What about The Girl?
The Girl is a character I started drawing around 2014. She was a real savior for me because she brought me back regular drawing routine again. Throughout my time in agencies I totally lost connection to draw stuff just for me and for fun … and of course to improve my skills daily. I felt like in a mental wheelchair. I wanted to start drawing again, but I didn't know how because the mind can be a tricky bitch.
So I always doodled when I went out for coffee or for a drink. One evening I was sitting in a bar not thinking about anything and there she came. In the beginning quite shy, but then, when I drew her regularly almost daily, she became quite a character. I never named her properly, so she's just known as The Girl. She became my daily diary entry, that I started to post on Instagram and Facebook. I also gave her a sidekick: The Pompombumblebees. They are a mixture of a fluffy Pompom and a dahlia with wings like a bumblebee. I know, that sounds weird, but that is how it looks like in my head.
They had all kinds of adventures. Mostly the ones I experienced myself or a new interpretation of it. We'll made a few changes together like having a period of crayons, which was super fun. They also entered the digital world after a while. There are also two series of Christmas cards I made with them.
The Girl is not a child, even if she looks super childlike. There's also a picture where she swims in a whisky tumbler – so not very child friendly. But this in-between became a problem for me. After a process of two years I almost stopped drawing her because my head became crowded with the idea of being not able to define her in a good way. I also started to ask myself how I want to proceed with her. I felt outgrown of my old idea to just draw The Girl daily to record thoughts and events and of course to stay practicing. People told me to make books with her. But for what audience, I was asking myself. Call it a new artist crisis.
Sometimes she reappears. I haven't forgotten what she did and how she helped me get out of a time of not drawing for me personally at all. So have fun with her adventures :)