Last week Dave and I flew to Hawaii to visit the newest and currently smallest member of the family and to just spend time together visiting family. I didn’t really share much about the trip or even that we were going because I felt guilt for taking time off. About halfway through our trip I realized how much I needed it and re-remembered (I often use re- just cause it makes me think of the cyclical nature of forgetting and remembering again and again) I shouldn’t feel any guilt at all. I spent my time resting and laughing and reminding myself that I get to work hard but none of that means anything if I don’t also get to be human and take breaks.
Now that I am back home, it is truly a shock how quickly the work builds up but I have been trying to hold onto the lesson of our vacation and take breaks to be human more often. Perhaps the goal is to be human always even in the work. Part of this shift prompted me to change my walking routine. The last three years I have been the am walk team leader, which I took up in the pandemic as a way to spice things up for myself and have recently been feeling like I wanted a change. So Dave and I swapped and I am now doing my walks in the afternoon/evening which feels really awesome. I get to walk in the sun (I wear a hat and sunscreen) and it feels like the best break in my work. I have been looking forward to it each day and I can’t believe how easy it was to make that shift.
I have two rather large client projects (for me) that I am currently working on that I can’t share much of which feels hard. I usually share a lot of progress and process with client work but the contracts for these prohibit me from sharing. It makes me feel oddly trapped and also weirdly unproductive- because I can’t share it? I don’t like how that makes me feel or and then I judge myself for having those feelings which isn’t fair. I love sharing process and also documenting my growth in my work. Once these two projects are out in the world I think I can share more- so I am documenting a lot now with the hopes of getting to share later.
I think those feelings of being trapped in the not sharing make it hard for me to share here cause I begin asking myself if I even have things to share if I can’t share those projects which are taking up so much space in my brain. So I thought I would share some things from my graphic novel/zine, ‘Earthling’. I have gone back and forth on if this should be a written novel, a series of short stories or a graphic novel and I think I have decided it can be all three. So I have been writing a bunch but I think I will try making it a short zine/graphic story first just to see what happens. I am putting the first storyboard I made below, which has changed a lot since, and after doing them in pencil on paper (using the children’s book template that Rebecca Green made as a starting point). I have moved into doing them digitally because it feels easier to move everything around.
I don’t know why but sharing this feels really vulnerable. I think because I am less sure about what it will be and I care about it a lot. This feels like something really special that I don’t want to abandon but I also feel scared to look at directly sometimes. Doing all the writing has helped me to center myself in what the story is, and know a bit more about how I want it to feel. And now that I am slowly painting panels from it I can feel it even more. The image on the left I used watercolor and gouache and it is more how I want it to feel, soft, and textured. The image on the right is with acrylic gouache and it feels a little too bright and sharp so I will likely redo it but both are using the colors I am hoping to focus on.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy that, I will share more of the writing/character development in the next post for paid subscribers. This is a side project that is just for me currently, but feels urgent and exciting- like I don’t want to lose it. I appreciate you being here and taking the time to listen to my ramblings. As always.
Some of my current favorite things:
reading ‘Ninth House’ by Leigh Bardugo
eating spam musubi (been making my own but its never as good as gas station musubi in hawaii)
ocean night swims and seeing the stars
drawing with a 2B pencil
leaving my phone behind so I can be in the moment more
This opinion piece in the New York Times about bodies and aging and the beauty of the women’s locker room
Watched The Banshees of Inisherin on the plane and cant stop thinking about it
I revisited one of my favorite movies Melancholia staring Kristen Dunst and always loved the overt parallels to Ophelia and art so did a little looking and reading-
This piece on Ophelia by John Everett Millais
This excerpt on Melancholia the print by Albrect Durer
Excited about your graphic novel / zine! Cool to see your process. And glad to hear you were able to take some time off ❤️
I love hearing about a personal project and definitely look forward to seeing how this graphic novel progresses. And that Bonnie Tsui essay is so wonderful.