Sketchbook: Whoosh! (final)

Sketch N' Wash on Bristol board

Two years ago, I sat hunched over an attempt at a Castle Whatsitsname strip. I was taking a cartooning class, struggling along at a snail's pace. The story that seemed so alive in my head became stiff and awkward on paper. I wanted to draw stories more than anything, but everything emerged so slowly and painfully that the joy of it was gone. Art had become work, a devourer of time and money and my health.

I asked myself why I was doing this. Growing up with a mother who wrote fiction, I had few illusions about the hard double life of an artist. You have your day job and your real job, the work you love. You give your art everything you can, and you're guaranteed nothing in return except the thrill of making it. Lose that thrill, and you're left with only sacrifice. My wrists and shoulders ached. My hands shook, and I was bone-weary. I couldn't continue like this, and I decided that if I could not recover my thrill by the time Seth and I left the DC area, I would give up art.

I needed to practice, to build confidence, to develop a style. I took a different kind of class, learning to play with line like a toy. From an anatomy book, I made dozens of sketches, becoming comfortable with muscles and bones and proportions. I made a scrapbook of drawings I liked, noting what attracted me to each artist's style, and began copying my favorites to teach my hands their tricks. Gradually, my own lines loosened and began to flow. I fell in love with Sketch N' Wash pencils and reenvisioned the comic in evocative shades of grey. My own style began to emerge, and it made me happy. By the time Seth and I arrived in Boulder, I was looking forward to my larger studio space and what I could do there.

Part of it is always a struggle. I rendered every little curl of water in regular pencil, erasing many times to get it right before I added the SnW. The lines of current, the folds of cloth, the hands were all challenges, but satisfying ones. And here it is, and I'm happy, and I hope you like it too, because I'm not giving up.

Back to current Sketchbook