For the Fun of it - play

on play, art, and the difficulty of both

Hi! My name is Ashlyn Anstee, and I tell stories with words and pictures. Sometimes, that’s picture books (like Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Select “Hedgehog”), or graphic novels (my series “Shelby and Watts”), and sometimes it’s animation (I’ve directed at places like Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network).

This column, “For the Fun of It”, will also have words and pictures. Sometimes it will be stories, or how-tos, or thoughts. A little bit of everything. Hope you enjoy!

In December 2022, I’d really suddenly hit a wall with my work and my motivation. 2023 felt huge and daunting. The world felt huge and daunting.

My friend Katelyn Hempstead made this observation: as we were returned to the post-pandemic “normal” world, we were all stumbling back in realizing that we did not feel normal.

For 2023, I picked a new word of the year. For the past few years, I’ve made a ritual of picking a word to sum up the theme of my goals for the year. Last year, my word was “finish”, as I had several long term projects I was hoping to wrap up. The year before was the rather capitalistic “empire”, as I was hoping to make a portfolio of IP and projects to work towards. For 2023, I picked “play”.

Mmm, recreation. What is this “play”? Why do we have such a hard time doing it? I think as grown ups, it’s easier to jump to trying to figure out how something can serve a purpose, instead of just letting it be. Our society actively works against it. Adult brains won’t shut up when we’re playing- how will this advance my career? How can I monetize this? Should I document this play on social media??

Not everyone has this much of a spiral, but this author does.

For me anyway, it’s hard to make time for something creative that might not pay off immediately, or ever. As someone who tries to make a living from art, writing, and creativity, I’ve struggled with giving room for space and time to play, without worrying about where it will lead. It feels like I have so little time in the day.

But this year, I really, really wanted to reconnect with play. There was a period during the early pandemic, where it felt like there was a lot of people reconnecting with weird, fun, creative things. Bread making. I got super into ice dyeing. I’ve found with periods of hiatus, when I’ve had the time to spare, I’ve loved throwing myself into something like sewing or knitting. We were trapped at home, and so that was our excuse. We had to fill the time, so we did. And we shared all our messy ugly loaves of bread, and strange macrames.

I made these neon pants and velvet bucket hat. I have not found a good place to wear them yet.

Lately, it feels like I lost the desire to share things in progress with the world. With social media, it feels like things are getting etched into granite. What if I post something with some weird looking drawing, and people assume that’s my style forever? And if I couldn’t share, couldn’t monetize, or couldn’t benefit from sharing those messy in-progress moments, why do them? So I stopped playing. I worked on making ~ finished ~ pieces, that matched my style. I cramped up. I felt like anything I worked on needed to be for something that would sell in the future, or for something. FINISH was my word, so I would finish. I would finish so many things!! But that can’t work forever.

Reconnecting with play has been a process. Here are some things I’ve tried so far.

Filling the Well

It’s important to fill your creative well up with new things. I’ve been reading books, like this Michael Rosen book on play. It has not only wonderful advice about why play is important for all of us, but gives a bunch of fun games and activities that aren’t always art related, like making poems on the spot or playing with wordplay.

I’ve been following some new artists, especially ones that speak about play and the process, like the amazing Emma Carlisle.

I’ve been watching art videos, but not related to animation or book illustration. I’ve been taking courses about mark-making, and enjoying how paint smooshes around on the page. Filling your brain up with things that are related but not fully in your field of study can expand your horizons.

Challenges

I’ve been trying some fun experiments, like only drawing with all my greens. Painting on paper and then cutting it up and gluing it. Dioramas! More about those challenges in future columns.

Make a bunch of garbage.

I drew a lot in college, and never posted much of it. I’ve started keeping a sketchbook again, with weird drawings and strange expressions. The goal is to just FILL IT, with absolutely anything and not worry how it looks. Be okay with not posting them. Not posting them for a while. To give myself room to make mistakes, and not worry about some goal line. For me, once I start thinking about how something might look on social media, my hand locks up a bit. I become a perfectionist. And right now, in my play phase, I don’t want to be a perfectionist!

Even writing this, I spiral in that way- why start a newsletter? You can’t even really write, and you don’t really keep a diary, and who even will sign up for this except your Mom, and probably not even your mom because she doesn’t know how to use substack?

But I think maybe that’s a good thing too, to not have an audience. Or to try not to think about the audience during some parts of the creative process. You can always keep working on your projects, and hustling, and making new portfolio pieces, but maybe try to find a half hour in the day to enjoy the process of creating something that no one else will see. Grab a big ol crayon, or maybe a sharpie, or a ballpoint pen- something that you don’t normally use, and just draw something you don’t normally draw.

Thing of the Week

Here’s something I’ve been loving- fountain pens. The ink here is Goose Poupon from Ferris Wheel Press, a Canadian ink company with fun muted arty shades, and bottles that inspire me! It’s a Majohn pen (a company formerly known as Moonman, which is the most fun name).

Specifically, it’s theirQ1 pen with a fude nib. Fude nibs are bent, and it gives cool line variation, and nice wet fat lines. It gives a lot of “shading” which is a fountain pen community term which means the ink pools naturally into darker puddles. On Amazon, these pens are sold as “Little Fat Man” pens, and next to my other pens, it looks like a lil egg and I love it.

My friend Cheyenne has been making beautiful work with them! Please peep her work too.

I hope this column has inspired you to try something playful in your life. This is my first one, and I hope to update every Sunday. I’ve got a whack of ideas but if there’s anything you’d like to read more of, drop a line below!

ok love you bye.