Toad04 - Early Memories and Raw beginnings
What are your earliest memories like?
Hello!
Hope this letter finds you in good spirits!
Welcome to the 4th post in the series of illustrations I am attempting of Akira Kurosawa’s autobiography. You can read the previous post here: (link). And the Intro Post in The Toad series here:
Come on in.
Early childhood memories.
Do you remember your early childhood memories? What do they look like? Are they places you have been to? Or things you have seen/enjoyed?
Did you get to revisit them once you have been an adult? Drop a line:
In the first chapter of the book, Kurosawa-san does just that - he invites us into his earliest childhood memory - of water and splashes, and of him thinking it was just a trivial thing (his phrasing).
The place was dimly lit, and I was soaking in hot water and rocking myself by holding on to the rims of the tub. At the lowest point the tub teetered between two sloping boards, the water making little splashing noises as it rocked. This must have been very interesting for me. I rocked the tub with all my strength. Suddenly it overturned. I have a very vivid memory of the strange feeling of shock and uncertainty at that moment, of the sensa- tion of that wet and slippery space between the boards against my bare skin, and of looking up at something painfully bright overhead.
He then goes on to remark about his mother’s reaction when he finally mentions this memory or “these sensations” as he calls them:
It must have been after I had passed twenty years of age that for some reason I mentioned to my mother that I remembered these sensations. For a moment she just stared at me in surprise; then she informed me that this could only have been some- thing that occurred when we went to my father’s birthplace up north in Akita Prefecture to attend a memorial service for my grandfather. I had been one year old at the time.
And then continues:
The painfully bright, shiny thing over head, my mother explained, was probably a hanging oil lamp of the type still used when I was a baby.
Your Earliest memories
When I asked you earlier about your earliest memories - does it resemble something like this, above? Does everything look big or vague?
One thing, for example, I recall about my childhood memories is how BIG, Gigantic even - everything seemed. The park - as big as a Gigantic stadium. The streets seemed gargantuan - you know, “BIGLY BIG”!
Everything was HHYYYYUUUUUUUUUUUGGEEEEEEEE.
As were people - in fact nothing was small, besides myself.
As an adult, somehow the first things that seemed to have gotten used to were the size of people - but everything else of childhood memory seemed as big as before - until I revisited some of them and got the shock of my life - well. okay: just a BIG shock!
What, the park was not a gigantic stadium sized one?! The street that was YUUUGE - had shrunk. Even the houses around it had shrunk.
How could that be?
In many ways, Kurosawa-san’s description of his earliest memories reminded me of this experience, of this feeling. Everything that was once big, huge and confusing, is now very different.
This was what I could come up with.
The Drawing / Illustration
To be honest, when I first read this, I somehow could not at all picture most of the “scene”1 - but the description of the kitchen-cum-bathroom somehow was something I could picture. My rough idea was a tub and splashing. with a “hurricane” lamp hanging off at the top.
One thing the mind kept coming back to was the perception of size differences - the “something painfully bright overhead” bit seemed to call for it.
Mistakes
I somehow could not draw this to my satisfaction. I had this sketch “ready” last week, but I could not see it as something I wanted to publish. It wasn’t “done”, it felt half-baked - or worse, even.
I just put this aside, because “this is too bad to publish/send to people”. But in 3 years time, when I hope to have this skill reasonably upto scratch - I will revisit this and see what I can come up with.
Learning
I should publish sometimes, even if I cannot fully meet the idea of “okay to publish” - if I am maybe 60% there2.
Why? Cos I am Mr Noob at this skill. The only way I can get better is
outing thispublishing this, getting feedback and seeing what I could do better.I think it was Austin Kleon’s book that quoted this:
“When we first start to make art - our art will not satisfy our taste. But it is because we have taste, that we recognise good art.
Our work then is to make more art until our art matches up to our taste.”
Reminder, rather. That I am learning this skill - being too restrictive on what I put up, might just get in the way of actually practicing and improving the skill.
Thank you for Your Support.
If you have read till here, 🙌 I hope you enjoyed this, and brought you some good memories and feelings. I would appreciate any tips or advice you might have.
Your encouragement and advice has motivated and helped me more than words might convey!
Have a Good one!
MrNoob
PS: The Previous edition of TheToad is here (link).
Kurosawa’s autobiography reads like someone writing scene after scene - this is what prompted me to the idea that it could perhaps be illustrated in part.
Seems we are on a similar journey :) My friend Sarah and I are exchanging daily drawings in an effort to learn to draw this week. Keep going!!
This is neat. I've never read Kurosawa's book but I admire his films, and this such a fun project.
I relate to this because I remember my neighbor growing up as feeling big and revisiting years later as an adult and finding it small.
I'm looking forward to your next post. It's great that you're publishing even if you're not feeling it's there all the way. That quote by Austin Kleon explains it all.