When I look at a real landscape, I try to see the real colors and values
in nature, not the symbolic colors that are taught to us from the first grade up. I
try to mix and match the colors and values in my mind when I am looking at that real
landscape. Which different paints would I mix for those distant pine trees? A touch
of green, raw umber, ochre, white, blue, purple? There lies the challenge, and it is
so much fun.

Painting from life, out in the field or in an enclosed environment, is a
wonderful way to learn to see, and learn to see real colors and values. We have been
trained during most of our young lives to think of shapes and colors symbolically. A
good example is, “the sky is blue, the clouds are white, the grass is green, and
then just add black to make the shadows.” That is so wrong. Watch a child draw a
chair; it is usually in the shape of an “h,” a tree is two parallel lines with
fluffy cotton-candy leaves around the top, and a shoe is always drawn in profile.
Believe me, these symbols carry right into your adult lives.

So, learn to see. You will soon learn that what at first looks like
totally random patterns and shapes in trees, water, rocks, clouds and folds of
clothing are actually repetitious patterns with slight variations. They are rhythms,
consisting of musical notes slightly rearranged to play different melodies, all
within the same song. Nature works that way.

I used to think of all my tubes of paints by color names, like a box of
perhaps thirty-two crayons. Later I started thinking of my tubes of paint as musical
tones that help compose an overall melody, and now I think of them as tastes or
flavors and I am cooking up some meal that will taste good to me. Different colors,
hues and values have different flavors. So now I cook without using a recipe. As my
mother and grandmother would say, I'm “cooking from scratch.” This helps keep me
from thinking of colors with names, all placed neatly in the box of crayons. Real
life doesn't work that way, you can't find a box that all the colors could fit into,
and, on top of that, we don't even have names for all the colors that are
possible!

Everything that I have said so far is to help you become a better
artist, so you can compete with everyone out there, and today the world is much
smaller. Now you are competing with artists around the world. You have to be good. I
am not saying you must paint or draw exactly like some other professional artist,
and you shouldn't; besides, it is basically impossible to beat another man at his
own game. As humans, we are all unique; we all have different fingerprints, and your
creative fingerprint is inside you.

Learn, study, do your best and you will see your creative fingerprint
emerge. You may be influenced by many artists, but let all those influences flow
through you, filter through you, and then let your art be
you
. You are the magic ingredient, your style.

When I teach art classes, I have had students tell me that I am giving
away all my secrets. But I have no secrets to give; there is no magic formula. The
lessons I try to teach my students are things that they should learn, they should
know, the basic knowledge to help them become an artist /illustrator. The
secret
ingredient is
you
. It
is how you take all your knowledge of art, how you process it and interpret it and
then let it flow through you. Then, when you paint or draw, your fingerprint will be
all over it.

If you become a freelance illustrator, you must be self-confident.
Believe in your art. A freelance artist lives on a bubble of self-confidence.
Beneath that bubble may rest a dark pit of depression.

I think most freelancers have been in that dark pit once or twice. Most
creative people have been there. I think it is because we are putting a bit of
ourselves out there in the world to be admired, ridiculed and sometimes walked on.
You have to grow a thick skin. If not, you will bleed a lot. I always say, “Thank
God that everyone has different tastes in all the arts; if not, then there would be
only one artist, one musician, one writer, and the world would be a boring place.”
So if your art is good, there will be people out there who will enjoy it.

The problem is getting your work out where it can be seen. You have to
be a businessman also. You must learn how to market yourself. Learn about
self-printing, especially digital printing, because in most cases, you can print in
smaller quantities, making it less expensive. Some examples could be sketchbooks,
prints of your art, stickers, posters—whatever way you can think of to get your art
out there so people can see it and possibly purchase it.

Go to conventions; a convention is a great place for people to see your
art and purchase your art. I know artists who have built a huge fan base strictly by
showing and selling their art at conventions; eventually, major publishers saw their
work and published the artists nationally for the first time. Also, at conventions
you have the opportunity to meet art directors from many different companies. Try to
target publishers/companies that publish products for which your art may be
suitable.

You must be visible, and now it is easier than ever for an artist to
become more visible in the world. Use the Internet; build a website; use Facebook,
Twitter, any and all of the social outlets on the Internet, even YouTube.

Use any outlet that will keep your art and your name out there.
Remember, the only person who truly cares about your success or failure as an
artist/illustrator is
you
. The only person who will
sacrifice, push, work, dig, stay up all night working hard long hours is
you
. That is a hard thing to truly understand sometimes,
but the bottom line is that
you
are responsible for your
career, because
no
one else really cares as much as
you
.

Being an artist /illustrator will not be a life of smooth sailing on a
calm sea; there will be rough waves, always. So you have to be strong.

Think of the typical professional football player. The average player
doesn't make millions, like the superstars, but that average player works just as
hard. They practice being strong and tough, because part of their job description is
being knocked down over and over, just to win a single game, and this is how it
works for their whole career. The average career is not that long.

I feel that I am in a game, and that game is my life as an artist. It is
full of hard knocks, but as long as I stand back up and keep playing, continue
making a living from my art until I die, then I will win the whole damn game!

My personal goal is to draw and paint all my life. Hopefully my last
painting before I die will be a relatively good painting because I spent my lifetime
learning and improving my skills. The lifelong challenge for me, which keeps me so
excited about art, is simple: Give one hundred percent and make the next painting a
good one and better than the last.

Everything You Have Seen

written by

Alisa Alering

illustrated by

KARSEN SLATER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alisa Alering was born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, where she ran around barefoot and talked to trees. When not riding her pony, she could be found on the floor of her grandparents' log cabin, rereading
The Green Fairy Book.

On trips to town for more horse feed, she was introduced to the glories of the public library. She brought her books home and gobbled them greedily. Luckily, in her family, reading at the dinner table was not only permitted but encouraged. She also mastered the skill of reading on horseback during long trail rides.

After working as a llama handler, barista, lab rat, and life model, her fond memories of the library caused her to give up her job in public television and move to Indiana to study the intricate art of library science. She became a librarian.

Her Writers of the Future win is her first professional sale, but she has since sold two more stories, one to
Flash Fiction Online,
and another to
Clockwork Phoenix IV.
She contributes to the “Writer's Room” column in
Waylines
magazine.

Follow her on Twitter @alering.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Karsen Slater has been fascinated by the supernatural since she was a child. Drawing inspiration from stories of aliens and AIs, dragons and demons, and everyday kids with extraordinary powers, she began answering the call to create her own magical monsters through art. Gradually, her passion for the nonhuman world expanded to a love for worldbuilding, and throughout her youth she both wrote and illustrated her own stories.

Karsen grew up in Glendora, California. She took her first art class in high school and soon enrolled in a program for young artists called Ryman Arts. From there she attended Laguna College of Art & Design for a degree in illustration and animation, where she gained a strong foundation in drawing and painting before learning skills in character design and concept art. She still enjoys drawing creatures and looks forward to developing her ideas into more of her own stories in the future.

Her website is
karsenslater.blogspot.com
.

Everything You Have Seen

I
went outside to get away from
Chung-hee.

The snow in the courtyard was coming down in thick flakes, making that
special kind of silence like the whole world has been wrapped in a cotton
bojagi
cloth and put away for the night. I thought at
first that the guns had stopped. Then a flash lit the sky over our empty chicken
coop. The boom traveled through the snowy ground, up my legs and spine and into my
skull.

Before the war, Chung-hee and I were friends. My brother is two years
older than me, but he'd never treated me like an insignificant little sister. He'd
carried me home from school on the handles of his bicycle, weaving in between the
traffic and the electric poles. In the summers, we roamed the hills beyond the city,
picking mushrooms and hunting crayfish in the stream that splashed out of the
mountains beyond the Parks' farm.

The American soldiers had retreated to a position in the hills east of
town, digging into the forest between the mountains and the sea. Their distant guns
picked up speed. The shelling was worse at night. Mother would get angry with me for
being outside. I turned back toward the house, when I heard a shuffling noise from
inside the chicken coop, like a bird shifting from foot to foot. The chickens had
flown off when the artillery began, and four weeks later they still refused to rest
in their coop. Now they took their chances in the trees, picked off every night by
quick-climbing weasels and rats.

I moved toward the coop, imagining how good chicken would taste, chicken
soup with garlic and chilies, chicken with rice. I paused before the door of the
dark shed. I didn't want to scare the chicken, if one had returned. My belly growled
out loud, and the bird shot out into the night sky, its heavy body skimming so close
to my head that its flapping wings lifted my hair. I jumped back, stumbling over
clods of frozen mud. That bird had been too fierce and fast for a chicken, and it
had smelled dark and bloody, like old meat.

Worse, something was still inside the shed. I could hear it moving
around. It knocked into the walls, and a loose board clattered as it fell.

I stood still, my eyes fixed on the shed's dark doorway. How many were
there? I wondered.

A boy walked out of the shed.

He was a little taller than me, and skinny. I thought he must be about
eleven years old, the same as me. A bomb burst overhead, lighting up the courtyard,
and I saw hair the color of red-bean porridge. He had pale skin and a narrow face.
He was
waegukin,
just like the soldiers.

The boy stepped toward me. He wore a loose shirt and pants made of
matching dark cloth with a light-colored print. His breath steamed in the cold air.
Snowflakes melted where they landed on his bare head. “Who—” he said, then stopped.
He looked around as if the sound of his own voice had surprised him. I thought he
might be a
gwishin,
but ghosts aren't supposed to have
any legs. I could see the shape of the boy's legs through his thin trousers, right
down to his bare toes curled in the snow.

He had to be real, but I couldn't imagine what he was doing here.

“How did you get in the chicken coop?” I asked.

He said something, but I didn't understand. He talked louder, and I cut
my hand across my neck to tell him to be quiet. The boy balled his hands into fists
in front of him. I thought he was going to hit me. His face scrunched up, and his
upper lip thrust over the lower one like that of a bad-tempered turtle. Frustrated,
he opened and closed his hands, like Mother pulling dough to make knife-cut
noodles.

Dim starlight reflected off the snow, bright enough that I could see
something beginning to grow in the space between his hands. He stared at me, eyes
furious and urgent as his hands worked, trying to communicate. The air between his
palms darkened, whirled into a heavy smudge that grew and rebounded as it bounced
between his palms. The sphere of thickened air flashed with one color after another,
as if he were trying them on, like a ball rolling through paint.

ILLUSTRATION BY KARSEN SLATER

I stepped back, holding my hand over my mouth. The boy looked down. He
seemed just as surprised as I was. The little ball of darkened air hung between his
hands as if it were suspended from a string. I lifted my arm. The floating thing
looked solid. I tried to touch it.

Just as my finger reached the dough, Mother shouted my name. She stood
in the doorway of the house with my baby brother in her arms, calling me to come in.
I had to go. I looked back at the boy's hands just in time to see the colored shape
collapse into itself, like a house falling down.

T
he next morning, I helped
Mother with the laundry. She had the radio on and, while I broke up boards to make
firewood, we heard the grave schoolteacher voice saying that more Chinese troops had
crossed the border from the north, and the Americans were retreating down the coast
to Wonsan, where their ships waited to take them to safety. I wondered who would
take us to safety. The fighting outside our city might stop, but the advancing
Chinese troops were just as dangerous.

I held the baby, tickling his angry face while Mother beat the cloth
with a paddle. We hung the clothes on the southern side of the house and I carried
the wash water around back. A skinny black hen sat atop the broken tiles of the
outhouse, poking her beak into her feathers. I lunged for her, but she flapped up
into a tree with a squawk. Her feathers scattered on the ground where the morning
sun was melting last night's snow.

I looked around the courtyard, but there was no sign of Chung-hee.
Good
. I stuck my head in the door of the chicken coop and
called softly. For a moment, I thought I must have imagined the
waegukin
boy, but as I stood, my eyes adjusted. In the darkest corner,
the boy had dug a nest in the musty straw and burrowed down as deep as he could.
Close up, I saw that his blue shirt and pants were patterned with white-sailed
boats.

I didn't know what he was doing here, but looking down at his bony arms
and pale skin, tinged purple from the cold, I could see that he wasn't dangerous. I
felt bad for him. He had to be scared to be alone in a place that was so strange,
where he couldn't talk to anyone, and no one looked like him. What if Chung-hee
found him hiding here?

I crouched beside him, and he bolted awake. I laid my hand on his arm to
let him know it was okay. I told him my name, Min-hee, and pointed to my chest. I
asked his name, but when I said it back wrong, he pushed his mouth into that funny
pout. I decided I would call him Turtle. Even though I could still see his legs, I
pinched him to make sure he was really alive. He yelled and hit my hand away. I
shushed him and moved my hands as if I were stretching noodle dough, telling him to
speak that way.

Just like last night, the air thickened and Turtle shaped it between his
palms. His fingers pulled the air, kneading the darkness until it was smooth and
pliable, stretching and working until it made a picture. The first images were
wobbly, but the more he worked the better they got. He showed me a long brown field
full of grain, a funny yellow house with a pointed roof, a raised mattress with a
blue blanket, a black and white dog, a red brick building with the American flag,
pictures of himself going to school, carrying books.

When he finished, the last image hung in the air, alive but undisturbed,
like a sleeping mouse in its nest. Then he put his hands together as if he were
clapping. The picture, the thing that slept, collapsed in on itself and was
gone.

I watched carefully, copying the way he'd worked his fingers. I wanted
to talk to him, too. My best friend, Hye-su, had gone away at the start of the war,
and I felt lonely. I wanted to show him my life, have him understand me. But it
didn't work for me.

In the middle of the day I sneaked back into the house for food. I put a
handful of millet in a bowl with a few frostbitten leaves of cabbage, then poured
hot water over it all, and took it out to the boy. He drank, but made an awful face
as his teeth squeaked on the last limp cabbage leaf. I couldn't believe it. I had
stolen from my own family, and he didn't feel grateful.

I kicked straw over him and yelled, “What do you think you will eat
instead?”

Maybe he couldn't understand my words, but he knew what I meant. He got
angry right back, shoved out that turtle lip of his and worked his hands, showing me
all kinds of things: roast chickens with crackling skin, steaming bowls of porridge,
plates heaped with hot, boiled corn.

My stomach growled, and I couldn't help myself. I reached between his
hands and grabbed an ear of yellow corn. It came away in my grasp, hot and dripping
with juice. I was so astonished I dropped it in the dirt of the shed. The smell
filled my head—so delicious, so savory—until I felt dizzy. I snatched the corn up
from the dirt, and without bothering to wipe it off, bit into the bursting kernels.
The boy watched, his sky eyes wide. It crunched between my teeth, and juice ran down
my chin. I passed it to the boy, and he bit into it with a groan.

His hands flew with fury, whirling up food as fast as he could think it:
round dumplings swimming in gravy, a pan of cooked berries wrapped in a flaky crust,
meat patties and puffy circles of dough covered in sugar. I picked out each dish as
it appeared and set it aside until Turtle had made everything he wanted, then we
dove in and ate and ate and ate. Some tastes were strange to me, but I couldn't
remember the last time I had eaten so much food. I ate until I felt as if I couldn't
breathe.

After that, I lay back in the straw, and I didn't care that I couldn't
make my own stories. Turtle told me about his family. He showed me a woman with
dark-gold hair, the color of beech leaves in winter. She wore a flowered apron and
had pink cheeks. She wasn't very pretty, but she smiled nicely, very happy. I
thought she must be his mother.

I asked about his father. I cleared away the straw, and with my finger
drew a picture of a man in the loose dust of the chicken shed. He tried to show me,
but the picture wouldn't come. I could see something flickering there between his
hands, thickening like a mist, but it wouldn't form. I shrugged, and smiled to tell
him it was okay.

I spent the rest of the day with Turtle. The coop sheltered us from the
biting wind, and the sun shone between its loose slats. We burrowed down into the
straw, watching the pictures Turtle made and eating snacks he conjured. This was the
happiest day I had spent since Father went away. Turtle acted strange, but he was
good company.

Later that night, when Chung-hee snatched food out of my bowl as he did
every night, I didn't even mind. At last, I stretched out my bedroll on the warm
floor and went to sleep happy, my stomach full.

But in the middle of the night I woke, stomach screaming with hunger. It
felt as if an angry beast were in my stomach, trying to claw its way out. While I
slept, all the boy's food had turned to nothing. I turned over on my blankets,
trying to ignore the pains. In the black night outside, guns started up again,
louder and closer than ever before.

T
he next morning, smoke billowed
up into the sky above the radio tower on the west side of town. Mother was angry
because Chung-hee had disappeared again. Little brother wailed, beating his thin
arms against Mother's chest. Mother opened a tin she had hidden under a loose board
and took out a small hairclip with a bright stone at the top. She told me, “Take
this to Mr. Lee and trade it for medicine for the baby.”

The smoke had grown thicker as I crept closer to the center of town. I
covered my mouth, breathing through my fingers. The doors of buildings stood open,
their windows blown out, and the glass scattered in the street. The walls of the
Yuwon sock factory had collapsed, but the knitting machines were lined up inside,
still waiting for girls in their aprons to come stand behind them.

When I reached Mr. Lee's, the windows of the shop had been smashed.
Inside, the shelves were empty and broken. I banged on the shutters, trying to wake
him. An old woman came by, collecting broken bricks in a bucket. She said, “The Lees
were robbed last night. At dawn they took the last of their stock and fled.”

“Where?”

“South, I think. Mrs. Lee has family there,” she said. She picked up
another brick and walked on.

I retraced my steps. A jeep roared through the street, soldiers standing
in the backseat. I jumped into the ditch, pressing myself against the crumpled
walls, hoping I wouldn't be seen. I held onto Mother's hairclip so tightly that the
stone hurt my hand. I waited until the motor died away and was just about to climb
back onto the road when a girl crossed the street in front of me, running fast, her
long braids bouncing against her back.