Throwing the Lumber Overboard
The Illustration That Took One Night (and a Year of Growth)
Earlier this month, my family and I were on vacation here in B.C., tucked away in a cabin on Mayne Island. We spent our days paddleboarding and sitting on the beach, and I was reminded of how much being by the water rejuvenates my soul. There’s something about the sound of waves lapping at the shore and the smell of salt in the air that just forces you to slow down.
Amid that blissful slowness, I found myself thinking about what it means to build a simple life. I pulled out my e-reader, opened one of my all-time favorite books—Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat—called the kids over, and read them one of my favorite chapters.
If you’re not familiar with this book, it's a hilarious story about a calamitous boating trip. It was written over a hundred years ago, but it absolutely holds up. While the book is good for a laugh, underneath the humor is a profound theme about what it means to build a happy life. For years, I’ve been attached to a particular passage from that book that focuses on the idea that we have a lot of choice when it comes to what we decide to carry through life. Jerome writes about the wisdom of letting your "boat of life" be light, loaded only with the essentials for happiness. He gives you a recipe for a good life, and it starts with tossing the unnecessary lumber overboard.
I’ve loved one particular quote for years, and sitting on that beach I realized that I desperately wanted to illustrate it. So once I returned home and finished my self-imposed technology break I did just that.
What I love about this piece isn't just the quote, but what it represents for my own journey. I was shocked to discover that I was able to create this illustration in a single night. A year ago, that would have been unthinkable. A piece like this would have taken me three weeks of agonizing work. I would have endlessly adjusted the colors, fussed over the font, and still not felt satisfied. I struggled for a long time to create things that felt truly and uniquely mine. But suddenly, I felt a sense of confidence and ease that was new.
Upon further reflection, I realized that I’d been throwing some of my own lumber overboard. Being self-taught, I had a tendency to overthink everything, to overcomplicate my work with a nagging perfectionism. That was my lumber—ruminating over minuscule details instead of trusting the overall feel of a piece.
The only way to get rid of that weight was to do the work. Turns out that the "magic" of being good at something isn't magic at all; it's the discipline of showing up. Over the past year, I took courses, practiced almost every day, and started working smarter by building systems, like creating reusable stamps for elements I use often. All that consistent effort was the act of tossing the lumber overboard, piece by piece.
Having thrown all that old, heavy struggle overboard, I was free to focus on the joy of creation. And it really was a joy, I had so much fun creating this illustration and I am so stinking proud of the end result.
There’s a blank wall in my office that has been begging for a new piece of art, and this is what’s going to go there. It will be a reminder that to build a good life—and a joyful creative practice—you only need to focus on what’s essential.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments. This piece was inspired by a quote from a favorite book. What's a book, movie, or song quote that has stuck with you and influenced how you think or create?