The online home of Adventure Cartoonist Lucy Bellwood
To further combat the dreaded ARTRUT, I returned to figure drawing this week! Had a blast and got some good sketches done to boot. I’ll definitely be making this a weekly thing.
Julie was an amazing model. I had so much fun drawing her. Also tackled some watercolor and ink for the longer poses.
That’s all the art for now!
Today I got stuck in a big, fat
You can’t see that letter. It’s an R. For ART RUT.
Y’know, those days when you feel like you’ll never draw well ever again, all your ideas are crap, life is pointless, etc etc.
BOOOOOORING.
So I spent all of the Sip and Sketch this afternoon busting through it with a variety of sketches and whiny journal comics. Good for what ails you!
First up, we had this furry guy.
Then this angry-lookin’ lady with a very orange collar.
And, finally, some quick ‘n dirty journal comics to prove that by golly I can draw things in a narrative fashion if I damn well please.
NOW ONWARD TO GLORY.
Heads up, Portland friends! I’ll be tabling at the Portland Zine Symposium’s AmaZine Fest THIS SATURDAY (June 23rd) at the IPRC (1001 SE Division). The general idea for the event is a Farmer’s Market for zinesters, so come on down pick up a fine selection of fresh-pressed comics and zines. I’ll have Baggywrinkles 1 & 2 on hand.
What else is new in Lucyland? Well, after selling out of all my backstock at VanCAF, I’ve been facing a reprint avalanche of older titles on top of the new True Believer run. In the last three weeks I’ve printed, hand-punched, and sewn 500 copies of Baggywrinkles, cleaned up, laid out, and printed the first edition of Wherefore, and spent hours figuring out how best to prepare True Believer for the offset printing process.
I’m also gearing up to do a new run of Tales from the Fragment, which is the most labor-intensive comic I’ve made to date. Each copy needs to be scored in 13 places, cut out by hand, and folded into its final form. What was I thinking when I made this thing?!
More progress by the numbers…
I’ve painted a boat a day for over a week (here’s a sampler)…
Sketched in 45 special edition comics (more samples)…
Pinned 150 buttons to bits of card stock…
Printed and packaged 9 oversized prints and three original pages…
AND cooked one backer dinner.
Remember, kids: real cartoonists eat vegetables for breakfast.
To wrap up, I’m currently in conversation with Portland’s own Modified Printing about the run of FIGHT FOR YOUR ART t-shirts, which is getting exciting, and I’m finally moving ahead with quotes from various offset printers for True Believer.
PHEW.
Of course, to top it off I got mega sick this week, so bear with me while I try to stop looking like this:
And on that cheery note, I’ll see you all next week! Stay heathy, comics lovers.
Slogging ever onward through the deluge of orders. Custom prints wrapped up today, limited posters signed and numbered, offset print run in the works…it never ends! Just put in orders for t-shirts this morning as well, so if you’re excited to get some True Believer swag you’re in for a treat. To keep the blog active in the meantime, here’s the latest commission I churned out for a backer who happens to be both a doctor and violinist! What strange and wonderful times we live in.
In the midst of a glut of commissions today, someone pledged for a tall ship sketch, but requested the Millennium Falcon. Gotta make compromises, people.
Busy times, everyone! I’ve got a recap of the last couple weeks (including the awesomeness that was VanCAF) up over on the Kickstarter blog, and since I’ll be bum deep in fulfilling rewards for the next lifetime I’m going to let that speak for itself for now.
In the meantime I’ve been buzzing around Portland getting my draw on — most recently with the excellent folks at Live Wire! Radio, who were kind enough to invite me over to live sketch one of their shows. For those of you unfamiliar with Live Wire!, they make audio-based delights to enrich the mind and tickle the fancy of any discerning radio listener. I strongly suggest you check them out. This particular taping featured rock star guests like Lizz Winstead, Ted Rall, Daniel H. Wilson, Mike Russell, Star Anna, and Kasey Anderson, as well as Faces For Radio Theater, the house team of actors and entertainers responsible for keeping things real on stage. And here, in all their messy glory from my much-the-worse-for-wear sketchbook, they are!
Sadly, this was the last show of the season, but I’m looking forward to more of these in September. Keep an eye out!
I’ll leave you all with a couple Vancouver-themed pages from my sketchbook…
Until next time!