Becca Hillburn - Inspiration Begets Inspiration

I want to talk about how nurturing inspiration and whimsy can yield a massive amount of productivity and creativity.

I have a pop up at a local boutique (Miette on Magazine St, a favorite of mine!) tomorrow and I've been promoting some of the goods I'll have with me on social media. To keep it from becoming overwhelming, I focus on promoting one or two products each day.

Today I am promoting Lilliputian Living, a two book anthology series that I spent eight Octobers crafting-exploring and worldbuilding the world my comic, 7" Kara is set in.

If you're not familiar with Lilliputian Living, it began as an Inktober inking challenge (so one inked illustration for each day of October, coupled with a short prompt exploring the miniature world, shared to social media) with the goal of creating a short illustrated zine (like a magazine) each year, but with Joseph's help, we ended up releasing a thick perfect bound volume after 4 years, and another after 8. Lilliputian Living is a play on Southern Living, a ubiquitous Southern lifestyle magazine and one of the OG influencers, found in waiting rooms and mawmaw's living rooms across Louisiana. Unlike Southern Living, Lilliputian Living won't make you feel guilty for the piles of clean but unfolded laundry piled up on your sofa.

Inside each book are 120+ black and white illustrations, each with a corresponding short story meant to spark your imagination. Every year (31+ illustrations) has a theme- daily life, homes, pets, plants, milestones, fashion, types of families, jobs and hobbies. Every year, I shared my illustrations and prompts to social media- sometimes tutorials, sometimes short process videos, sometimes just the art.

I loved working on Lilliputian Living. I worked on crafting my prompt list all September, spent October drawing and inking like mad, spent November scanning and cleaning up files. I like making books. I love coming up with concepts and stories, I love writing and drawing, and I appreciate all the help Joseph and my comic friends have offered with editing and layout. I love having books that I created on my table to sell. So while my original concept was a series of 8 handmade zines, I love having two tidy perfect bound books compiling most of my Lilliputian musings.

I say most because these inked illustrations ended up inspiring a coloring book, Curious Little Things. Every year, I release my Inktober scans as first a digital sketchbook, then printable coloring pages through Patreon, but I had customers tell me they were coloring in Lilliputian Living, and I wanted to offer them something a bit nicer to color in.

Curious Little Things is a curated selection of my favorite Lilliputian Living illustrations, all new illustrations created for the coloring book, and the cleaned up inks for illustrations that I used to test out watercolors. The illustrations are printed single sided, so alcohol markers don't ruin the following illustration.

I also like pulling from my backlog of Lilliputian Living illustrations for watercolor fieldtests, redrawing and reinking on Arches watercolor paper.

Having a concept ready made and just needing some revision made it so much easier for me to do a full illustration fieldtest for so many watercolors. So not only did the Lilliputian Living illustrations inspire a watercolor illustration, but they aided in the creation of watercolor tutorials and paint reviews.

The concept also inspired several start to finish watercolor tutorials- tutorials that include sketching and drawing instruction and also featured a printable coloring page for Patrons, all on a Tiny People/Miniature World theme.

Last year, I did a final October nod to Lilliputian Living with my Little Artists series, a series of digitally sketched and traditionally inked illustrations that celebrate a variety of artistic occupations. I had hoped to turn it into high quality coloring sheets, but my initial price shopping returned results that were a bit too high for this economy, although should the right doors open, I'd still love to offer these. I believe I also shared the full set as a printable coloring sheet set here on Patreon last year, so you can still color along with me.

My goal with Little Artists is similar to my goal with Lilliputian Living- I want everyone to be able to see themselves reflected joyfully and respectfully in fantasy and fictional media, and I want to continue to champion the arts- from drawing to fiber arts to music.

But the inspiration doesn't end here. Much of the resulting art from Lilliputian Living and its spin offs became art prints and greeting cards.

My goal is to create whimsical works that bring hope to your heart and a smile to your face. All of this was inspired by yall- your comments, your support, you interacting with me on Bsky and Livestreams and Threads, your ideas, and most of all, your enthusiasm. I feed of yalls energy and it fuels me to keep working. Your suggestions and requests inspire tutorials, your playful what ifs and questions inspired Lilliputian Living. I owe it to yall- thank you so much for playing with me in my doll house.

You can find Lilliputian Living book 1 and 2 in my online shop or come see me at a show!