origami collages

drawings

I haven't been creating posts because ..... I got a tumblr! It is pennycomics.tumblr.com and I like it because it's a lot easier to integrate following other blogs with posting my own stuff. I'll try to keep updating here but will mostly focus on the tumblr.

Penny Comics no. 1

cover!

glimpse

Another new comic that will be in Penny Comics No. 1

Origami collages

Cut-outs from origami paper, watercolor backgrounds.

Clever Catherine

Last fall I decided that since I wasn't coming up with good stories for comics, I'd adapt some folktales so that I could practice turning stories into images without waiting around for my own ideas to show up. I thought it would be quick and easy practice. Turned out to take 6 months to finish one. I don't know if I like it, but like it or not this will be going in a comic book ("Penny Comics No. 1") that I'll be taking to CAKE next weekend.

book work

"If at some point in the misty future an interested gentleman looks back upon our present age, he must surely note the quality of prizing the original spirit as the most valuable we have developed. It is, I believe, intrinsically bound up with a right regard for the medium. The two go along together, and sustain each other.  ... The men and women who are foremost in the world of book illustration today stand each one alone; the work of each is the expression of an individual who has something worth saying; at the same time it is intrinsically book work, by which I mean that its use in any way, save as a part of the book, must by its very nature be secondary."

Lynd Ward, Contemporary Book Illustration, 1930

(illustration from Mad Man's Drum, a novel in woodcuts, according to the interwebs)

I lied

The show at Cafe Ollie has been postponed--We will hang June 9.

Cafe Ollie

I will be showing the monoprints I made in my mom's studio at Cafe Ollie in Ypsilanti starting this weekend. So check it out, all of you non-existent readers. This is a group thing with the lovely Tory Weeber and possibly Katelyn Schacht and Jim who I do not know.

To remind you what my monoprints look like:

When I was a pre-adolescent kid and really into fantasy and science fiction I would create dozens of drawings of characters, name them and record their personality traits in my head and make up stories. I would draw them on cards or scraps of paper and move them around to indicate relationships. Since I've been in a bit of a rut in terms of creating comics I decided to do something similar, partially just to record the little scraps of stories that are floating around in my head.

Spiritual

Helene Dutrieu

For a while now, partially under the influence of the Transportation History Collection at the library where I work, I have been interested in Victorian women cyclists. Yesterday I got the idea to make a book/zine about women cyclists and specifically their cycling costumes; while nosing around for information I found the photo that this drawing is based on.

Helen Dutrieu (1877 - 1961) was a total badass. Born in Belgium, she began cycling competitively to support her family when just a teenager, won several world championships and achieved the women's world record for cycling distance in an hour. She then moved on to performing daring bicycle/motorcycle/automobile stunts in the theater and vaudeville (although presumably out-of-doors in the case of automobiles). In 1910 she became only the fourth licensed woman aviator in the world, and also achieved several firsts--the first woman to fly with a passenger and the first woman to stay airborne for more than an hour. During World War I she drove an ambulance, then directed a military hospital, and after World War I she became a journalist.

Nevertheless there is not a lot of information published about this incredible woman! I found one book, "Before Amelia" by Eileen Lebow, that includes an extended account of her achievements; other than that it is brief mentions. I even looked in the index of a French history of aviation and she wasn't listed, even though she was licensed in France and eventually became a French citizen.

I think Helene's life story would make an excellent basis for a comic book and am mulling ideas over ... I have a couple of other small things I want to do first and also just need to work on my basic writing and drawing skills, but maybe later this year I'll start!

ship, whales

My friend Naomi is writing a book about a teaching ship from the 19th century and asked me to do pictures. I haven't done any actual pictures for the book yet but here's a warm-up. The sails should be bigger!

pattern

I did this: http://www.designsponge.com/2008/05/welcome-julia-and-how-to-make-a-repeat-pattern.html I didn't succeed at lining things up as well, or else I didn't scan the image into photoshop very well. Also don't know how to use photoshop that well. I am nonetheless fairly pleased.

pulli

Finished knitting my first ever sweater. Just in time for 80 degree March days in Michigan.

oso minicomic

I said to a friend the other day that I tend to like gruesome comics, which she said was kind of messed up. So I feel a little self conscious posting this rather dark mini... But as I said to her we can just blame it on my childhood traumas.

Winter

Stylish lady I saw on the bus, loaded down with accessories

Moon Man

Moon Man speeds down the path - who knows where?

friendz

I painted these li'l buddies for my nephews, thinking of the woods where my parents live. Also to prove to myself that I have the potential to illustrate children's books.

conversations

I spent the weekend printing with my mom again.

Shadow Play

The results of printing at my mom's studio this past weekend. Trace printing technique using stencils that I cut out of mylar. i really need to take a class on photoshop or something; not all the layers (ink layers, not digital) are showing up, especially in the first one.

Season Card

I wanted to make a seasons' greetings card this year. Didn't get around to printing enough to send out to people but I like it anyway. For the record Lester was not nearly this peaceful and adorable this morning when he was walking all over my latest prints.