Sometimes, you get to fulfil a dream you didn’t know you had.
Writing novels was one such dream for me. I always loved books, but I didn’t know that writing them was something that was within my reach. I’ve told you about that before, more than once: I didn’t know that novel-writing was a dream I could have until I did it. (It was the blue bowl that started it all…)
Another such fulfilled dream just showed up in my mailbox yesterday: I got a certificate from Art School. A real, live, honest-to-goodness, serious ART SCHOOL! And in Illustration, no less!
It all started during Covid. No, actually, it started much longer ago, just after I came to Canada (I was young…). I met a 50-something lady who was in the process of getting her Bachelor of Fine Arts.
“So you must be really good at drawing and painting, to be able to go to art school, right?” I said.
“Oh no,” she serenely replied. “That’s what you go to art school for, to learn it!”
WHAT??? You can learn to be an artist???
Being able to paint was a dream of mine. But I always thought that was something one “just knew how to do”, because back in school, there were people who could do it, and others (like me) who, well, not really.
(Tiny little side rant: letter grades in any creative field should be forbidden, abolished, banned, and fed-through-the-shredder. If it hadn’t been for those C’s in art class in high school, I might have become an artist much sooner. Because obviously, if a teacher tells you in writing you’re no better than “adequate”, you might as well give it up. Pfffffft…)
Anyway! After that revelation, when a local artist started offering art classes, I took the chance – and I learned to draw, and to paint watercolours (among other things, because said art teacher, unlike my high school one, had the attitude that anyone can learn to paint, and she was amazingly encouraging. I’m forever grateful to her). It was a wonderful hobby, and I loved it – but it was still just a hobby. I mean, the likes of me wouldn’t be able to go to art school…
But then, I was doing university studies by distance ed. This was back in the days, last century, when – hold onto your hat – distance ed meant doing things BY SNAIL MAIL. My university offered a handful of 100-level Fine Arts courses that were a collaboration between BC Open University and what was then called Emily Carr Academy, the premier art school in Western Canada. And I thought, hey, I can get credits towards my degree by taking art courses? Sure, why not? Among other things, I wanted to see if I could hold my own with real art school students (come to think of it, that desire to see if I could play with the big kids has been a rather significant motivator in my life…). So I signed up for FINA 110, Colour Theory. The supplies came with the course, and, oh my, getting the box in the mail was like Christmas. Oil paints, brushes, palette knives, ginormous sheets of paper… Too much fun.
So I learned colour theory, painting swatches on those big pieces of paper, mailing them back and forth with my instructor in Vancouver (I recall one of the assignments was to replicate the colours of a piece of fruit or vegetable. I’d meant to do an apple or orange, but my kids ate all my models before I got to them, so in the end I had to do a potato. My instructor loved it). I took all the Fine Arts courses on offer at BCOU, applied the credits to my BA, and that was that.
So. Fast-forward some twenty years to a world pandemic (bleh). For some reason, I started thinking about those distance ed art courses, and I got to wondering if Emily Carr still offered them; you know, just curious.
Oh my. This was 2021 – the world had learned to Zoom.Not only did Emily Carr (which is now called Emily Carr University of Art + Design) have a few-odd courses, their Continuing Studies department had whole online certificates available. One of those certificates was in Illustration.
Now, illustration, storytelling in pictures, is something I’d admired for a long time – but again, not something I had the chops for, I figured. However, just on spec, and for fun, I signed up for the “Introductory Illustration” course – you know, just seeing if I could hold my own (etc etc). And again, I lucked out with a teacher who was fantastically enthusiastic and encouraging. “Sure you have what it takes!” she told me. Really? I mean, really?
Still, I wasn’t going to sign up for the certificate – but I’d just, you know, take another course, because it was so interesting. And another one, and… I learned so much. Illustration techniques. Industry standards. Digital illustration. So much fun (yes, stressful, too – deadlines are always pressure – but overall, fun). And then, I’d gone so far, I figured I might as well keep going. I was even able to apply a couple of those from-the-dark-ages undergrad courses to my certificate – no need to paint another potato – and then took the last few required classes on professional practices for creatives, and – and – and… I WAS DONE!
I got an Illustration Certificate, from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. A credential from a real art school. I have the piece of paper to prove it! I reached a goal I didn’t even know I had, fulfilled a dream that I didn’t know was mine to dream.
I even learned how to make my own book covers. I learned Procreate, Photoshop, a smattering of graphic design and typography… So here we are, the cover for the new edition of Seventh Son, my first own book, made all by me myself: a blend of both those dreams-that-I-didn’t-know-I-had, but fulfilled nonetheless. I became a writer, and I became an illustrator.
Now, one more thing: none of this is meant as a brag – I know full well that in all of those skills, I’m still a beginner, the Queen of 101. But that’s okay. What I mean to say by all of this is that sometimes, we have dreams that we don’t even know are ours to dream. Goals that seem so far out of reach it doesn’t even occur to us to aim for them.
But what if they actually are much more attainable than we think?
What do you think – might there be something that you’ve not even thought to dream of that is actually quite within your reach…? I guess you won’t know until you reach out and find it in your grasp – that’s what happened to me.
Life, the Universe, and Dreams Fulfilled That I Didn’t Know I had. Start reaching, I’d say.
