So the Muppet Rawk show was a blast. I haven’t found a great set of pictures from it yet, but I’ll add it here when I do. So totally worth it, and it was gratifying to see so much great art sell. In the meantime, here’s the full view of my piece.
I’ve done some digital coloring before, but this was the most ambitious thing I’ve done (gradients! so many!). I really like how it turned out, and it’s a great start to what’s going to be a solid couple weeks of processing and coloring. That would be for my comic from the 24-hour comic thing I did earlier this month. The prettified, colored pages are due at the end of the month, so guess what I’ll be up to this week? I’ll be the one in the corner with the bad posture and the Wacom tablet.

I’ll also have art at my drawing group’s annual Halloween show, which will be at Cafe Racer on October 27th. I’ll be telling fortunes too.

In the last month, I’ve gone from two jobs to one job to no jobs, so I’m going to have a lot of time for art (and bloggening) for the next while. Expect to see more, both here and on Tumblr, as I’m going to have a lot of wonderful, long-awaited time on my hands. I’ll have a process post up for the Muppet piece shortly, because I do seem to love showing off my pencils. And once I get any leftover prints from the show, I’ll be selling those on Etsy.

It has been proven twice, and tomorrow night, it shall be proven once again. I’ll have a piece in Muppet Rawk III (details here). What’s Muppet Rawk? Well, it’s when a bunch of extremely silly and often very talented artists do versions of classic album covers… with Muppets in them. I’ve seen a lot of the art that’s going to be in it, and I’m genuinely excited for this. It’s the kind of thing I’d go to even if I didn’t know anyone in it and I just happened to see a listing in the paper. And that is my favorite kind of event to be a part of.

Here’s a glimpse of my piece. I’ll post the whole thing later.

Do DO do-do-do. See you there! I’ll have prints! They’re an open edition, so they will be really rather not expensive. And they may end up on Etsy later on…

I’m tired, so that’s all the clever headline I have for you today. The headline’s irrelevant, though, because I have prints available in an auction for a great cause. My friend John Platt, writer, artist, and philanthropic type, organized an auction to benefit Fearless Nation PTSD Support. Learn more here.

The auction is here, and you have just shy of a week left to bid on prints, sketch cards, and other goodies from other artists and writers.

I have pictures to show you, but I have scanning to do, so you’re not seeing them now. Instead, I’m here to tell you to get yourself out of your house tomorrow and come down to the Punk Rock Flea Market. It costs one slim dollar to get in (which benefits low-income housing – come on, guys, just come), and you’ll see all manner of marvelous things. Including me, selling comics and offering unlicensed psychiatric advice, Lucy Van Pelt-style.

Seattlelites, it’ll be like 75 degrees out. You don’t want to be in your house. Come to the market instead and feel like you did something worthwhile with your day.

Why hello! How nice to see you again!

I’ve been busy with work, helping a friend redesign her website, and reminding myself that I do indeed like drawing, following the gulag-like six weeks that preceded completing Furlough 3. It’s a full schedule these days.

I just rejiggered my Etsy store, adding Furlough 3 to my complete works and replenishing inventory. (The real-world parallel of this was putting most of my comics inventory on my bed a few minutes ago. This process had to be curtailed, due to proverbial curious cat.)

I’m going to be at the Olympia Comics Festival this Saturday the 21st at table 22. You should come by and say hello. Even if you don’t, you should just show up anyway – Olympia’s fest is small but impeccably run and full of the nicest, most interesting people. It was one of my favorite fests last year, and I’m excited about this one too.

On June 4th, I’ll be at the Punk Rock Flea Market here in Seattle. I’ll have comics, but I may be doing something interesting with the table I’ll be sharing with my friend Jenny. We shall see. But there’ll definitely be funnybooks to be had, as well as a ton of other stuff.

And… yeah, that’s life right now. I’m gearing up to my next big creative project, although I haven’t narrowed down which idea I’m going to pursue next. One of my cats has pinkeye. I’m eating a lot of vegetables these days and doing some awesome cooking. I’m going to be in a wedding in a couple of weeks, which I think means I’ve officially entered my late 20s. I’m reading A Wrinkle in Time for the first time and wishing I’d had that story in my life as a kid. I’m delighting in the enchantingly abundant flowers that mean spring has arrived in Seattle. It’s good times. I hope you’re having some too.

And took it to ECCC, where it got into the hands of the people. Some of whom have read one and two and were specifically excited to see it, which was thrilling, I tell you.

Lookit:

It is shiny and lovely and a real, solid object. During the hardest parts of getting through making this issue, this was what I visualized: having the book in my hands, complete and beautiful. It’s a lovely thing to get to the horizon you’ve imagined.

Today was loads of fun. I’ll wander through the show tomorrow or Sunday, but today I talked to people and sold some Furloughs and got recognized from past conventions and generally had a very nice time. Afterward, I went to the Drink n’ Draw organized by the Bureau of Drawers, and we had a really great, varied crowd. Some of my favorite local cartoonist friends (I am too tired to link, sorry guys), and some from out of town who I was very happy to see. My friends and family are far-flung, here and there all across the U.S., so when any group I’m a part of gets something like together in one place, it makes me pretty happy. There was booze, there was drawing, and I got home later than I meant to but didn’t mind too much at all.

Friday was good. Now I need to complete the freebie Furlough promo thing I meant to do earlier and get myself to bed. And console the cats, who are very confused, as this was the longest I’ve been out of the house at one time since, oh, mid-January.

Confidential to the woman who bought the creativity zine from me last year and has since finished writing a BOOK (!!!): your compliment so overwhelmed me that I got a little flummoxed and lost my manners, so I didn’t ask your name. But what you said to me absolutely made my day, and it’ll make me happy to think about for a long time. Thank you.

Here my work, on the wall.

And here’s the entire photoset on Facebook (don’t worry, it’s public). Included: copies of Furlough and How to Be Creative, for sale! And selling! Exciting!

It’s there through March 9. Go see, Seattlelites.

And documented:

So that’s her. Furlough 3, in her two-fifths-complete glory.

I’m a listmaker by nature, and I must say, my lists for the next three weeks are hilarious. (Sometimes hilarious is an upbeat synonym I use for “freaking unbelievable.”)

The Fantagraphics and Cafe Racer shows went great. I didn’t take pictures, but some of my fellow Bureaucrats did. I’ll post some later. I sold some comics that night, and that might be even more exciting: my comics are currently being sold at Fantagraphics. Woot!

Enough chatting, time to work.

And you should come out and see it. I have a piece in the show (as well as three others in the series at our ongoing show at Cafe Racer, along with a ton of other great art – seriously, both shows came together so well).

Here’s my piece at the Fantagraphics show:

Sweethearts #1, 5×7, ink and watercolor. One of a series of four. The other three of which I’ll post over the weekend. I signed it after I scanned it.

Pssst… I finished penciling Furlough last night. I’m going to start preliminary inking tonight – mainly panel borders, as I’m tired as hell and probably shouldn’t try to do anything in the way of nuance until I’ve slept for about twelve hours. I’m going to do a post in the next couple of weeks about my process for this one, since it changes with every project. This version involves two kinds of non-photo blue lead, drawing at 150 percent of the finished size, and (of course) ye olde inkpot and nibs. Plus I’m becoming a more confident penciler, so I’d rather like to show you that anyway.

For information about Like-Like, the show at Cafe Racer, look here.