I'm a circle person.

But I didn't want to be.

Hi! I’m Kayla Stark, an illustrator working primarily in the children’s publishing world. I write about illustration, process, publishing, and my life in general. Join in! Everyone’s welcome! All posts are free for everyone—upgrading to a paid subscription helps me continue writing these and supports all readers. Thank you!

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I haven’t been writing. I haven’t been doing a lot of things I used to do. Some of this is good..and some of it I miss. Like baking.

I’ve been doing new things too! Like improv! And I just moved house!

Okay on the the “circleness” of it all…

Let me explain…

Our hands (in concert with our brains too I guess) tend to find natural shapes and patterns to repeat when putting pencil to paper. Think about handwriting—everyone has their own specific “style” of making letters, numbers, symbols, etc. (tiny, big, narrow, wide, bubbly, boxy, etc.) It’s the same for drawing! If you’re familiar with the work, you can easily match any marks (sketches) to the markmaker (illustrator).

Let me show you.

I’ll share some examples of my friends’ work! And mind you, this is what I see when I look at their illustrations, there are often other shapes/marks included, I’m just highlighting the main “shape” I see. :)

First up, Vivien Mildenberger. You know her, you love her, you’ve heard her on the Odd Podcast!

When I look at this piece I see a series of long, (sort of rounded) rectangles. Can you see them?

They’re everywhere!

Next, Katie Turner! Katie and I have a “roundy-ness” in common. But I don’t think it’s quite the same. In her work I see…

ELLIPSES!

Let’s look at Ava’s (Aviate Press) piece below! Maybe it seems a little familar…

That’s right! Rectangles again! But more gridded, unlike Vivien’s which were more angled.

And now, the inimitable Meg Hunt!! This one is tricky…there are marks and shapes galore! It’s hard to pin down one distinct type. But…I did notice something repeating in this piece and it a lot of Meg’s work. Before you scroll down…can you find it?

Zig zagging lines! That’s why Meg’s work is so dynamic and full of movement! All these diagonal lines are coming together, creating tension, and leading the eye.

Zag on ‘em!

And me—well…

I’m a circle person…
Reluctantly.

But the guides don’t lie—circles all over the place. And I wasn’t even trying and/or thinking about circles when I illustrated this.

I spent years of my illustrator life wanting to be a TRIANGLE PERSON. But I was lying to myself. And to you.

Circles felt too “friendly”; I wanted to be edgy. Triangles have edges (and they’re sharp). Circles don’t.

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Acceptance

Selfishly, I want to be an every shape person—to pull them out when needed. Triangle when something needs to feel edgy/uneasy. Square when something needs to feel grounded and stable.

I’m really generalizing here. You could be making stretched out, skewed versions of any of these shapes, ovals, rhombi, (is anyone doing hexagons?) etc.

But you know what? It’s okay to just appreciate these different shapes. I don’t have to be a master of everything, or try and force my hand (literally).

I’ve finally accepted it.
I’ve come around. I made a 360°.

I am a circle person.

What shape are you?

Until next time!

K