March 2025

март со девет умови - March with nine minds

In Macedonian there is a saying about the termpremental nature of March - "Mart so deveti unmi", or "March with nine minds". It perfectly captures the changeability of the month - one week the land is pink under the blossoming apricot and wild almond trees, then the following week, there's another blanket of snow on the hills.

Spring is a time of renewal, and I've always suspected it may be better to wait until the first swallows return before making any resolutions for the year. There's something about those first rays of sunlight and the chirping of bids on the wind once again that brings a new burst of energy.

Sketching the lovely goldfinches in the garden

As the seasonal depression lifts I decided it was time to re-evaluate my goals for the year. I've never been the best at resolutions - I'm far more likely to use the new year as an excuse to put things off - but this year I set myself a few drawing targets. The plan was to set aside half an hour before starting on client work to draw, focusing on something different each month.

Surprisingly I managed to be quite consistent with January's life drawing challenge, and I felt quite optimistic going into February. The second challenge was portraits, and for some reason I became completely blocked. I only managed one.

March's challenge was landscapes. Guess how many I got done?

In Macedonia there is a tradition called Martinka, a bracelet of red and white thread made on the 1st of March. You can tie it around your wrist until you see the first sign of spring (the first stork, swallow or a tree in bloom) then tie it to a blossoming tree.

Having failed to keep up with my own challenge, it was time to re-evaluate. On one hand, I really need to make time for personal work. I'm sure it sounds quite silly and self-indulgent, and in reality it probably is quite a selfish instinct, but the problem is it's necessary to maintain a passion for the craft in order to improve and to create work of a good standard for clients.

It's hard to think of drawing for fun as part of a professional practise, but it's an important part of what keeps work interesting and fresh. These past few years I've been finding it far easier to work on "real" projects than personal ones - there is a brief, paramaters, an inspiring text to spark ideas. When I get around to drawing for the sake of it, I end up staring at the blank page, with no idea how to fill it.

Watercolour&pencil doodles

I worry sometimes that I've lost the passion and childlike joy that used to come with illustration, as I go from one project to the other without taking time to breathe. I worry that AI and Instagram have put this massive pressure on all creatives to create and create and treat creative work as output and content, rather than as genuine self-expression which requires time, and can't be turned on and off like a tap. I'm worried about human creativity, which doesn't work like some creative vending machine where a command goes in and "art" comes out the other side.

Having come to the conclusion that I was treating myself like a robot, I updated the goals for this year. I want to re-discover the joy I once felt while creating. I want to make time to experiment, without putting pressure on myself to create a masterpiece. I want to allow myself to say no, to make time to pull at the threads of new ideas, instead of jumping from one tight deadline to the next.

P.S. - On a much lighter note, one of the most exciting things to happen this month was hearing that Llanddafad has made it onto the shortlist for the Tir na n-Og awards! It was such a pleasure to work with Gareth Evans-Jones to bring his characters to life last year, so it's lovely to re-visit this wonderful cast of characters.

March chapter illustrations from Llanddafad. (Gareth Evans-Jones, Y Lolfa, 2024)