A Crying Shame - A short Autobiographical Comic

 Alongside my bigger project, A Walk to A Waterfall, I wanted to create smaller pieces. One of which is names A Crying Shame, a short autobiographical piece about overcoming shame and embarressment at displaying outwards emotion.

You can read the script here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zaVFozA6vXl8OtjEd3tIjGPS7aIbRw52_QBcoBlJlEU/edit

I have begun mapping out the panels which you can see below, along with a completed illustration of one of the final pages, which will be a double page spread full of my crying face and reasons that I have cried 

Practise - Landscape Reference

I wanted to do a full piece in the mottled landscape/green-pink colour scheme, using a reference photo I book in Settle, I cropped into a piece that I really enjoyed (focusing on a little building and tower.) and changed the perspective slightly to make the most of the landscape. I love the way this came out, I really like the simplicity of the building, using only a brush pen for shadow. And the way the mottled pencil gives really depth to the landscape itself.

Update: I shared this piece online, and it got a really great reception!

 

A Walk to a Waterfall - Page 1

 I spent today drawing out the full first page of A Walk to a Waterfall, using the colours and style that I've been practising over the last few weeks, rather than a "real" colour pallet. 

Having the first page done makes me feel like I've set the tone for the entire book and I'm looking forward to creating more pages along this line.

This page is the only time you see the full me, after this is goes fully POV. 

Narrative Play - Birthday Flowers - Digital

 I wanted to recreate the Birthday Flowers Zine in a little more of a refined way, so decided to try out drawing the image digitally. I used procreate for the image, and photoshop to add text (I changed the words slightly), I then printed it all out and folded in the same way I did before.

I absolutely love how this looks, the simplicity of having one whole image; although it does have to be something that works upside down on some pages, the vase of flowers is ideal. Looking forward to playing with this structure more.

This was also a nice exercise in working digitally, as it's definitely not my preferred method of creating art, but with this piece it helped me arrange the image to work as individual pages, and add text easily.

The zine in its folded state:

Experimentation - Screenprinting

A little play around with stencil screen- printing. This one is a three layer image, I really enjoyed the textures created using various coloured paints, which gradually merged into one colour, but before that happened the effect if gave was perfect to depict patchwork landscapes. 

This is something I want to revisit, with more time and precision to make them less messy.

 

Experiment - Digital Diary Comics

 i wanted to create some simple sequential diary comic pieces digitally, to play around with the format, and to share online; I find sharing digital work quite tough, so wanted to challenge myself!

The image to the right is the one I came up with, based on a time snippet of my day!.

I do enjoy working digitally, and I feel like its an easy way to share these small moments, it also feels more playful, and I think would allow me to be a little more humous in my work. 

A Walk to a Waterfall - Practise Full Pages

Now that I  have put together my dummy book I wanted to try out drawing some of the full pages, picking out some of my favourite layouts. I plan next to map out each page on paper, rather than in a sketchbook, so that I can start working on a reproducible piece. I stopped the below spread as I didn't like the direction I was going with colour use, I don’t want to be too true to life regarding colours so plan now to revisit the experiment with colour.

Narrative Play - Birthday Flowers Zine

I created another zine using a full image laid out on a page, which was then folded into a zine. The folds mean the image is split into unexpected and unplanned crops, which make it really interesting way to see the image, and then to let it inform a narrative. 

 

Found word Zine

A little zine created with the intention of using found words and reasonably unrelated images to explore narrative and image.

Research - Short Form Diary Comic Creators

 

Julia Gootzeit often uses skewed panels in her work, which I think creates a feeling of confusion and disorientation. Find Julia's work here: instagram.com/ohmyghoulia

I love Kat Schneids use of panels to create real emotion in her work. A mix of full image and text only. Find Kats work here: instagram.com/katschneids

Anna Vaivare is another artist that uses a lot of texture in their work, and whilst not a sequential artist as such, I particularly loved this piece for its use of sketchy texture and the simple four panels that give it a lot of motion. Find Anna's work here: Instagram.com/annavaivare

Lesley Imgart uses very simple imagery within panels, along with hand-written words that make it feel very raw. Find Lesleys work here: instagram.com/lesleyimgart

The way J Marshall Smith  splits this one full image into separate panels is really intriguing. I also love the narrative corrections in pen. Find J.Marshall Smiths work here: instagram.com/jmarshallsmith

Hannah Hillam approaches diary comics in a much more self deprecating and humours way. I enjoy the simplicity. Find Hannahs work here: instagram.com/hannahhillman

Narrative and colour Experiment - A Walk to a Waterfall

Following on from my research into creators who use panels in an emotive way, and my own playing with panels and words, I decided to create the below piece; which is inspired by the images captured on the same trip for A Walk to a Waterfall, and the words are a summation of the overall story. I used a limited colour pallet which I really love the outcome of.

I also gave myself a time limit on each panel; 5 minutes, to ensure that it’s not overworked, and remains energetic. Although clearly not absolutely refined, this piece feels incredible authentic to me. And is the kind of work I want to aspire to continue to create.

Walk to a Waterfall - Dummy Book

I've been in limbo for a little while on how I picture the pages for A Walk to a Waterfall looking, I've experimented with landscapes, adding myself in as a character using collage, and also doing the work digitally and making it more "web-diary-comic" like, eg. a large focus on the character (me) themselves. 

Through this experimentation I always come back to the landscapes, which where particularly important to me on the day this actually happened, so this is the reason I'm bringing it back to focus on nature, the landscape and my surroundings. 

I want to take "me" as a character out of the images themselves, to emphasise the juxtaposition in my internal monologue and my surroundings, as previously mentioned using Matt Maddens 'Vouyer' idea as inspiration.

I still want to ensure there is a lot of emotion in the images, using timed drawings, carefully selected colour palettes, as well as having the text hand written underneath the image to really bring it back to diary type pages I always enjoyed making.

I put together a full dummy book; totalling 16 pages or content (plus covers and inside page)

Diary Comics - Playing with Panel Layouts + Words

After reading 99 Ways to Tell A Story by Matt Madden, I was drawn to the 'Vouyer' style he depicts, where (as the title probably shows) the writer/creator/artist illustrations from their point of view, eg. behind the camera.

I've recently been researching illustrations and comic creators who use this technique. Lesley Imgart is a great example of this.

I'm working towards being more vulnerable in my work, and feel like this is the direction that most authentically matches my intentions. 

I have now started a separate diary sketchbook to work on, and build on, similar pieces on a much more regular basis so I can develop my personal diary drawings.

 

Folktale Week - Final Zine

The final folktale week laid out unfolded; I painted the ground and tree as one continues piece. I then used pencil to add details, with collage for the final details, and characters. I intentionally left space in this to have an option to add text if I wanted to.

1. The full folded zine 2. Stars 3. Rebel & Costume 4. Potion

Folktale Week - Final Plan

After playing around with ideas for my Folktale Week story, I realised that I needed to simplify my plans;  I was working on making individual pieces, thinking too much about how I was going to present them (eg. for social media),

I decided to combine the idea into an 8 page zine making exercise I previously tried out (the exercise was part of Sarah Dyers Patreon), where you paint/draw the scene in its entirety on a full piece of paper before folding it into the zine. I mapped out my idea very roughly to give myself freedom:

I plan to combine a lot of things I have learnt recently into this zine; the zine itself, painting it as one piece and adding final detail, and the character, in using collage.

Photo Reference - Cropping for Interest

I use a lot of references photos in my work, I received feedback that I should consider cropping into these images to pick out details or interest, focus on what draws me in. Below is a quick exercise where I did this, I've since sketched from them.

Original Full Image

Original Full Image

Original Full Image