|
Idea Box “How do you get your ideas?” That is what children (and adults) always want to know. It must be an important question. Here is what I think about how ideas come to me, where they come from, and how they grow.
This is a photo of my idea box. Actually, it is a toy box my Dad painted for me when I was a baby. It says Barbara’s Toys on the lid. We all used it, my sister, brother and I, and our friends too when I was growing up. I keep it in my studio now. When an idea comes to me and I don’t want to forget, I jot or doodle it on a piece of paper and put it in this box. But where do the ideas come from? For me, they come in three main ways: • from a picture
From a Picture People have different ways they think, and I think mostly in pictures. I see things in my mind. Usually, an image comes to me first and words come later. I spend some time every day just sitting there with my eyes closed. It looks like I’m not doing anything, but I am watching my mind. Sometimes I see a picture even when my eyes are open. I might be out walking, looking at the sky through the trees at twilight, or the light around the moon. And in my mind, I see an old man made of sky with the moon in his hand. The idea is coming from what I see “outside” and what I see “inside” both at the same time. Our mind is a wonderful thing. My Dad always said that our mind is creative. Everyone has an imagination, he said. Some of us use it more than others, that’s all. But all human beings have a creative imagination, because that is the kind of animal we are. We have this from the beginning when we are children. When I see a picture in my mind, that idea is coming from my own imagination. From a Feeling What about when there is only a feeling? Maybe there is no picture in my mind, but I do have a certain feeling. One time, I felt especially happy. I mean, more than usual – it was a big happiness, I don’t know why. I wanted to make a picture of this feeling. But what would it be? I didn’t know right away. So I started wondering what color the feeling would be, if it had a color. Yellow. Clear, sunny yellow, especially yellow with blue. Then I wondered if the feeling had a shape, and what kind of thing it would be. A rose! A big rose, golden like the sun. Then I painted a picture of that rose coming in through the front door, and light from the rose coming in across a blue checkered floor. I wasn’t thinking it might be a story, not yet. It was enough to paint a picture of the feeling. So this was an idea that came from a feeling and my imagination together. From Questions Maybe the idea for that picture would never have come to me if I hadn’t asked some questions. If the feeling had a color, what would it be? If it had a shape, what kind of thing would it be? Later, when I looked at the picture again, I thought there might be a story in it. So I started asking more questions. Why is this rose coming into my house? Who is it? A story needs a person…Hmm. If the rose became a person, who would it be? It became a little girl in a dress made of yellow roses, and she came from the sun which is also a rose, and that became the story of When the Sun Rose. It was a story idea that grew from a feeling first, then into a picture, and then from asking questions about the picture. Grandfather Twilight grew the same way. I painted the old man made of sky, holding a big pearl in his hand (or was it the moon?). Later I asked myself, who is this old man? Where did he get the pearl and where is he going? What is going to happen next? From whatever came to my mind, I jotted words and doodles and sketches
on paper, and that is how the whole book grew. Questions help me play
with my own ideas. Other new ideas come, and pretty soon my imagination is
stringing words and pictures together and making a story.
This is the first painting of the rose, and what it
became in When the Sun Rose. Ideas Grow An idea doesn’t come all at once, all perfect and finished. It may start with a picture, a feeling or a question, but it keeps on growing from there. Every book I do is like that. It goes through a growing process. I keep learning more about the idea as I go along. Sometimes even after a book is done, I remember and understand more about where it all came from, and what it means. The point is, I never know everything about the idea at the beginning. It grows. This is called the creative process. Process means something that continues, that goes through different stages and changes. It isn’t something that happens all at once, it happens through time. Most things we make are like that. Our ideas change and grow, just as we do. When I look back on all my books, I can see in each one something I loved very much when I was a child. So you could even say the idea for every book has also grown up with me, even if I never knew it. I always did love the sky and the moon, for example. Grandfather Twilight is made of that, and also my father and my Grandpa. Even the wooden chest that was always in my parents’ bedroom is there in the book too. My mother says that when I was very small, my favorite color was yellow. I called it “yayo,” and ran around in my Granny’s garden sniffing all her roses. When the Sun Rose is also made from that. I loved ballet and wanted to be a ballerina when I grew up. The Jewel Heart is made from that. I even found a photo of me at 6 years old wearing a harlequin suit. The costume was for my first ballet recital. In the book, Pavelle makes a harlequin costume for Gemino. I always had a fascination with wings and loved it whenever I had a dream I could fly. Those dreams were so vivid! The story of Gwinna grew from that, and from other things in my childhood, like the lady who played her Celtic harp one time at my Granny’s house. The sound of that little harp was magic. I forgot all about it till after I wrote the book. So if you ask me where my ideas come from, I have to give more than one answer. Ideas come from my own imagination, from pictures I see and pictures I make, they come from a feeling, from asking questions, and they grow from everything I loved best when I was a child.
|
