April Snow

Every year, spring arrives, and it’s as if we forget the awkwardness of this transitional season. There’s this expectation that every day from this point forward should feel like a new beginning, more manageable, and easier than the next. When it’s not, there is this overcoming weariness that follows. One day we’re excited, the sky seems more blue, people emerge from months of hibernation to welcome the sun, and everything seems to be moving forward. Next, we’re discouraged, wearing gloves, shivering on the sidewalk, and screaming out how sick we all are of winter.

This is how I feel about being a freelance illustrator. There are moments when I feel like I’m on top of the world, I’m doing the best work I’ve ever done, and I’m on the right path. The next, it feels like I’m at the bottom of a pit, nothing I make seems good enough, and I’ve made all the wrong choices despite the signs. It particularly feels this way after a period of being out of work and all of a sudden finding yourself at the helm of a new project. The excitement slowly fades when you realize that the weariness doesn’t just go away, and like the heaviness of winter, it is labored out.

Recently, I worked on the visuals for Super Boat People Collective ( A Montreal collective made up of second-generation Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese people) special program for the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second Indochina War (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) and arrival of Southeast Asian refugees in Canada and Quebec. As a child of Vietnamese refugees, I knew immediately that I wanted to collaborate on the visuals and honor my parents in some way. It became clear from the beginning that working on this was not going to be easy. In some ways, I had forgotten what the process of collaboration was like and how the stages before the final illustration could be met with resistance. I admit, I spent much of the time feeling frustrated on this project. Frustrated that it didn’t come as easy as other projects. Frustrated that I felt rusty. Frustrated that I was being challenged. I was coming out of a hard winter and was looking for the high of a new beginning but instead, I was met with what felt like deep growing pains.

We began with a few sketches. Our aim was to create visuals that honored those who came before us while also focusing on the idea of mapping out future perspectives for our communities. The illustrations needed to feel hopeful but also had a commemorative feel.

First round of sketches

The initial notes were overall positive and it seemed like the team loved different aspects of each sketch but overall had felt the sketches evoked too much of the past and lacked a sense of hope for the future (a note that felt too on the nose and a mirror to the state of mind I was in at the time!!) With those notes in mind, we went through another round of sketches. This time I decided to go with a brighter and more saturated color palette, with less focus on figures, and more on images that conjure a collective feeling instead of an individual experience.

Second round of sketches

The team loved the second round of sketches and we chose the third sketch and with the team’s approval, I moved on to the final sketch. With every progress photo I shared it seemed like things were going well until the final delivery. It turned out that somewhere along the way we started veering onto two different paths and what could have been clearly communicated was not.

Final with notes

Multiple google meets were had from this point forward and as difficult as these discussions were I ultimately appreciated them despite how frustrated I felt at the time. It’s as much my illustration as it is the clients and one of the reasons why I love this job is because of the collaborative nature of it. Sometimes it’s easy working with people, sometimes it’s hard, and oftentimes it’s not about us.

By the end of the meetings, I suggested that I could paint the illustration using gouache. I had been studying for a year and although I didn’t feel confident in my abilities something compelled me to throw it out there. With a few adjustments to the final illustration I started painting and ended up with something I’m proud of and the team loved despite how difficult it was to get there.

Final

The process always feels like early Spring to me. Spring is not always green and full of blooms. It is mostly brown and full of aches. Everything is dirty. It goes from warm to frigid cold the next and we are all tired. The signs are there though: the geese, early buds growing from stems, sounds of water trickling, and the stirring of a city beginning to awaken from slumber. The weariness lingers but spring and summer eventually come. Fought for and sometimes arrives with tears.