Drawing Inspiration

Jemi Fraser wrote a terrific post >>here<< at  From the Write Angle about getting to know your characters. One of her suggestions was attempting to draw them.

For some reason that sounded fun to me. I was struggling with my WiP and feeling desperate for inspiration.

I pulled out one of my kids' sketch books, broke out a pencil that I think survived my days in art class in British school in Hong Kong (don't ask me why I still have such a thing lying around when I haven't used it in 15 years) ... and attempted a character portrait.

Disclaimer: I am not an artist. My purpose here is to encourage us all to put ourselves out and try new things, even if we're not very good at them!!

Here are the first attempts:

Which were not right. At all. None of these girls looked like my protagonist. A couple were close, but ... nah.

I almost gave up.

But then decided to try one last time:

And there she is! I know she's not perfect. Still, I felt like I was looking at her.

It gave me a rush to put a face with the name. Her name is Kara, by the way.

And, you know what? The week I drew these pictures, I pushed through and finished the second draft of this particular WiP. My little drawing break did the trick!

Have you ever tried drawing one of your characters? What other creative approaches do you use when you're getting to know them?