Will
This morning I met with my long-time mentor Will Hillenbrand while he was out here picking his son up from camp. The alarm went off at six forty-five, I rocked myself out of bed with a, "Let's do it!" being that I stayed up easily till one am yesterday painting and watching The Holiday (love that movie with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet). Hair done up in braids, a ziplock baggie of Irish Soda Bread to go, and I was out the door in fifteen minutes flat.
I have not seen Will in a good number of years, largely due to my frequent movement be it from Ohio to San Francisco to Indiana to New Hampshire, and never quite matching our schedules to be more than a delightfully inspiring phone call from time to time. Will has a very playful appearance, youthful or whimsical could also be adjectives used to describe him, but characteristically he looks like a children's illustrator on appearance alone so it was not hard, despite many years of not seeing him, to waltz into the lobby and pick him out among the half-asleep hotel attendees, donning the dinning area.
Will was kind enough to look over my sketch books and my webpage as I sipped my coffee and we talked about the processes involved in the creation of art. We talked about moving sketches from the page to the computer, about expression, about sequencing. Pulling out an oddly shaped file folder (sized to fit printouts book-sized), he flipped through some of his work so that I could see his process at present.
When I was a freshmen in college, I first met Will giving a presentation in Cincinnati (recommended by a at the time unknown professor I would eventually tag along with my whole college career). He talked about his process, he talked about being an illustrator, he just talked and I was 100% enamored. This was the first time I ever met someone who talked about something that I wanted to do. It was like someone went in my head and pulled out what I'd been pondering over for the 18+ years I'd been around and laid it out for me perfectly. I wanted to be an illustrator of children's books and guess what? Other people did too, and did it.
So it was and is always fun to revisit where Will is and think about day 1 meeting Will and present meeting Will. I love looking over his stuff. I love listening to his process and studying the minute details of house shingles that his subtle lines nail. I love looking at his art and seeing the playfulness in it, but also just to see he doesn't just magically make the final happen (although I love his final work). He brought sketches to see show me, then the images laid out in the computer. It was all just cool, cool, cool. And it made me start thinking of things, elements, that I could start to incorporate in my own work. And I left, quarter cup of full-tilt coffee in my system, feeling inspired, as I always do when talking with Will, that I have growing to do but there are still people out there who do what I would like to do someday. There are still people out there who design books for children and love it like I love it.
I have not seen Will in a good number of years, largely due to my frequent movement be it from Ohio to San Francisco to Indiana to New Hampshire, and never quite matching our schedules to be more than a delightfully inspiring phone call from time to time. Will has a very playful appearance, youthful or whimsical could also be adjectives used to describe him, but characteristically he looks like a children's illustrator on appearance alone so it was not hard, despite many years of not seeing him, to waltz into the lobby and pick him out among the half-asleep hotel attendees, donning the dinning area.
Will was kind enough to look over my sketch books and my webpage as I sipped my coffee and we talked about the processes involved in the creation of art. We talked about moving sketches from the page to the computer, about expression, about sequencing. Pulling out an oddly shaped file folder (sized to fit printouts book-sized), he flipped through some of his work so that I could see his process at present.
When I was a freshmen in college, I first met Will giving a presentation in Cincinnati (recommended by a at the time unknown professor I would eventually tag along with my whole college career). He talked about his process, he talked about being an illustrator, he just talked and I was 100% enamored. This was the first time I ever met someone who talked about something that I wanted to do. It was like someone went in my head and pulled out what I'd been pondering over for the 18+ years I'd been around and laid it out for me perfectly. I wanted to be an illustrator of children's books and guess what? Other people did too, and did it.
So it was and is always fun to revisit where Will is and think about day 1 meeting Will and present meeting Will. I love looking over his stuff. I love listening to his process and studying the minute details of house shingles that his subtle lines nail. I love looking at his art and seeing the playfulness in it, but also just to see he doesn't just magically make the final happen (although I love his final work). He brought sketches to see show me, then the images laid out in the computer. It was all just cool, cool, cool. And it made me start thinking of things, elements, that I could start to incorporate in my own work. And I left, quarter cup of full-tilt coffee in my system, feeling inspired, as I always do when talking with Will, that I have growing to do but there are still people out there who do what I would like to do someday. There are still people out there who design books for children and love it like I love it.
posted by Molly | 6:04 AM
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