Author: Lucy Bellwood

Art

Secrets Revealed

So, apropos of my previous post, here’s the skinny on what I’ve been working on for the past week.

All students at Reed need to complete a Junior qualifying exam (commonly known as a “qual”) to prove that they’ve got the chops to complete a Senior thesis and haven’t just been, well, dicking about for the last three years. For Art majors, this means a 10 day process involving the creation of 10 preliminary studies, one finished piece, two papers discussing one’s artistic practice and previous works, a showing of the qual work and previous pieces, and a 45 minute oral examination. It’s hefty, but also a whole lot of fun. We’re given an essay to respond to at the start of the week, which can (loosely or otherwise) inform the final piece. Susan Stewart’s On the Art of the Future proved dense and somewhat infuriating in its unnecessary intellectualism, but was ultimately fruitful and thought provoking (and surprisingly relevant to comics).

Anyway, no time to discuss that here. ON WITH THE PRETTY PICTURES!

[slideshow]

(Things the photos don’t quite do justice to: the incredible, deep sea sheen of the book cloth, the veins of shimmery gold in the marbled paper, and the delicious, physical sensation of playing with this thing. Bookmaking is so satisfying to me because you get to handle and interact with the product in a way that’s totally different from our standard approach to artworks. Mm, tactility.)

The OTHER exciting news is that I was recently selected as a recipient of the Kaspar T. Locher Summer Creative Scholarship, a $1750 prize designed to fund independent art/dance/music/theater/writing projects over the summer. I’ll be using the money to back a longer comic (tentatively titled “Wherefore”) based around my youthful days and the strange sense of misplaced identity that comes from being raised between cultures and continents. Terrifying, but thrilling. There will, of course, be copious documentation for you all to enjoy throughout the process SO HOORAY FOR THAT.

(Part two of this post appears separately because WordPress image display options are icky.)

Art, Main

Wherefore

Ladies and gents, though I am sick as a very sick dog, I have spent the majority of my Spring Break slaving away in order to bring you new visual goodies. AND HERE THEY ARE. Well, in part. A couple larger illustrations from my final project for the IPRC program. The story, which I’m trying to get a grant to finish over the summer, deals with belonging and language through the lens of dual citizenship. Keep an eye out for more of these as the week goes on.

OH, THE MELODRAMA!

Art, Main

Revolution (NSFW)

To tide everyone over while I scramble around for documentation of other recent projects, here’s a quick one page comic for a zine the IPRC class is putting together. The theme was “revolutions.” Churned this out in a couple hours with no reference, so on the one hand I’m proud of the bits where all the figure drawing I’ve been doing pays off, but on the other there are some heinous liberties being taken with space and anatomy. Ew.

But hey, boobs!

Unless you get too dizzy and start vomiting. Then, I am given to understand, it feels bad.

Art, Main

CCS Awareness Week

Those of you who have been following this blog since its inception will probably remember a very enthused post I wrote back in August extolling the virtues of the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. Well, it turns out that this week there’s a push on the raise awareness about the programs they offer and the extraordinary caliber of the people involved. Fortunately, this is something I hardly need an excuse to do. As is often the case with small programs (even ones as miraculous and epic as CCS), drumming up a diverse and talented pool of applicants is often as difficult as raising funds to keep the school afloat in the first place — and arguably more important.

My experience at CCS was incredible not only because of the excellent instruction I received, but also because I was surrounded (for the first time in my life!) by 36 other people who all loved comics. And not only did they love them, they made them. And they all meant business. That experience alone, the process of being inspired by work so different from my own, the camaraderie of powering through page after page together in the studio late into the night, was worth more than I can say. The best professors in the world are only as good as the students they teach. A class who will dedicate themselves to the material at hand while pushing each other to new heights of creativity and exploration is crucial to the continued existence of any institution — and CCS is no exception.

So this is for all those aspiring cartoonists and makers of things who spend their time creating while thinking that what they really need is a group of people to bounce ideas off of, be challenged and inspired by, and stay up all night kicking ass with. Go here. You won’t be disappointed.

Makin' Comics

Art

GUYS!

GUYS. guys.

Okay, I know I’ve been AWOL for a while, but HERE, live and direct from my delirious haven’t-slept-in-way-too-long crazybrain state, is some STUFF. Nothing to do with comics, but that’s coming soon too. Also: printmaking and…sleeping? At some point. I’m sure.

SO. I’ve been working on this triptych for about 8 hours solid now and I’m immensely happy with the way it’s going — though that may be the delirium and caffeine talking. I’ll post pictures of it properly trimmed and mounted after the critique on Tuesday, but for now:

Fuck yeah.

Comics

Hourly Comic Day 2011 (AND OTHER MEASUREMENTS AS WELL)

Hey world! This post is chock full of news. CHOCK FULL. STAND BACK.

First: did some hourly comics for Hourly Comics Day this year. First time trying this, made my inner critic scream with rage, which probably means it’s the sort of thing I should do every day in order to get over myself. Also: cheated and stopped at 8, since the rest of the night was just dancing dancing dancing until midnight and beyond. Anyway: HERE. I MADE THESE FOR YOU.

Oh man. So that. ALSO: Our Monday night World Comics class at the IPRC has started a blog for your enjoyment [that is now defunct so I’ve removed the link]! We’ll be chronicling our adventures and projects there over the next couple months, so check it out. Good things to be had so far, and there will only be more in the weeks to come.

FINALLY: I forgot to mention this when it happened a couple weeks ago, but Baggywrinkles Issue 1 is now actually physically available in a real live comic shop! If you live in the Portland area and would like to get your hands on a copy sans shipping, head over to the totally awesome world of Guapo Comics! They have a few issues in stock, and will be getting the second volume as soon as I finish it. I am, as we speak, slowly working up the gumption to go around to some of the other rad establishments in our fine city, so hopefully that list will expand in the next couple weeks.

I think that’s it for now, but hoo boy. Stay tuned. Shit’s going to get crazy over the next few weeks.

Art

Got That Old Fashioned Monotype Blues

Just a quick doodle from printmaking class today, where we were working with monotype prints*. The last week or so has been killer for social dancing — live music, great venues, excellent partners, late nights. I can’t feel my legs right now, of course, but that’s a small price to pay.

*Basically, to clarify the process, y’roll ink all over some acetate, stick a piece of paper atop it, and draw. Ink is picked up on the facing side of the paper where the pen presses it down. The only tricky part is resisting the urge to steady the page with one’s hand, which results in hideous blotches. There’s always a certain amount of noise around the lines, which gives everything a more textured look. I’m on the fence about it as a whole, but I liked this one.

Art

Sunshine

A watercolor postcard I doodled many moons ago just resurfaced in my pile of outgoing mail. Thought I’d share for the sake of getting some color in here for a change — though my scanner doesn’t play nice with the vividness of the colors. I’d like to start doing these regularly, since I have a mess of blank watercolor postcards and a desire to revive and better my rusty-going-on-nonexistent skills. I’ll keep you posted.