[How to Build a Life from Age 36] #9 The Pitfall of Being a 'Jack-of-All-Trades.' Survival Strategies for the 'Underachiever' Who Can't Find Their 'Strengths'

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A new world I found at school

Around the time I debuted as an illustrator and author with 'Easy Buddhist Statue Coloring Book' (Diamond Inc.), I started attending the Palette Club illustration school while working a web job three days a week.

The Palette Club is not a school for learning practical drawing skills. If you ask what you learn there, it is 'a place to practically learn how to find your own strengths and how to market yourself as an illustrator.'

As a result, attending this school caused me to hit my first wall as an illustrator.

An ever-expanding drawing style

What I learned at school was significant for me. I started painting with acrylics, and my drawing style changed completely. Someone who saw my illustrations from this period asked, 'Why don't you draw a picture book?' which was the beginning of the picture book activities I still continue today.

However, there were also drawbacks to being asked for various touches at work and trying out many art materials at school.

My drawing style became inconsistent and unstable.

Strengths = I can't find my own individuality

At Palette Club, we were told repeatedly to 'find your own individuality.' Therefore, having an unstable art style was fatal.

I was an underachiever, or rather, a dropout.

While those around me found their 'own colors,' rapidly developed their 'strengths,' and took flight, I remained unable to become any color at all, just moving my brush. I kept struggling with an inferiority complex, as if I were just flailing and drowning in a maze with no exit.

Should I go with Buddhas, or should I go with chicks? That is the question.

Following my first book, my second was also a book about Buddhas, and people around me said that if I kept going like this, I could settle into the position of a 'Buddha statue illustrator'.

But I knew. I knew I couldn't get absorbed enough to specialize in Buddha statues and push forward. I had realized through experience that how much 'passion I could pour into something' would directly become my 'strength'.

And there was already someone focusing on Buddha statues based on that strength, and I felt I could never beat them. So, I gave up on the path of being a 'Buddha statue illustrator'.

If it's about 'passion,' then it's birds. Thinking that, I started drawing only birds.

And just by lining them up like this, you can see that my art style is all over the place.

The roots of my food illustrations

Along with birds, I often drew food. The food I drew with acrylics was actually quite well-received. I was praised by the editor-in-chief of a major children's book publisher and received inquiries from a famous Italian restaurant chain. My heart swelled with the expectation that this might actually work.

Even so, in the end, this style hardly led to any work.

The only work I did with a style close to this was a 'Material Collection' released by MdN and a 'Divorce Book' produced by an NPO that was requested directly by the author.

Why this style didn't lead to work

Looking back, I might have needed the resolve to delete everything from my portfolio except this style. I hadn't fully believed in the signpost that said, 'Hiyoko Hina equals this style!'

'Being able to do this and that' was ultimately the same as 'being nobody.' My own weakness, lacking the courage to hang up a sign, was what kept the work away.

Eventually, a period of stagnation

Work in acrylics didn't increase as I had hoped, but work came pouring in with an unexpected style. In the summer of 2007, I recklessly quit my job and became a freelancer.

'From now on, I can make a living with illustrations.'
That groundless confidence was gradually spreading within my heart.

My picture book activities began, I made friends who were illustrators, and my days were fulfilling. However, the ground beneath my feet was fragile, and the work gradually decreased.

The magic of the 'sense of omnipotence' I had gained from having my book featured prominently in bookstores was slowly wearing off.

Days spent waiting for emails that never come

In front of my PC, I would press the refresh button over and over, waiting for request emails that never arrived. In the silent room, the whiteness of the calendar seemed to deny every decision I had made until then.

At a writer's workshop, I met people living cool lives with just a pen or brush, and because my 'Hiyoko Planning' proposal was accepted, I thought I could do it too! I jumped out of the birdcage without thinking about what would happen next. But when I think about it, there was no way I, who had been a full-time housewife until then, could do something so audacious.

In that way, I began to feel discouraged more and more often.

Is this where it turns into a love story?

Looking back, my career entered a fairly long period of stagnation from this point on. Yes, it didn't go well from the very beginning.

I feel that if the record of my long, winding path could serve as a 'precautionary measure' for those aiming for the same goal, it might be some small consolation.

Anyway, one day, while I was in the darkness with my work gone and my confidence shattered, a man appeared before me.

That was my current husband... no, it wasn't.
Life wasn't that simple.

Bonus: I once lived with a 'G' (*a major misunderstanding)

After the 'Chick Diary Project' stalled, I couldn't draw chicks for a while, so I drew a 'Human Picture Diary' instead.

By the way, the 'rustle' in the top left is the sound of a G. When I titled that day's diary entry 'I started living with him' (of course, he = G), some people read only the title and misunderstood that I had actually started living with a man (surprise).

The bottom right is from a day when a typhoon hit and there was a big storm. While everyone else was having a hard time commuting, I was relaxing at home. This is still the same today; if I don't have any business, I stay home when it rains. Am I King Kamehameha!

...But back then, behind that carefree attitude, the blank spaces on my calendar were gradually increasing.

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