Month: August 2022

I realized that I wasn’t going to get any real work done until I uncluttered my studio.

Spent the past week sorting through everything (forgot to take a picture of the carnage) trying to consolidate and organize all of the artwork, sketches, prelims and tracing paper transfers that I had lying about and tucked away everywhere.

Thought some of it might be of interest to someone and make for good blog filler.

Stuff like this:

A large piece of tracing paper (the contrast on this has been greatly enhanced) image area about 15″ x 20″.

I drew the image in soft pencil on the back of the tracing paper, flipped it over onto the art board that had Dave’s drawing of Cerebus on it. Then went over the entire drawing from the front with a very sharp, hard lead pencil to transfer the graphite from the back onto the art board, giving me a faint rendering which would then need to be tightened up before inking.

So by the time I’d inked it, I’d now drawn it four times. Which is a ridiculously labour intensive way of doing things.

But, once coloured, yields results like this:

Which was used for a wrap-around cover for Following Cerebus #8:

The tracing paper was just a stepping-stone to get to finished product but looking at it now I can’t get over how much work was put into it…

… and it seems that I can’t bear to throw it away.

Thus the clutter.

Clint at Fiddler’s Green, for whom I’ve done some previous work, asked me to do a couple of small illustrations to accompany an essay on “The Imaginative Effects of Milton’s Mulberry” and Darwin’s ruminations while walking his country path.

Here’s what I came up with:

Is it too soon to go back to doing nothing now?

(Actually, I’m busy drawing. Maybe I’ll have something to show next week.)