Process, process, process. Here are two drafts of the same weirdness. Above you see my first draft. It’s how the original idea plopped out of my head and onto paper. Below, is a second draft in which I put more thought into the overall composition. I often end up liking my first drafts best just because they capture an unfiltered something.
My friend asked me to draw her Highland cow with lots of flowers and lots of pink. She prefers the bottom image and I prefer the top. There are about a thousand cow sketches in my notebook now.
I grew a lot of peppers in 2023. And I bought my first quality oil pastels. I drew these pepper piles in October 2023 when every vessel in my kitchen was overflowing with peppers. I drew the person first then got the idea for the mouse fending off an owl with fire breath. There’s a lot of learning going on here. I started both images using pencil then went over the pencil in black ink. The person on the peppers then went straight into oil pastels. The mouse I put in watercolor as a base. That’s how the stars and owl have their color. I love the saturation of the oil pastels, so I added pastel in on top of the peppers and the mouse. Without that deep red, the mouse’s peppers looked a lot like carrots. If I had this to do over again, I’d make a pepper pile of more quintessential peppers rather than a favorite variety of that I had on hand as a model. Oil pastels don’t allow for as much detail as ink pens. Because of the oil, I can’t go in over the pastels with pens. It’s always been my technique to finish the color with watercolors then go back over everything with black to make it pop. I ended up going over the pastels with India ink from a dipping type pen. The pastels made the ink look diffuse and fuzzy in spots. I have since found some success using colored pencils over the pastels to define edges. It’s been good for me to expand beyond my usual style and techniques.
Okay, lots of content on this page is much more recent than this, but this group of cartoons is meaningful to me.
When we went into lockdown, I was housesitting to avoid paying rent after a life-sorting-out-type road trip after a life-rearranging-type long-term illness in the family. As I clutched at plans to move back to Montana to work on bird surveys for the summer, my carefully orchestrated springtime schedule of housesits that I’d ride into that summer eroded away under waves of last-minute cancelations. I lost hold of my Montana plans, and they too slipped away. My backup plan to teach outdoor ed courses in Madison, Wisconsin, where I currently live— it also fell flat, and crumbled.
Rather than call friends to solidify plans to go backpacking for my fortieth birthday, I was calling them to lament that I was unemployed, homeless, and had to move back in with my mom.
One day around when John Prine died, I was sulking around extra, and my mom suggested maybe I have PMS. Hmm.
After more calls to friends, this time to report and discuss my diagnosis, I spent hour upon hour holed up in my temporary bedroom working on these cartoons. Making these and many more cartoons, drawings, and paintings gave me a salve for the wounds caused by loss and that festering soul-sore, anxiety.
I’m grateful to my mom for putting up with me for those long weeks she endured my relentless PMS. I’m grateful I eventually found a sweet little spot to call my own. I’m grateful I found a way to still choose how to be when it felt like all our choices had been taken away.
I have a tradition of making Valentine cartoons. This year I took that tradition a different direction and made greeting cards. Might as well capitalize on the holiday and make it my own.
This is the fifth year in a row in which I’ve made a Cupid cartoon for Valentine’s Day. I just find Cupid hilarious. Lately I’ve been playing around with the idea of extra terrestrials making the decision to reject humanity in whatever way. Here Cupid and ETs collide.
People’s proclivity to treat our opinions as absolute truth rubs me wrong. As a frequent guest of online dating apps, I often see men proclaim that if their possible suitor doesn’t live up to some arbitrary standard, then he’ll, “pass.” We’re all entitled to our preferences, but what bothers me is the man’s certainty in his rightness— of his knowing what has value. Here, the ETs are similarly determining humanity’s worth from afar. I love how uncomfortable with it the guy at the wheel looks.
This is the first thing I ever made in Adobe Suite that I then went on to print and share. I sent it to friends and family as a holiday greeting card. Long ago, I worked a winter and spring in the Yukon Territory, and I got to witness the many snowshoe hairs transition out of their white coats and back to brown. I think about those hares through the changing seasons as the changes grow more chaotic. I made this near the peak of the first wave of the pandemic, when most everything was scary and anxiety producing. It basically says, may you find some relief and shelter. And yes, I managed to impart this message through a climate change-themed greeting card. What can I say? It’s on my mind.
I’m surprised I didn’t see this idea crop up more widely in 2021. Valentine’s Day rolled in just as we were all buzzing with excitement over the coming vaccine.
Here’s an oldie but a goodie. I drew and painted this scene in 2019 when I worked at a bakery. My job was to decorate cupcakes, pastries, and cookies. Valentine’s Day was the bakery’s biggest day of the year. I ate a lot of frosting and cores from cupcakes. (We’d poke out cores to make room for filling.) When I was later learning the basics of Adobe Illustrator, I plugged this image in and messed around with different color fill options. The original image is in watercolor, but I like these more bold, solid colors in this version.
My friends recently got kittens. Can you tell?
I laugh every time.
I know, I know, the cartoons that work best usually have the least text. But, I was just so full of jokes! There was so much uncertainty. Vaccines were such a mammoth endeavor. The heavy text is basically a look into my head at the time.
Maybe a cat-themed seasonal card collection is in order?
My nephew, Henry, is a super sweet guy who struggles with a rare condition that compromises his immune system in a big way. He requires regular medical attention that’s no fun for a 9-year-old (or anybody). When he was recently hospitalized for a few days, I made him this creepy hug monster complete with a long descriptions of all the monster’s best qualities. Top on the list: soft fur, ears that wrap around you, and a squishy belly. The hug monster caters to Henry’s great sense of humor coupled with his big heart and I like the paint job.