I’m writing this just at the tail end of a pretty bad bout of flu. I stopped work for over a week and I’m still feeling a little groggy and whacked out. It all arrived at a really annoying time. I had been in such a good creative place - getting my teeth into some writing and finally fleshing out a comic I’d been stopping and starting for the past few months. As soon as I got ill I started hating it all and that’s when I knew I needed to step away and take some time out. During the May bank holiday weekend I took it easy and walked through the fields to a local beach timing it with the tide to clamber back over the rocks on the shoreline. Nature is the best reset!
One of my favourite commissions from last month was for the Poetry Foundation. The article was about how British poetry anthologies have shaped national identity and preserved some poems better left forgotten. I particularly enjoyed sketching out Christina Rossetti - as a kid I loved leafing through my Dad’s book on Dante Gabriel Rossetti and was pretty enamoured with his drawings of Christina - particularly how pouty her lips looked!
I regularly change painting/drawing materials depending on the project and I find that this keeps my work fresh and also stops me from getting too bored or complacent.Sometimes I’ll do a flurry of watercolour paintings and then shift to focusing on more simple ink and line work.
I’ve really enjoyed drawing on the iPad over the past few days. My best work is made at the dining room table - usually in the evening or weekend when I’m relaxed.
This started out as a sketch….
Then I developed it into a drawing on my ipad … I managed to adapt one of the Procreate brushes to vaguely mimic my favourite Muji pen. I would love to turn this into a comic… I’m seeing Victorian-era female repression with a dash of science fiction and some William Blake-esque imagery thrown in.
I was pretty happy with this so I darted back to the comic I’d originally been planning and tried out this slightly unnerving owl sequence - barn owls are so beautiful but also very uncanny looking with their big flat white faces.
I’m fascinated about the writing process of comics and how artists/writers approach them - what comes first - words or image? Writing a script doesn’t come naturally to me - I’ve always started with a drawing or a painting but then I meander and go a bit off course trying to figure out what the hell is going on and how it’s all going to come together in the end. I would love to have some kind of organised plan but I don’t think creativity can necessarily be that controlled all the time. I think I’m learning that each story dictates its own process and arrives in very different ways. Be it slowly pieced together over months or quickly jotted down in the Notes app over an afternoon. It’s all a mystery and perhaps I need to embrace that!
When I approached comics in the past I completely avoided writing. This was partly due to a lack of confidence - an imposter syndrome - telling myself I just worked with images as this is what I was good at. Recently I’ve felt that my drawings were becoming a bit trapped in a silent, slightly stilted world which made me feel increasingly distant from the work. I realised that the work might need some text to help propel the narrative forwards. When word and image work together seamlessly it’s a beautiful marriage - a magic bubbling away below the surface of the page. I personally find comics more immersive when they combine the two.
I’ve popped some recommendations that I’ve gobbled up over the past month on the craft of writing/storytelling:
Show Don’t Tell by Sandra Gerth - A simple and easy guide to writing vivid descriptions, backstory and character emotions. Very helpful if you are starting to dip your toe into writing like me.
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud - I’ve slowly made my way through this a few times and found it invaluable- an enthusiastic and detailed guide to learning the language of comics.
The Emotion Thesaurus - so handy for characterisation - not just for writing - it’s great for visualising body language and emotional responses.
In Writing with Hattie Crisell - This is such a great episode with Tor Freeman - you should also check out her Substack where she regularly posts hilarious and witty comics.
I also enjoyed the episode with the novelist Sophie Makintosh - I love how she creates her own ‘film soundtracks’ to help set the mood while she writes.
I might start posting more regularly than once a month on here - I’m thinking more sketchbook dumps and less completed/finished work.
Till next time,
Ellie
Hope that you continue to feel better and better!
I love being able to see the comic work that you've been working on, the Victorian/sci-fi/William Blake idea sounds so good!! And I'm excited to go through your writing/storytelling recs, thanks for sharing.