Lynda Barry on Keeping a Visual Diary

As part of my summer project of using this blog to help get the word out about wonderful resources on the web, this post includes several of my most favorite things all wrapped up into one!

Lynda Barry
Brain Pickings
Comics
Combining the Verbal and the Visual

Check out this terrific article on Brain Pickings (and sign up to receive their posts and newsletter!!  ALWAYS so good).

Our hearts and minds and spirits are changed by looking and drawing.  Because of that, because of how I think it expands our hearts and minds and spirits, I see it as essential, especially in times of life fraught with evil, violence, targeting. 

Bringing peace and goodness into the world through our own lives is an important act of resistance, I think.

Recently I was able to create the visual script for the remaining 16 or so pages of the fifth chapter of my in-progress graphic memoir.  Thought I'd share a few images.

In this first one you can see the underlying grid I use on all my pages.  It has two layers.  One is the six-panel grid which is the basic design spine for my book.  Of course, I do not follow it on every page, but it is the rhythm that underlies it all.  The other layer you are seeing is grid that breaks the page up into 12 even sections horizontally and vertically, with gutters.  This helps me to divide the pages away from the six-panel grid in an even way (I can easily find halves, quarters, thirds, sixths...).  And it helps guide me in drawing straight lines.

Anyhow, you see me roughly placing the words, which have already been written and edited a bit in a Scrivener document which is words only.   Anything could change at this point, but what I'm aiming for is a sort of movement from the upper left down toward the right.

Next is a different page, but one step further along in the process.  I have drawn in what I think are likely to be the panels. In my book, the narrator's vioce is external to and above the panels (totally cribbed that from Fun Home).

This next one (also a different page) is almost done but not quite.   That middle block of words is being said by a friend to me in the past (roughly 2003 or so), and though she is pictured on the page, she is pictured in 1996, so I don't quite know how to "balloon" that dialogue, or where to point it.  She is depicted in 2003 on the previous page, so maybe it will read clearly, or maybe I can point a tail in that general direction but I'm not sure yet.  I will have to look at the spread to see.

Plus, this is the sort of page that makes my head spin with nerves and my heart jump with joy.  The images in the first and second and start of third tiers are from 1996.  The dialogue is from roughly 2003), and the very last panel is from 2005 or so.    THIS is why comics is, I think, such a miraculous form for memoir!!!!!  You can't do time like that in purely prose (of course, I'm not sure I can coherently do it in comics, but I think it can be done...)

I also like the verbal and visual rhythm of "no" on this page's draft.  :-)

And there you have it... a glimpse into my drafting process.  NONE of this is final art, of course.  I'm just getting the story together and practicing various visual styles as I go.

"Eliza" by Tommi Parrish

I love the look of Tommi Parrish's work.

When you read the whole thing, watch the lawn mower.  What goes on outside this room... why is it included?  So much here!

I hope you'll enjoy "Eliza" which appeared in The Believer as much as I did.  So much to study!

New MFA Preparing Author-Artists of Graphic Novels and More

An MFA program worth learning more about if you are interested in studying this sort of thing.

The website says: "This is a two-year residential program, launching in fall 2019. Graduates of the program will be prepared to work as author-artists of graphic novels and picture books, professors of illustration, critical writers on popular culture, and curatorial staff in museums, libraries, and auction houses."

Just thought I'd pass it along in case anyone was interested, as it sounds REALLY cool.

Affinity Publisher: A Quality Alternative to Adobe InDesign?

Many of you have heard of and used Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, programs which are pretty widely reviewed to be every bit as good and in some cases better than their counterparts, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.  Because of the price differences and because Affinity's products include full-featured iPad versions, many people have switched.

Affinity products each cost about $50 for the computer version and $20 for the iPad version. One-time purchase.  Updates free. 

But there has been no alternative to InDesign... which has kept many people who wanted options stuck in the Adobe creative cloud.

BUT Affinity released their FREE Beta version of Affinity Publisher a few months ago, and I just found out about it.  HOORAY!!   I hope to download it soon and start to poke around.  I've been panicking about the cost of an Adobe subscription... so this option excites me!

All the reviews I've read so far praise this Beta as a robust competitor, though clearly in early stages of design.  It does some things InDesign doesn't do that people like, and it lacks some features people miss.

If you need more in the creative cloud than Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, and of course if you've worked in them forever and are perfectly happy, paying that subscription price could be for you.  But if you are a newb or looking for an alternative, then buying these programs is surely more cost effective.  Even if you purchase all three for both computer and iPad, the total cost (without coupon or sales) is $210 (assuming that Affinity Publisher is priced like Affinity's other programs)...and since Adobe is $53 a month, well, you can see you even out in about four months.

Anyhow, I won't stick in a bunch of links, as you can Google for yourselves and check out reviews or demos or tutorials or whatever as you like.  Tons of things exist on youtube.  I am fond of the tutorials/reviews done by Brad Colbow.  And Affinity itself has lots of vids.

Mostly I just wanted to share!


I'd be really curious to see what others think if you check this out.

SketchKon Sketches #6 Some Sketchnotes

While at SketchKon 2018, I sketchnoted every session I attended.

Here are a few.

Sketchnoting is a great way to help yourself pay attention, stay focused, and capture elements of a presentation or workshop that have the most meaning for you!

Check out the next few posts for more sketchnotes!

Sketchkon Sketches #5--Lawlor and Reim Workshop #3

Continuing with sketches from the Urban Sketching Boot Camp workshop I did at Sketchkon last November...

We sat in a garden and produced multiple sketches, focusing entirely on mark-making and texture.

This was fascinating and hard work for me.  I am not someone who enjoys making tons of tiny marks.  I know loads of people find it meditative and relaxing, but I always catch myself wanting to get on with the next thing.  There just seems always to be so much more to capture.

One of the last things we did in this workshop was go to the entry of the hotel and draw people.  We were assigned to do five people, full body, in motion, in fifteen minutes.  Thanks to all the practice I've had in Roz Stendahl's classes and in drawing at soccer games, I was able to sketch many more.  Plus, they move so fast.... I don't know how anyone could spend three minutes drawing someone in motion!

What a great day!  We were all exhausted and exhilarated at the end. 

If I ever had a chance to do a workshop with either of these teachers again, I would!

Sketchkon Sketches #4 -- Lawlor and Reim Workshop Part 2

Continuing with sketches from my full day Urban Sketching Boot Camp workshop with Veronica Lawlor and Melanie Reim...

After drawing 20 thumbnails in 20 minutes, we chose three of those thumbnails to explore further.  In each thumbnail we had to identify three specific objects.  Then we had to do a variation on each thumbnail moving each object through foreground, middleground, and background.  

I sort of screwed it up in the first example, but in the last one you can see I finally got the hang of it, with the person, the tree and the wall occupying different picture planes. 

This was, for me, a mind-bending exercise.  I LOVED IT.

A bit later we walked to a church and our assignment was to draw it in several ways, thinking about depicting emotional content.  How does this building--and all it signifies for you in your life--make you feel?

That was fun and really tapped into my storytelling impulses.

Sketchkon Sketches #3-- Lawlor and Reim Workshop Part 1

As part of Sketchkon, I signed up for a full day workshop with two of my sketching heroes, Veronica Lawlor and Melanie Reim.  We drew for hours in this Urban Sketching Boot Camp.

We started by learning about and practicing quick thumbnails.  We had to sketch twenty in twenty minutes.

What a great exercise for exploring ideas and space.  Twenty in twenty minutes meant you had to keep looking always for the next idea.  I'd be in the middle of drawing one and thinking about what would be next!  And you couldn't stop to criticize.  And you couldn't even attempt to draw more than just basic basic shapes because you didn't have time.  

Bonus:  what a great exercise to help you BE IN A MOMENT and in a space.  You pay such close attention to where you are when doing this.  It imprints the whole scene deeply into memory.

Playing with Procreate and Turkeys

Around the American Thanksgiving holiday I took a few days off of work on my graphic memoir to play with my favorite iPad drawing app, Procreate.

I am interested in mid-century modern illustration styles, so I thought I'd play with some of those design ideas and draw a few turkeys.

The elements I played with included:

• rough texture,
• duller colors,
• large simple shapes,
• line and color work offset (not perfectly matched),
• some halftone shading, also offset,
• exaggeration.

 Messy sketches, sure, and even really very pretty, but I learned a ton doing them!   I practiced manipulating layers and opacity.  I tried new brushes I'd purchased but never used.  I chose colors from a mid-century palette that are not colors I would ever normally work with.

It was a great few hours of playing and learning.

Maybe I'll do the same for Christmas!

Ways of Drawing Walks in the Woods...and Terror

In the graphic memoir I'm working on, I have to draw myself and my dogs walking (or running, or standing frozen in shock) in the woods.  A lot.

So I've been looking at other comics artists who have drawn people moving through the woods, and copying them, learning from them.

I've already posted some of the work I did learning how to draw "Watterson trees" from Calvin and Hobbes strips.

Here's a sketch I did inspired by Jeff Lemire's work in Roughneck.  A wonderful book, by the way.  Full of astonishing visual complexity.

It's that interesting perspective, that sense of conveying a vast space but a narrow focus that I really admire and want to use.  The sort of tunnel vision of the terrified...

Sketchnoting and Comics Workshop with Big Read Educators

About two weeks ago, I had the wonderful good fortune to do a short workshop with local educators who are participating in the NEA Big Read Lakeshore program.

The Big Read program coordinates one community reading one book at the same time.  The Lakeshore program includes all kinds of amazing programs, classes, speakers, opportunities as we read Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven.

I got to think with the educators about how to incorporate comics and sketchnotes in classrooms at all levels.

We had a lot of fun thinking about how combining the verbal and the visual aids learning, thinking, and communication.  It helps students pay attention, synthesize material, consider what they value, and think about the relation of things as they design a page.

In a few days I'm doing a public workshop on making comics! Looking forward to it!

More Work on a Memoir Comic

More work from a few months ago, thinking about a graphic memoir.

Really, this is just thinking on paper.  Just working out what I can and can't draw, how I want it to look.  Not final sketches.  Not even close to final sketches.  Just seeing what I can do, what I like on the page.

 I'm working from an essay I published a long time ago--trying to spot what is visual and can be drawn and thinking about what words need to stay.

I'm actually wondering if that is a bad idea--starting from an essay I wrote a long time ago.  I wonder if maybe I should start from scratch, rethink the event and what it means to me now.  I imagine new things will come up.

I really like the map and diagram pages.   I'm still thinking about diagrams and maps and other interesting ways to use verbal and visual for storytelling.

Messing Around with Character Design

Thinking about some ideas I have for a middle grade graphic novel.

Character design is hard!  There is so much to think about in terms of recognizable sillhouettes and, well, a lot more.  Not the least of which is my ability to actually draw a character over and over, in a bunch of poses, with emotion.

Sometimes it drives me crazy how limited my skills are.

But, I have to work with what I have.  I want to move forward.

More work with Background and Collage

Here is another example of a prepared background I made in a journal as part of a wonderful course I took with Roz Stendahl, and some collaging and journaling work I did over the background.

This background came as the result first of a light ochre-colored wash, then later layers of blue and brown.  You can see texture lines in those colors--the "dots" would be created by spritzing the ink while it was still wet.  The lines (on the left in the blue) were created by dragging a silicone texturizer through the wet ink.

Once it thoroughly dried, I added the journaling and the selfie.  I posted this selfie a few weeks ago as one I sketched on a day I took my mother to the hospital for some out-patient surgery.  I simply printed it and collaged this copy in.

The journaling was inspired by a book I'm reading about cultural context:  what are some basic facts about the "character" of the place where you live, and how does it feel to live there much of the time?  How do these things go together?   It's something I'm interested to explore across many pages of this journal!

I don't ever do much with collage, but I really like this notion of working with my own art from other sources to create new pages.  I want to explore more of that.  And the texturing tips I have learned from Roz!  So much fun.  (Messy, but fun!)

Thinking About Colored Backgrounds

Last spring I took a course in colored backgrounds and textures from the amazing Roz Stendahl.  If you don't already follow her blog, Roz Wound Up, I recommend it.  You can learn more about her classes there.

Anyhow, BEFORE I took her class, I thought a bit about colored backgrounds, which I almost never use, and what a difference it might make to sketching.  I mean, what do I know?  Nothing.  That's why I was taking the course.

So for fun, I just painted a few pages (with FW Acrylic Inks) and sketched on them.  Nik was a willing subject.

I can see how color and stroke can add all kinds of energy to my sketches.

Remember, I did these just as a baseline for myself before I took Roz's class!!    I'll post some of the work I did after her class soon!  It's a lot better.

MAK Landing: A Mini-Comic

In June I took part in the Cartoon Studio week-long intensive at The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont.

I can't say enough good about the experience I had there.  If you are seriously interested in learning more about how to make comics, check out their many summer workshops, for all ages.

Our assignment in this "intensive" (and it was--but such fun!) was to go from concept to completed, produced 8-page mini comic between Monday morning and Friday morning.  We had lectures in everything from webcomics to inking to story and character creation.  And we worked and worked.

What a blast to be focusing on a medium I love with other people who love it too!  And to learn so much!

Anyhow, below is my comic, a short adventure story for middle grade readers.







I will write more about creating comics in the future!

St. John USVI Sketchbook Part 15

Heading home.  Travelling, especially time sitting around waiting in an airport, is never as boring as it used to be if you draw stuff.

And if you get searched THREE TIMES by the TSA, well, you can make a comic of it...

And if you get home to find out you are the victim of identity theft, well, you can make a comic of it....

Practicing on My Cats

Most of these drawings show my practice with the lessons in Mattesi's book Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators which you can find on amazon here.  (I am not affiliated.  I just like the book.)

I am using a china marker on Strathmore toned tan sketch paper.

This next one is one I did on my ipad, using the same principles.

There is something different about these pictures when I practice Mattesi's ideas.  I want to do more of it.  I find more energy, more life, more shape and movement in the sketches.     And they are fast!!  Really scribbles.  My hand flies across the page and I can do them in seconds--and I find they are better (at least, in the sense of more pleasing to me) than ones I work much harder on.

More to explore!

Architecture: The Anchor of Hope College, Holland, Michigan

This is the last architecture drawing I did, using photo references.  Obviously, I did it last fall, when the leaves were still on the trees.

This is from the campus of Hope College, in Holland, Michigan.  If you have ever been there, you'll recognize the top of the campus anchor, with the chapel in the distance.

I liked the composition of taking something small and putting it in the extreme foreground, so it appeared huge, and then having something huge appear in the background, so it seemed much smaller.

I did this piece, from start to finish, in one sitting.  It took about two hours.  I used two pencils, mostly an Ebony pencil, and then a Blackwing for the darkest darks.  I think this might be the first large pencil drawing (18 x 24) that I have ever done.

I think I might like to do more with pencil in the future.  Like charcoal, though, it is so fragile.  You have to spray the heck out of it with fixative so that it doesn't smear when you close the pad or move it from place to place.

Still, I like the black and white basics.  Working like this is helping me learn values, that's for sure.