Muses for me

Fourth post of the day...Sunday. I remember a quote from a Biography that I read about Beatrix Potter:

"A silent power is slowly working it's way towards good, mind your own business, behave yourself and never mind the rest". (Beatrix Potter was the main subject of my written assignment during my studies).

I was reading this wonderful book (by Linda Lear) when I went on a pilgrimage to The Lake District two years ago come end of April. I virtually fled there for oxygen, it was a very beautiful week. There were lambs everywhere, and I did wonder lonely as a cloud to where Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy also lived. Quiet walks on my own contemplating... sitting on rocks and just looking. There were some amazing thunder storms too, those "silent hills" (Beatrix Potter) looked so ancient and wild.
Image: from Google image search.

I filmed on my camera, this mum with her lamb...hopefully not invasive on purely grounds that I was unable to ask her permission...we witness sweet moments like this without the need to capture it, and let it fall to the uncharted reservoirs of being...but this is a while after the lamb was born and is just stumbling to it's feet.

To behold

I thirst for a solution. I grab at anything I see outside...out there in the world. I thirst for a solution that can only come from within me.

Spring

The Daffodils are coming, I can feel it...must not panic and throw an adult version of a tantrum, it feels horrible, (but not really too bad). The night is darkest just before the dawn...spring is nearly here!

Resort to the page...

Well, here is one that I did earlier...yesterday in fact. It quite aptly illustrates how I felt this morning as I woke up. It is for another project that I am doing for someone else, but still I was quite pleased with it.

I am at the stage with this project where you realise that there are..."one million"... tiny little bits to do still but your enthusiasm is draining from you. I have that bloated feel that I imagine a pregnant woman feels after nine months, I just want this out, this has brewed for long enough, I am not enjoying this now!

There is a positive reason for that I know, (so not to sign off on a downer!) I have to just sit firm within the process, and not rush to the goal prematurely. The desired effect: the desire itself, to effect, can kill the effect. A trick I find is, not to think about a goal (just a faint one), and through it all ("she offers me protection, a lot of"......no, oops, wrong one), I have learnt to like being at my drawing board. It took a while, but I am there, and that is enough reward for me today. 


Insert Feb 2011: On good days, during the composing of the sequences, there is a palpable sense of your own discovery, unhindered by any expectation or outside pressure and this is probably one of the most satisfying feelings. Just the act of having a dialogue with yourself is enough to make the whole thing, simply enjoyable rather than worrying about receivership...first and foremost in any case, it takes the edge off of "product".

Publishing my graphic novel

I will distribute the first episode of my graphic novel as a self publisher, I want to get it about a bit as soon as it is finished! The web is now great for this.
Clerkenwell Tales, is an independent book shop that has just opened up near my studio, set up by Peter Ho, and he said that he would be happy to take some and try and sell them for me...there are a lot of places in fact.
Today, I reviewed what is left to do (whilst listening to The Proclaimers strangely enough). As spring comes (what a devil of a winter)...the mornings and evenings are lighter, I can now see the finish line and I am feeling that something has got out of my system, at last.
Pace, pace and I should be there by the end of March.

Process...

I am drawing the last few pages of the first episode of my graphic novel. Although there are touch ups, a few changes to some pages, and various paint washes still to finish...probably a whole load more work, but that's no worry.

Then it is scanning and layout, and getting the page numbers in the right order to form a comic book, that will be A4 in size. In terms of design, it is actually slightly smaller than A4, compacting it gives it a much nicer edge.

It will feel even better to have it all together, a product of the time put in...all nicely and neatly fitting into one book! (need voice tone...)??/@3@...perhaps I will add a small podcast at some stage...

To see all pictures at their larger original size, click on the image once for the light-box.

The Dilemmas of Mr Hope So

Here is another snippet of Monumental Muse.

Here are some snippets from my short story and/or on-going strip: The Dilemmas of Mr Hope-so...

Graphic short story

This is the title page for the story I entered for The Observer Short Story Prize last October: The Dilemmas of Mr Hope so. I wasn't a winner of the competition, but was pleased for the excuse to make something for a deadline or cause. I was charmed by the entry that did go through..."Paint", about a mother and her child finding ways to be creative at home, dreams of what she would love to do but wouldn't really, a dream time that can fill the pages of sequential art freely. It had a beautiful ending, anarchic even (added Aug 2010).

Process, and Laydeez do Comics...

Right! I have given myself a "Fake deadline" to have the first episode of Domestic Bliss finished by end of March, it takes a long time drawing the pages...especially in a vacuum. I try to pretend that I live in an earlier century...reminding myself that the change of the pace of technology does not change the nature of time itself...I get rude wake up calls every now and then with this mind set and have to get back running with the frantic herd to remain in the world. But if I pace myself all is just good. But I have decided I can only do the first episode off my own bat...and at this pace, otherwise, I will be drawing it for the rest of my days on a gradual "dip in dip out" basis. 
When I create the pages, I wouldn't use the word escape...I find it a place for reflection and contemplation. It is a getting lost in myself, and I regard this as a communion, a safe haven. Then there are the other ideas I am developing. Feb/March are a dipping in and out of this process and I have eight/ten pages left of the first episode or chapter and then probably a lot more else to do than I can foresee right now.

Laydeez do Comics was set up by Nicola Streeten and Sarah Lightman, they meet the last Monday of every month at The Rag Factory on Brick Lane. This month, I popped along and karrie Fransman gave a talk, we also all discussed Craig Thompson's 'Blankets'. I met both Sarah and Nicola a couple of times at various Comica (I.C.A.) events and lectures a year or so before, during my early research into graphic novels. Back in the summer 2009 when my M.A. show was happening, I invited the Laydeez and they came along to see my work and that of the other years graduates.