4 tools that are helping me write and illustrate my first children’s book
When I started this journey, I wanted to share a little bit of my process, the types of content (blogs) I’d be creating, and the tools and resources I’d be using. So if you’re an aspiring writer or illustrator, hopefully you’ll get some value here to help you into creating your own children’s book as well.
One of the reasons why I was waiting until 2019 to jump on this project of illustrating and writing my children’s book was because I didn’t have the illustration tool that I needed (wanted).
I just launched my book on Kickstarter; take a look and please support the book!
I was mostly trained in traditional art and painting was always something that not only challenged me constantly, but every time I picked up a brush, I would fall in love all over again with painting. It flexed me creatively and exhausted me by the end. But it didn’t offer the flexibility that I needed it to; that is, to paint wherever and whenever I wanted.
Since working in tech startups in Boston, it’s not uncommon to have 60–70 hr work weeks. Factor in family time and sleep, there’s not a lot of opportunity to paint and illustrate…let alone go through the process of setting up your painting station before you start each painting. So flexibility has been an important factor for me, or I don’t think I would have ever started — I needed to iterate quickly and when I wanted.
Using the 2018 iPad Pro 12.9”
The iPad Pro has always been pretty alluring to me. I had a pretty strong assumption that the iPad Pro, in combination with the apple pencil, could solve the above challenges…it’d get me through not only all the daily practicing, but also in creating final artwork. So far, the assessment is in the green — it’s a pretty fantastic tool and offers really good flexibility.
Painting with Procreate
While painting on the iPad is pretty fantastic, there’s no question the power behind the magic has 85% to do with Procreate. Procreate is a fantastic drawing app developed by a small team in Australia. The things I have seen other artists create with it is … nothing short of staggering. I hope to be as good, but until then, gotta keep plugging away.
With that much power at my fingertips and the flexibility of using it when inspiration appear or creativity strikes, is pretty invaluable. What I have learned, however, is that the spontaneity of the iPad is ideal for sketching ideas, practicing, and moments of creative inspiration … but for deep work, I find for me, that I need to create a more structured environment and have less distraction; like working in my office without the tv or other distractions going on.
Writing with Bear
When it comes to writing, the iPad is a joy. In combination with the apple iPad keyboard case, writing on the iPad is distraction free, focused, fun writing. I have certainly put it through the ringer for a year now. It is different than writing on a laptop or desktop computer. With its touch interface and unique way you interact with it, the experience is definitely different. I find it a good and helpful idea to separate your devices/computers based on what you use them for: Personal projects deserve personal devices and so on.
For all my iPad writing I use the Bear app, with the Pro subscription. It is an elegant and straightforward writing application. It has powerful markup capabilities, export features and is super easy to use. It’s like if Slack and a minimalist writing app had a baby, it would be Bear. Bear does have a little bit of a learning curve in understanding how to organize the content you write. Bear uses hashtags and are very reminiscent of slacks “#channels”. I find it helpful and fun … and easy to nest and group content together.
Managing to-do’s with Notion
One of the things I failed to do properly in 2019, as I mention in my last post, was to create a better process and structure to my work. Something I am actively fixing in 2020 … and is already starting to prove useful.
From a productivity standpoint, I’m adopting a lite agile process to keep me on track and ensure consistent pace of content creation. Instead of a waterfall approach (do this and then you can do that) where you deliver everything at once; I’m breaking down tasks into digestible weekly “sprints”. For each sprint, you focus on a core task or 2 or 3, depending on the tasks’ complexity, that is achievable within that sprint (in this case, 1 week). So you start delivering incrementally and can adjust what you need to do based on what you learned and completed in the last sprint. This technique is often used in modern software development, but I have found a lot of similarities in creating a children’s book — Instead of writing code, I’m writing pages of content and instead of the “app”, a full book.
Notion is a powerful but simple task/project management tool. It is pretty flexible and keeps things from feeling like you’re using a corporate project management tool. If you’re noticing a trend, its that I like personal work and projects to distinctly feel personal. So finding alternative tools and methods than what I use in my day-to-day, is super important for me. And keeps things feeling fun and fresh.
All-in-all, the toolset I’m using here is pretty light—it all comes down to doing the work and creating a process to help you be successful.
Make sure, with any personal project that it is fun and that you grow from it. That is the reason you are doing it.
