I started my online baby clothes store, Little Characters, almost a year ago. I'm not exactly rolling in dough, but 95% of the time, I've felt happy about it, and I would judge it to be a success. Today, I'm not just feeling happy - I'm ecstatic! If I was physically capable of doing cartwheels in the street, you would now see a chubby 30-something woman awkwardly tumbling around the cul-de-sacs of suburban Maryland.
I really love the design I just finished for little Unitarian Universalists. You can find baby clothes for a baby UU in my new Unitarian Universalist store.
This design is an expression of what I believe to be my unique drawing style and something I care deeply about . . . Unitarian Universalist identity. My first UU design didn't feature any of my cartoony people. I drew religious symbols from many of the world's traditions and fit them inside the letters to spell UU. I am happy with this design, too. It represents not only the radical hospitality and respect for diversity among UUs, but also the potential value the world's religions have as a source of inspiration for UUs.
But as I wrote in my blog post about that design . . . it wasn't as much of an expression of a unique UU identity. One member of my congregation wrote that she had hoped to see a design centered on a chalice. Two things kept me from doing that right away. First, I had seen other chalice designs on CafePress that were good and I felt somewhat intimidated. Second, I couldn't visualize a drawing of a baby and a chalice that didn't seem like a portrayal of a strange and irresponsible fire hazard!
When I was looking over some of my past sketches, I came upon my original drawing for the Little Christmas Tree Hugger.
This drawing has a lot of problems I still haven't fixed, but I have always liked this little kid. S/he just looks adorable to me, and I love the pose. That got me to thinking that since I was looking for a way to portray a little UU, I could exaggerate the smallness of the baby by having him/her sit under a very big chalice in the same pose.
So after avoiding this design for months, I managed to get from start to finish in one day. A local UU congregation had contacted me to ask me to donate something from my store to their auction, and I was feeling some drive to add more Unitarian Universalist designs, so they could be showcased in time for that.
It's amazing though how sometimes I feel like I am in a state of creative flow and other times I feel like things just aren't working. And it is truly a blessing that I don't have to fight against the latter. I can just wait it out. Because this is my store. I have earned back the money I invested and my profits are piddly enough that I don't depend on them for anything. So I am blessed with total freedom about when I work, how much I work, and what I work on.
So here is some bragging . . . leave it me to overanalyze everything - even simple happiness.
I'm proud of the symmetry in the eyes of the baby. I achieved that by using a little techie trick my husband taught me. In the early stages of the store, I thought I would draw everything by hand (including the color) and just scan in the completed drawings. I have started using technology more since then, and that's not a strength of mine in general, so I feel good about the strategic way I am doing it. (Even if my sketches of one-eyed babies might look bizarre!)
I love the color in this drawing. I always offer a range in coloring for the skin tones and hair and eye colors, so the designs honor diversity. This was no exception.
But I chose the other coloring - without any pressure to fit a mold (like using red and green for a Christmas design), and I love it! Blue and yellow are most definitely two of my favorite colors.
There is actually some spiritual significance to my love of those two colors. I can't go into too much detail in this post, but there is a story about how the goddess Ochun came to have yellow as her sacred color. She started out with all white clothes, but as she went through hardships, she would cry by the river and wash her clothes until they became a faded yellow. Her tears in the river swelled though, and became a lake/Yemaya (goddess of the lake)/a sister. Yemaya's color is deep blue.
But even if golden yellow and deep blue together didn't have spiritual significance, I would still think they were beautiful! I love the way they pop in this picture. I think the gradiation from red to orange to yellow is striking. Since I use a simple technique of outline most everything in black and not shading, the blended colors in the flame stand out.
I think this baby is cute. That might seem like a kind of duh thing to say, but when I look at some of my earlier designs, I don't always think the babies are as cute. Case in point . . . the kind of freaky-eyed child in my original Free Gas drawing . . .
I like the way the message fits into the overall design. It's natural to see "Little UU" written across the cup. Sometimes, it's a real struggle to get the text to fit in the size limits - especially if I have a tall drawing. But I feel like the size and placement of the text keeps a nice proportion, and the font is sharp and easy to read. I like my little touch of making the dot over the letter i a darker shade of orange (almost like a little flame).
The body shape of this little person seems just right. A lot of my earlier drawings have babies with bodies that just seem way too long. Maybe I was trying too hard to be realistic while looking at my son as a model (he's taller than more than 97% of kids his age). But this baby looks pleasantly plump and kind of squat - in that cute cartoony baby way.
And did I mention that I like how this is a portrayal of something I care about? :D I'm sure I did, but I want to mention it again. I don't think I've drawn anything that goes against my values (though I have drawn Little Republican designs - I believe that we should be respectful about politics when possible), but I've drawn things that are lacking in personal value for me.
This drawing is an expression of my faith. And it's uniquely mine. There is no other design out there quite like this. How cool is that?
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