I just loved this pose!

And you’ll also see I wrote “Lemon Finch” in the top up there because my brain’s memory exceeded capacity and I mooshed together her actual name, “Finch Linden”, with the fact that she posts lots of photos of her little potted lemon tree, and convinced myself she is named “Lemon Finch”. Ta-daaaah.

Top and bottom are drawn from photos, the middle guy is straight from my imagination.

That’s right, no penciling first. Just straight ink. Eeek!

1 minute long gesture drawings.

5 Minutes

One of the problems I ran into with the longer poses is that I would finish my drawing WELL before it was time to change to the next pose. Normally that isn’t the case, because when I’m using pencil or even a Bic pen, I can keep noodling away and adding more details and strengthen the shadows. But with stark BLACK and WHITE there’s not much room for tweaking! So ultimately I would draw the same pose three or four times in about 5-10 minute bursts each during the 15-30 minute poses.

3 minutes

About 10 minutes?

About 5 minutes?

About 10 minutes?

About 10 minutes?

This was quite a challenge for me!

Next time I’ll try to push blocking in even more stronger shadows, though as someone who sticks pretty strictly to linear drawing it makes me nervous (That is, it’s easy for me to see things in clean outlines, as opposed to looking at things as objects with depth built up by light and shadow creating volume).

But that’s the whole point of forcing myself to work strictly in black and white, to re-train my eyes to pick up the volume of my subjects and not just their outlines.

In Paris, Matt and I stayed at the Vintage Hostel, which, despite its name, was actually pretty modern.

Matt reclines on the bed. We decided to splurge and get the tiniest private room, which felt pretty fancy-pantsy.

Oh my gosh, Lauren Davis wrote this really, really kind article on my various sex-related comics!

Hot damn, I’m so fucking flattered I don’t even know what to do with myself!

It makes my heart so, so happy when somebody completely “gets” what my comics are supposed to be about, what I’m trying to say with them. A hundred different people will take away a hundred different messages from my work, and I can’t fault them when they project a completely unintended message onto it (we’re all entitled to interpret art and stories however we see fit!), but when I do encounter the people who are completely on the same page as me and 100% take away the message I was HOPING would come across… well. It feels pretty good.

While we were walking through the lobby I was overwhelmed with emotion when I spotted the same place I had been standing when Matt found me through the crowd all those years ago. For a moment I relived all those intense feelings of worrying that I was making a huge mistake (Committing to traveling for a month together with a guy I barely knew?? AND I was still sick with heartache for my ex! What was I thinking!?) and then feeling all of those concerns completely melt away as we made eye contact through the crowd and had that first hug and kiss that inaugurated one of the most amazing adventures of my life. (Haha, I should have taken a photo of that spot, sorry!)

First things first, once we found our hostel (more on that in my next entry!) I changed into some cuter clothes than my standard travel uniform of jeans, tank top and sneakers. Man, I dunno what it is about traveling, but even just a couple hours on the train kicks my sweat glands into overdrive and I come out smelling like a gym locker– even with pre-emptive deodorant shlacked into my armpits! (Sorry ladies, I’m taken.) But it’s nothing that a quick shower and clothing change can’t cure.

Second things second, Matt and I headed out to the nearest grocery store to stock up on the essentials. Specifically, tea.

Finally it was time to meet up for the first time with my long time Flickr pal, Mr. Pan!

He led us across the city to his favorite book store, we had a drink in a cafe, and then he helped us find the right bus back to our hostel.

Dang, our first day in Paris was pretty full.

5 Minutes

5 Minutes

5 Minutes (This was one of my favorite drawings from that night)

15 Minutes

(Click to Enlarge) 25 Minutes (This was my other favorite drawing of the night)

25 Minutes

My January goal of going life drawing once a week for one month was mostly a success! In four weeks I got in three sessions, which is as close as I’ve ever gotten to finishing one of my monthly drawing challenges. Working that into my schedule in the first place has inspired me to keep it up throughout the year, so hopefully I’ll still be getting in more than one session a month for the rest of the year.

Using strong blacks in my inking is something that really intimidates me and is something for which I don’t feel I have a particularly strong eye, so lately I’ve been forcing myself to focus on using large swatches of black and building texture with them. The results are generally pretty mixed, but I feel like I’m learning.

Julie’s collection of outfit photos have been one of my go-to resources for clothing ideas, both to draw and to emulate in real life– just in case you need some inspiration, yourself!

EDIT: I feel like such a jerk, I didn’t realize Julie has her own blog, Rotten Cupcakes! She posts lots of delicious snippets from her creative life as a designer, so check it out if you like color coordination, typography and crafting!

For the moment I have to keep it under my hat, but when Emerald City Comicon finally rolls around March 30th in Seattle, I’ll finally be able to spill all the beans about the upcoming Bucko book. Until then, just trust me, Parker and I have got reason to be excited!

If you never got around to getting started, now is the perfect time to sit down and read Bucko all the way through.

Haha, hey, wouldja lookit that! My awesome friend Trixie Biltmore and I made the cut in this video endorsing the Portland Opera‘s performance of Madame Butterfly!

Although I notice they did not include the part where I call Lieutenant Pinkerton “a dick”. Haha, maybe next time!

(You may recall I’ve worked with the Portland Opera several times last year for their Cartoonists at the Opera nights, although this time I was purely a spectator. Oh, the glamorous doors that will open to you when you’re a cartoonist!)