I Want to Do That!

How to Harness That First Spark of Inspiration to Make Your Dreams a Reality

This post is a transcript from Episode 1 of my podcast, Thoughts on Illustration, a Podcast About Showing Up and Growing Up as a Commercial Illustrator. You can listen to the podcast here, or follow it on the Podcast platform of your choice.

https://thoughts-on-illustration.simplecast.com/episodes/i-want-to-do-that

The Spark Moment

In her book, Find Your Artistic Voice, artist Lisa Congdon describes this moment we all must have at the beginning of our journeys, when we see something that inspires us in a unique way, and we say, I want to do that!

Lisa calls this the Spark moment. I always just refer to it as the moment we say I want to do that! If you’re listening to this podcast, I’m just gonna assume that the thing you want to do is illustration. The good news is that you have already taken the very first step towards becoming an illustrator. It’s that spark that sets off everything else that needs to happen.

Congratulations on beginning your journey!

So you might ask, what do I do next? The instinct might be to find a class to learn illustration, buy some books on the topic, or to start buying art supplies and illustration gear. While those are all great, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably more likely to feel stuck right at the start, paralyzed by the sense of infinitude before you. Maybe you see too many options and it’s hard to choose, or maybe you have no idea what your options even are. Both are more or less the same thing. You are at the very beginning, and you don’t even know what you don’t know.

I encourage you, like I encourage all my students, to look deeper into that statement, I want to do that. What is that, really. Like what do you really WANT? When you start to think about it more, chances are it’s not as clear as it might be.

It’s okay not to know yet. The fact that you are aware of it means you’re already one step closer. Now you know what you don’t yet know — what you really want.

At the start, we just don’t have enough information yet to say for sure. Sometimes we have more of a gut feeling about…