Caterpillar Publishing

Tim drove us home from New York after his three week internship at First Second followed by his birthday celebration. After so much rain, the clouds were incredible. I did this quick sketch in the car– I miss drawing and intend to do a lot more of it this summer.

Jules Feiffer has offered to looked through some of my past work this week to see what I’ve been doing during my time at the Center for Cartoon studies along with some sketchbooks from RISD. He has responded best to the drawings and stories I love while instinctively critical and unimpressed with the work that I, too, am unhappy with, or fought my way to complete. He can see the inspiration—or the lack thereof—however much I try to hide it. I never knew it was so transparent to the outside world. So where can that come out next year? How? How do you bring yourself to be inspired? Show up, do the work, commit to putting in the hours as your desk. We’ll see what happens in the fall.

More sketches from Egypt! Our guides Moustafa and Amgad were simply fantastic. Here’s a glimpse of their classroom.

I’ve been thinking a lot about color lately. Every time the sun comes out and shines down on our little corner of New England, the snow melts just enough to slip into the street and reflect bright blue patches of sky among streaks of white salt on black asphalt. The warm yellows and cheery reds of brick buildings throw themselves at every window pane, and all of a sudden Main Street is alive and vibrant in spite of the season. I would rip off my coat and boots and dive into the color if only it weren’t so damn cold.

Last week Joe Quinones and Maris Wicks visited the Center for Cartoon Studies and gave a wonderful presentation of their work and current projects, and between their pages of comics and Alec Longstreth’s recent crash course in color theory, I am inspired to get back into figuring out what it is to use color well. This week while sitting in our local coffee shop I couldn’t help but notice a conversation in front of me, and, in my best SNEAK-ATTACK drawing style, Wacom tablet and computer already in front of me, I tried out a little color study:

And then right before I left I did another quick one, trying different colors:

And now I’m completely addicted. Expect to see more of these over the coming weeks.

A regular local. Iced coffee and a muffin for $4.04 every day.

Another round of Tucker Box color…

Last week we had the honor of meeting Art Spiegelman at The Center for Cartoon Studies! He happened to be in the area and offered to meet with students and hold an informal discussion about his work, his career, and his experience with comics publishing. He was funny and charming, and, to our amusement and awe, chain smoked through his entire lecture. I can’t even remember the last time I saw someone smoke indoors in a public space.

Sorry for the delay in posts this week, folks! Our apartment is too warm to use my computer, so I’ve been delinquent this week about checking email and updating my site. I’m busy working away on an independent picture book project, along with my graphic novel and another Caterpillar Tale in the concept stages. White River Junction is lazy in the summer heat, but as beautiful as ever. I hope to get to go swimming sometime this weekend. More soon!

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of research on books, book making, and life in Medieval Europe, so I dug out some old sketchbooks and drawings from my travels to reacquaint myself with what architecture looked like in the Middle Ages. I had forgotten how much I loved to draw buildings! Churches, houses, bridges, towers, pastures of sheep… I thought I’d share a few of them here to give a sense of the places I’ve sat and drawn. All of these were done in ink, pencil, and watercolor with limited use of gouache. The first is from a village on the outskirts of Amsterdam (not Medieval, but the sheep could be, right?) and the second and third are from Ghent and Bruges, respectively. More to come soon!

Last ones for now from my Europe 2005 sketchbooks: a couple of views from around Assisi. More things medieval coming soon…

Figure drawing, how I’ve missed you! Monday was the first of this semester’s life drawing sessions at The Center for Cartoon Studies, and this week’s models–Lin & Bill, a married couple– were fantastic as usual. They frequently pose together for art classes in the Upper Valley, and their rapport is a delight to draw. It is rare to have two models posing together in the first place, let alone interact, so a hearty THANK YOU goes out to them both. It’s been ages since I’ve done this, so it was a great way to warm up as I launch into projects that require drawing lots and lots of figures. I hope to have some samples up of my illustration process soon. Stay warm out there!