July 30, 2007
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Miscellany
On cuteness (aka why I draw animals)
It's a given that kids and cute go together. There is an inherent charm in most everything they do, and it's especially true of their art. Cute is not a bad word if you can move past the sugar-coating, but I can't help thinking that it comes burdened with the implication that one is trying too hard. The charm of children's art lies in its un-labored-over nature: confident lines, impatient color, and enviably clever simplification of form, all of which they churn out so effortlessly. A face is a circle, eyes are dots, and pumpkins can fly when they want to (see above).
Then they hit that annoying stretch of self-consciousness when something just "doesn't look right." We've had a few of those and they were all mercifully brief. Back to business as usual.
In 2002 I had my own collision with cuteness™, when I first started looking at animals and realised the fun I could have. I did about 15 drawings (a few are posted below), then stopped until June of this year. Those early attempts were painfully cute. Looking through them all I can see the beginning of a fascination with color, form and pattern, but then they veer off into this netherworld of anthropomorphizing that must have throttled me because I didn't return to it for 5 years.
What is it that I am trying to do with the current series of animals? There is no weighty thesis behind any of this. I just love to draw. Like most people, I worry about what we're leaving in our wake, and perhaps ultimately that's what this series is all about: a celebration of life by way of some of the many wonderful denizens we share our home with.
You can find some of my editorial illustrations for salon.com (my outrageously awesome day job) here and here on Flickr, and the beginning of the new series here.