206/365: Salt

206/365: Salt, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

July 25th

The Wieliczka Salt Mine is another wonderful place to go. It's been in operation since at least the 13th century and is now nine levels and 327 metres deep, with over 300 kilometres of corridors running underground. Once again I took my foreign friends to visit it, taking both the regular tourist tour and then later a special walk through parts of the mine which are not open to tourists. Unfortunately they forgot to tell us that we could not bring any battery-operated cameras due to the methane- any spark from an electrical switch is a fire hazard down there. I suppose most of the time it was too dark to take photos anyway. All we had for light were our headlamps.

The photo above is from the regular tour, which is fantastic all by itself, but the off-trail tour really complements it. I heartily recommend it to anyone planning to visit Wieliczka.

We like it, but we don't.

A while back I got a very exciting email from a schoolbook publisher asking me whether I would like to do some illustrations for them. I agreed to draw a couple of sketches for them to judge. I know, you're not supposed to do work for someone without getting paid, even if it's just previews. Thing is, I really really wanted this job. Illustrating schoolbooks, can you imagine? So many children would grow up with my drawings.

The publisher emailed me sample poems and texts from the future schoolbook. Unfortunately, after I sent in my first proposition, they replied with a list of changes which would require me to start over completely (at the same time, they said they liked the drawing very much. It just wasn't quite right, and could I try another style, and perhaps change the colours, and not have so many lines in it?).

With two jobs, I don't exactly have time right now to draw something over and over again when I'm not getting paid for it. But I had an idea for another poem from the batch, and since the publisher left me the choice of trying a new illustration instead of redoing the first one, I did just that.

I sent in a rough sketch (as per their directions). The reply was a laconic and worrying: "It's very nice." I sent in the finished illustration a couple of days later.

That was two weeks ago. I didn't get a reply, and I don't think I should expect one. Therefore, here are the rejected illustrations.

It's a funny thing. Many of their comments to the first illustration were about how dark it was, how the colours were sad and not bright enough.* I had a vivid flashback to an art class some twenty years ago, when the teacher looked at my painting of 'Summer' and asked "But why is everything so sad?"

I tried twice more to paint something 'happier'. Couldn't do it. Of course, that was also the same teacher who claimed real artists never made pencil sketches first, so what did he know, huh?

Either way my self-esteem isn't quite sure what to do with itself right now.

* It's supposed to be a drawing of a mysterious and legendary mine. I was purposely staying as far away as possible from rainbow glows and sparkly lanterns, which would have annoyed Seven-Year-Old-Me to no end, but I suppose that was a mistake.