Valentine's Card

Did you know that Nomi Kane, Jen Vaughn and I mailed out 203 Valentine's cards this year?

 

Well really, they did most of the work. I drew my part of the card and then helped fold for like an hour, then it turns out I'd folded all of mine wrong Nomi had to redo them. Then I went to Texas and left the ladies to finish up all the work. Don't know why they put up with me.

 

Here's a video Jen made of putting the final card together.

Isn't that neat? Use it as a cat toy! Hang it from your review mirror! Decorate your Valentine's Day tree (that's a thing, right?)!

Did you get a card? If not, send me an email [colleenfrakes at gmail dot com] and I'll add you to future mailing lists. Getting real mail is much more fun than emails.

On an unrelated note, there's a new painting up in the Etsy shop. It's a bit more than I usually like to charge (I'm an advocate of cheap art) but it's also larger and more detailed than the usual sketches I post there. Also, I need money to go to CAKE.

Cartoonists at the Theater 4- The Buried Child

The Buried Child. Directed by Prof. Rosa Joshi, the play features students Samuel Asher ('15), Meme Garcia-Cosgrove ('14) Jacob Swanson ('15) Matthew Weingarten ('14), Lucas Kiehn-Thillman ('14), Emma Bjornson ('16), and Marshall Lewis ('14).

Hey! I got to see a play on Tuesday and do a bit of sketching in the dark. The performances were all great and everything was very professionally done. What I've been struggling with since seeing it is the tone of the play. The title (Hey, dead baby! Not a spoiler if it's in the title!), the music, the set, everything suggested to me that this was supposed to be a backwoods horror play. And in a lot of ways it fits the genre- isolated rural family, unexpected city visitors, suggestions of inbreeding. The whole thing felt very creepy, I kept expecting a hand or something to pop up from beneath the floorboards.

But from what I've heard and read since the performance, the play isn't supposed to be frightening but sad, about the death of the American family/American dream. I guess those things are scary, too.

 

"Tilden was right about the corn you know. I’ve never seen such corn."

"Open up wider."

"His face became his father’s face. Same bones. Same eyes. Same nose. Same breath. And his father’s face changed to his grandfather’s face."

"You sit here all day and night, festering away! Decomposing! Smelling up the house with your putrid body! Hacking your head off ‘til all hours of the morning! Thinking up mean, evil, stupid things to say about your own flesh and blood!"

"There’s nothing to be afraid of. These are all good people. All righteous souls."

The Buried Child runs from February 21 – March 3 at the Lee Center for the Arts. Tickets are $6 for students, $8 for SU faculty and staff, and $10 general admission. Go check it out!



Hourly Comics 2013

Friday was hourly comics day. I spent most of it being tired and grumpy, since I'd stayed out too late every other night that week. But I decided to inflict a comic on you anyway.

Yup.

Wednesday sketch

"Cheerleading Tryouts"

 

Sometimes I draw a thing, and it turns out to be completely wrong for it's intended purpose.

Advice from the Pros

 

Yesterday (and bleeding over into today) the internet exploded with reactions to some professional advice offered on the First Second blog. I agreed with Callista's post. I also agreed with everyone's reactions/advice against it.

Thought today I'd offer a sampling of some of the advice/criticism I've gotten from pros over the years, good and bad. All of it's paraphrased (though I have an annoying talent for recalling conversations), and I've given credit when I could remember who said it (I have an annoying habit of forgetting names). Corrections welcome.

I can't not write. If you don't have to, then please don't, because I don't need the competition- Bill Ransom (a lot of people have said something similar to this, but he was the first I heard it from)

Your art is either too cartoony or too realistic. Pick one-James Sturm

I like the art, but the story is too thin-an editor

I like the story, but the art is too spare-a different editor, on the same book

Use the colors as they come out of the box. Stick to bright tones, don't mix your own colors- Color designer Jenny Hansen

Try to use subtle pastels as much as possible. Gray is a great color- Bill Griffiths

Colors looks best when you muddy them up a bit- Seth

Use the colors as they come out of the box. Stick to bright tones, don't mix your own colors- Color designer Jenny Hansen

You should always dress for work. We are professionals. -Seth

The best thing about being a cartoonist is you can wear pajamas to work- Everyone else

AND SO ON. Guess my point is, almost everything I've been told at one point in my career has been contradicted someone else further down the line. And they're both right! They're just telling you what has worked for them. So, do whatever makes you happy.

Drawing Prince as a superhero makes me happy.

Sketchbook Wednesday

I mean to update this thing every Friday. Not sure how it got to be Wednesday. Might need to invest in a calendar. Also feel like I don't write enough on this blog, just throw up a bunch of drawings and run away. So here's some random information along with random sketches.



Yesterday I was sick and walking home in the rain, and I thought about quitting comics, like you do. Then this morning I got a nice email from a cartoonist I admire, and a couple of shout-outs, and I'm over it. It's easy to feel like you're working in a void. And very easy to be pulled out of it.



Like all my artist friends, I was gifted at least three sketchbooks this holiday season- this is not a complaint, they will all go to good use. One was "642 Things to Draw". While the paper stock is crap, it's nice to have a prompt on those days where I Just Don't Want To Draw Anything.



Hey! Rob Clough was nice enough to review "Here at the End of All Things", written by Sean T. Collins and drawn by me, and also covers minis by a couple of CCS friends in the same post.



Washaway is still updating every Monday and Friday over at the website. Seems appropriate, as it is razor clam season.

 

Is it still a sketch if you use a needle and thread? Embroidery also helps on the days when I Just Don't Want to Draw Anything, at least it's still Making Something. There's been too many of these days, lately. Could blame seasonal depression, but in Seattle that's a year-round excuse. Until next week.

Might even be on time!

Blowing Up The Internet With a Sketch Bomb

Hey! I've had a lot of free time over the holidays, so here's a bunch of random watercolor sketches-

BOOM!