This Friday, the weekend started very early for me. I travelled from Ibadan in Oyo Nigeria to Portharcourt Nigeria Which is about 591km and a 9 hours drive (Took us close to 12 hours).
I came to Portharcourt to finish my university clearance so I can get my permanent license as a doctor. Part of that included retrieving my old ID card and I went to a cyber cafe and saw some cyber geeks working on their different projects. One particular one caught my attention.
It was a little girl doing illustration, she reminded me so much of myself when I started illustration. Even though I am not a big professional illustrator, I get some jobs and I have made art that some would consider nice.
I felt it was an opportunity to show her something new. So I brought out my graphic tablet and let her have a go at it.
She was making a character on windows paint and that was the first software I ever used to make art. When I was younger I used to trace out a picture with a mouse and there she was drawing her own imaginary character. She had access to a better laptop than I did when I started doing tracing too. But by and large, we had the same starting point.
I was glad that I could show her how to trace images, even though it is considered illegal to sell traced-out copyrighted images, I still feel tracing is a wonderful way to start the illustration.
I showed her the website to get my illustration software and if I had more time I would have downloaded it and given her a help guide. If I had the money, I would have bought her a graphic tablet.
She looked like a 10-year-old, I figure her brain can take it if she is serious enough.
