Folktale Month round-up
Sea stories, folklore creatures and breaking my own rules
Hello! And if this is the first post you’re reading, welcome! This community is growing into something very special, and it means a lot to me that you’re here.
As always, time has flown by and we’re already at the end of November! I hope you’ve enjoyed Folktale Month as much as I have?
Just to recap, the inspiration for this month's theme was based on Folktale Week - a 7-day art and story writing challenge which takes place in November on Instagram. The challenge is simple - produce a creative response to 7 word prompts and share during Folktale Week.
Folktale Week has a world-wide following and so much beautiful, inspiring work is shared.
Some Creative Flock members took part and I've loved seeing your work. Here are Instagram links of some of these members, and if I’ve missed anyone out, please drop your IG link on this post so we can have a look at your folktale week submissions and follow you.
Beth Spencer - @bethspencerart
Clair Sullivan - @clair_sullivan_
To share all my Folktale Week work here, the good and the bad!
As I mentioned at the beginning of this month, in the past I kept the stories I wrote for Folktale Week to myself, I felt the writing wasn’t polished enough to share and the sketches I created were always rough and incomplete. I would get bogged down in comparison so easily and keep the work hidden.
But by hiding the work-in-progress, I don’t feel I learnt as much from the past Folktale Week challenges as I could have. Because I tucked it away as soon as the week was over, I didn’t get a chance to evaluate what I’d done and figure out how I could make it better. And I didn’t revisit the work at a later date.
For this year’s Folktale Week challenge I wanted to change that mindset so I set a creative intention to share all my Folktale Week work (the good and the bad) with the lovely community here in The Creative Flock.
And that accountability has really helped, I’ve written a more complete story than I ever have, and I’ve created more sketches and done more in-depth analysis of my work this time round.
For November i’m running a special birthday offer of 20% off monthly or yearly membership to The Creative Flock for a whole year! Click the special offer button below (ends 1st Dec).
Stories, sketches and sea journals
Hello! In this video I share with you my Folktale Week story outline, where my ‘lightbulb’ moment came from, my sketches so far and the written and visual reference material i’ve used. The video ends with what the next stages of this project will be and how I’ll be sharing it with you over the coming weeks.
Bumps in the road
Although I feel that overall this has been a successful month for me in terms of writing and creative development, I got carried away with trying to create more finished illustrations instead of sketches. If I had stuck to my original plan I may have gotten further than part-4.
And my ‘comparisonitis’ kicked in towards the end of Folktale Week when I had a look at all the brilliant submissions. I felt that compared to other work, my story was too dark and creepy and I considered changing it. But, I held fast and kept it true to my voice, and I'm really pleased I did. The story won’t appeal to everyone but that’s okay!
I’m pleased to say I reached most of the goals I set for my version of the challenge, which were:
Writing a story (Although I have only shared up to part 4, I have a rough draft of the remaining story.)
Undertaking research to gather visual references.
Sketching rough ideas and thumbnails (completed up to part 4)
Plus, I completed two finished pieces, which wasn’t my intention this month but a nice outcome nonetheless!
I did the challenge in my own way, I renamed it #folktalefortnight for a start! And posted the work over two (ahem, three) weeks. As you can tell, i’m not someone who can rigidly stick to a rule, I even break my own ones! Haha!
I was very pleased this week to discover I’m in good company when it comes to rule-breaking. The brilliant,
was speaking about this subject on the podcast this week.If you don’t already, I highly recommend subscribing to both the Soiree and Helens’s Substack.
The Island of Echoes, parts 1-4.
Here’s a link to the first four parts of my story. The final 3 parts will come in the next month or so, and i’ll share them here first!
(I’ve released the story and main illustration for all subscribers, the process and development section of each post is for paid subscribers.)
This months inspiration:
When i’m not listening to podcasts, I put on music when I’m sketching. When I was creating the sketches for Island of Echoes I listened to this playlist a LOT, i’ve added some more tracks since posting it here, and will continue to do so.
I also enjoyed listening to the Candlelit Tales Podcast, either whilst sketching or to help get me in the mood for drawing.
My go to book this month was, unsurprisingly, The Sea Journal - Seafarers Sketchbooks.
Bears & Wolves drawing session
I ended the month with a wonderful drawing session with some Creative Flock members.
When selecting the ideas for our drawing session, I referred to The Treasury of Folklore - Woodlands and Forests. So many folktales feature a bear or wolf, it’s not a surprise this was the most popular choice of members for the drawing session theme.
The replay of the drawing session is available for paid members, and if you have been thinking of upgrading to paid, now is a great time as I am still running my birthday special offer of 20% off monthly and annual membership. Offer ends 1st December.
Bears & Wolves drawing session - replay
Thank you to everyone who made it to the live session! Drawing bears and wolves was a lovely way to end this ‘Folktale’ themed month.
I was blown away by the work that was created during the session, some of the members gave me permission to include their work in this post, i’m very grateful you allowed me to share here, thank you. I’ve tagged each member so you can find them on Substack or Instagram.
And that’s a wrap for this month! Well done for making it through this huge update! If you have any questions or comments on this months theme, please do pop a comment in below.
As always, thank you for your support here, i’ll be back in touch soon with what’s in store for December.
