linoleum

Studio Update 1

here are some pictures of my arts barn studio! i have been making pages of character sketches, comic doodles, and making various stuffies. still feeling a bit slow with my work process. more to come!tube stuffies made out of t-shirts. soft and squishy! i hope to make some out of wool next.
picture pillows. linoleum prints ironed onto muslin, and then made into pillows. also, some other oddities, like knit cords, a creepy bird eye, and a bizarre star person. oh! and a stripey man peeking into the frame.

doodles and practice prints!! and some sketchy comic plans (more on those later).

influence map

followin' the meme!! also, i thought this was a good idea because lately i have had to really question what my work is. so it's nice to look at my art influences all together. yadda yadda.

i liked that kate beaton had explanations for each of hers, so i think i will be even more of a copy cat and type some little explanations of my own.

1. Hayao Miyazaki- Totoro and Nausicaä were a huge part of my childhood. I recently found drawings I had done in the third grade of Nausicaä flying around on Mehve. I think that the environmental message in that movie struck a cord even then. Last year I read the complete comic anthology of Nausicaä and fell in love with the story and art even more.

2. Tove Jansson- Finn Family Moomintroll, my favorite book of all time, was given to me by my grnadmother when I was little. Every birthday I looked forward to receiving a new Jansson book, and I treasure them to this day. If I had to pin point where the inspiration for my own creatures drawings is from, it would be Tove Jansson's illustrations, and stories told to me by my grandpa when I was little.

3. Osamu Tezuka- Astro Boy!! Sometimes the old theme song gets stuck in my head still.

4. Friso Henstra- The patterns and detail of Henstra's work are both exciting and intimidating. I only wish I could get such fancy detail in my designs.

5. Sylvan Migdal- Someday, I will make a comic, and I really hope it's as pretty as his. Curvy is perfect.

6. Charlie Immer- A recent discovery, but a near perfect sum-up of what I would love to accomplish with my work: brightly colored cute insane gorey creatures.

7. Miss Van- I was once a big street art nerd. Okay, I still am. I love that Miss Van puts all this sensuality out in public. And the colors!! They are my weakness.

8. Pendelton Ward- Okay, gotta admit, don't know too much about this guy, but I freakin' love Adventure Time. They have awesome catch phrases. Looking at Curvy, Adventure Time, and Finn Family Moomintroll, you can see a pattern of what appeals to me: clean lines, soft curves, distinctive shading/coloring.

9. Lucy Knisely- My comics hero. Her work is simple, beautiful and detailed all at once. Actually, her style might fit into the aesthetics mentioned above as well. She tells a dang good story too!

10. Nick Cave- My favorite musician. Sometimes I want to illustrate his words.

11. Corey Lewis- Sharknife got me interested in the way you can break down standard comic formats. I am such a sucker for colors. But what I really love is the motion in his illustrations. Crazy limbs everywhere!!

The big thing I did not manage to squeeze onto that page:

12. Bill Watterson- Calvin and Hobbes, my original comic book love.

people!

cousin annabelle and i, and then me again. vain, aren't i? arielle is letting me use her scanner, so no more weird cell phone photos! these are me practicing simplified versions of people. i have always wanted to make comics, i just need to get better at drawing people in a cartoonish way.