Senior Thesis

For my thesis/senior creative project, I decided to write and illustrate a children's storybook. 

What I'm most happy about this whole thing is the fact that I was able to come up with something. When I started this, I wasn't at all sure if I could even start a project like this. I do not draw regularly, I did not know how to add color to sketches digitally, and I didn't even know if my plot for a story was even remotely acceptable. We were given a chance to choose whether to do a research project or a creative one. I just knew that I had to choose the creative project route, even though I didn't know if I could do it, simply  because I've always had artistic dreams. Now that it's all done, I'm just really happy I was able to finish a final product, regardless of its quality. Haha. 

When I was thinking about what I must do for my Senior Thesis, the first questions that I asked myself were questions like “What do I know how to do?” and “What do I like to do?” And I realized that it was difficult for me to answer the questions because what I only ever do on my free time is consume things created by others- fangirling or geeking out over them.

I decided to write and illustrate a children’s storybook basically because of three reasons:

(This is labeled Reason #2 because this is the slide I used for my thesis defense, but for this post, I'd like to talk about this first.) This reason somehow answers the question of what I like to do, but it’s definitely not what I think I am good at. It is more a question of what I would like to be good at than what I'm actually good at.  As I've said, I've just always had artistic dreams, so I just wanted to try it out.

For the third reason, I’m not saying that this is something that I think I’m the only one who feels. Everybody probably feels this way. I’m also not saying that I don’t want to be a grown-up, because I do. What I’m saying is you only really feel like a grown-up when you hear that child inside of you whisper to you that you feel like a grown-up. I think that is because everyone will always have a special friendship with the child that he or she used to be. I just feel like I want to tell stories to the child that I was. This project is actually very much for her.

Now, for the first reason. As I’ve said, all I ever do on my free time is consume other people’s work. I like reading books, watching movies, tv shows, listening to songs, learning about history. I like doing all of these things because I like stories, and I love the way that there are countless ways in which stories can be told and that there are countless things that can be revealed through the things we choose to tell.

And why wouldn’t I like stories?

It’s a part of the human being to like stories. Storytellers tell stories because they are humans who have needs and questions, and the stories that we let into our lives give insights that help widen our understanding of these needs and questions. 

The life itself that one leads is a story. It is the storyteller who appropriates and chooses how to tell the story by making choices in the elements he or she incorporates in the story, and by choosing to tell it through the medium that he or she thinks fit. All of these things that are done in the process of creating a story is like aligning a frame so that you give focus to a certain point of view that you want to give attention to. There are novelists, short story writers, playwrights, screenwriters, songwriters, painters, illustrators, children’s book author- all of these people are storytellers, but with different ways of communicating. In a children's storybook, the pictures and the words are incorporated in a way in which both are helping each other in telling the story. 

I'm really happy that I was able to incorporate a lot of my interests in making my senior thesis. It's also so fun knowing how certain things in my life have somehow influenced how this turned out. Pinterest, braiding tutorials, Daniel Padilla, my love for Tangled, and certain songs have, in one way or another, influenced this project. (Do not ask how Daniel Padilla even became a part of that list, it's complicated. Haha). I'm really happy that I went through the process of completely not having an idea what to do, but still coming up with something in the end. I was able to prove to myself that it's so much fun to learn and discover things just as you go along.