I’ve been working on a design for our Ultimate Stash box. Currently, Grace is hand painting the boxes, which isn’t sustainable for a long-term solution.
I promised Grace when we started Tiny and Snail that I would save her wrists – she had been destroying them with repetitive tasks. She had been selling individually hand-painted cards on Etsy, and we were talking over the phone one day about it.
In an instant it dawned on me: “Grace! I can be your hands and you can be my brain!” (I had struggled with the organizational aspects of running an art business.)
I had gone to 4 years of art college and learned computer programs to lay out designs. I knew I could figure out how to turn our artwork into digital files and get them printed. (Honestly, it sounds simple, but running a greeting card company is surprisingly complicated!)
So…now I feel like I’m saving Grace’s wrists again by designing an Ultimate Stash box.
I can basically see what I want it to look like in my head, but when it comes to drawing it, I haven’t felt like I’ve nailed it yet. I’m about 9 hours into working on this design, and I haven’t even finished designing the front of the box. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of a piece of art, you don’t know how far you are from the finish line.
And it can be a little scary.
Because sometimes you start doubting yourself. When it doesn’t flow the way you know it can, the only thing you can do is to keep showing up at the canvas and keep trying. That’s what it means to make your living as an artist. It’s creativity on a deadline, and you’d better keep showing up to the drawing board or it’ll be hard to pay your bills.
For this box, like most of my illustrations, I’ve been striving to create a design that is several things:
- Beautiful. It’s my goal that you’ll want to display this on your desk or in a special corner.
- Whimsical. Currently, Grace’s boxes are quite whimsical, and I like that. It’s us. The vibe of Tiny and Snail is both serious AND whimsical.
- Potentially a visual metaphor for what this Stash means: more love and more peace in this world. I want it to inspire you to write.
- Reproduce well. This aspect of the project gives me some constraints on this project. But as an artist, I like having some bounds. It gives me a direction to go in.
When you see my cards, you might not see the hours of concept and sketching work. You don’t really see all the experimenting until it’s *just* right, so I thought it would be good to be transparent in this and to show you that I don’t always know how a project is going to come together — but I guess I have faith that it will if I just keep working.
Well, I have 45 minutes until Ellie gets home from her babysitter’s. I better keep designing this box. 😅
9 comments
Sooooooo happy to hear about this upcoming item and will be ready to order when it becomes available—I have definetely ordered a “stash” of these beautiful (and so on point message-wise) cards and whimsical but practical storage is what I am currently lacking😉👩🌾—your break thru will come (I’m not an artist myself, but In DIY projects, redoing garden beds—an “aha” moment often comes to me if I sit still and just “be” for a bit, and the light bulb comes on and the “flow” comes so easily you can barely get it all down fast enough…Take care Leah and may you have a great week….Hoping Grace is also feeling good in her pregnancy despite the summer heat🙏👍🤞🏼👏👏👏
A stash box will be wonderful to have… such a great idea. Keep showing up at your canvas, Leah, because plenty of people are going to want one. I can’t wait to see the final product!!
Thanks for the peek into the process and the suggestion that creativity can still be ‘work’ at times, but in the best possible way. I appreciate that you keep showing up and staying open; maybe the universe will flow through you today!
This was such an encouraging post for my heart this morning. This line beautifully applies to all of us: “Keep showing up at the canvas and keep trying.” Whatever our canvas may be, may we show up, and keep trying. I can’t wait to see the final result of your hard work to design this ultimate stationery stash box.