Sketch of a Sketch-note

I got distracted by a bunch of things so I didn't post this right after the Graphic Medicine Conference this weekend - as I had planned.

I was photographed while sketching David Macaulay's Keynote Presentation on Saturday at Dartmouth - and thought you might like to see a little of the progression:

Since I had a lot of lectures to sketch-note and little time between, I composed a template ahead of time with very pale gray lines to help keep me organized. I also made a page for each lecture with the title, the presenter, and any subtitle, also in pale gray - so I wouldn't mess up the spelling. I inked over the pale letters just before each lecture:

I like to draw a quick cartoon of the presenter and put any really good quotes in speech balloons. I don't draw them ahead of time as they tend to look really different in person than in their promo photos!

It's really intense! You have to pay very close attention to what is being said and interpret it quickly. No time to doze off or let your mind wander.

I like to use a black Flair pen and a colored Flair pen as well as a cool Japanese brush pen that has black on one end and gray on the other. I work on a magnetic portfolio/clipboard... usually on my lap!

One of the most difficult things is planning! Some presenters cram so much material in - it barely fits and you have to leave stuff out when you run out of space. If someone doesn't fill the page, that's easier - I just add some more graphic elements to fill the voids.

Then I add the grays for shading and contrast. It also helps divide up the space and the information and make it easier to read. Borders hold it all in!

Since he is one of my heroes, I also wanted to show you some of David Macaulay's work in case you aren't familiar with it. I think he is best known for these two books:

And they were the focus of the Graphic Medicine talk.

He's a genius at showing how architecture works too - Cathedral and Underground are classics...

And he has lots of picture books too.

My absolute favorites are Motel of the Mysteries (Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb parody!) and BAAA (people are sheep... but what if sheep were...people? Spoiler, it turns out badly). 
My copies are so old the glue has let go and the pages are falling out!

I got mine signed back in 1991! 

I was a student at RISD and David Macaulay took over as the Head of the Illustration Department.

I had already been at two colleges and hadn't been able to convince any schools to transfer my credits. I was beyond discouraged and tired of being in school (5 years at three colleges!) David took a look at my transcripts and said "Want to graduate with the Seniors this Spring?"
"I love you Mr. Macaulay."

It took me 25 years to go back to school (for my Masters) and finally do school properly. And I ran into David at the Center for Cartoon Studies a few years ago.

I've always been grateful to David Macaulay for releasing me from the academic world and for showing me how warped and ingenious kids' books could be! 

Berlin-ish...

Back in October, I was contacted by one of my teachers, Luke Howard, at the Center for Cartoon Studies to see if I'd like to participate in The Secret Berlin Project. He wanted to celebrate the completion of Jason Lutes' epic comic, Berlin, which had taken 20 years to complete! Jason was another of my teachers at cartoon school and a fellow classmate (many, many, MANY years ago!) at Rhode Island School of Design.

I was honored and excited to be a part of this Secret Undertaking as Jason had been the teacher who had influenced me the most. He put so much extra attention into his class presentations and pushed us students to dig deep. He took time to meet with me and argue about school, family, publishers, or whatever I was obsessing over at the time. And, most importantly, he helped me cut and assemble the boxes that held my Thesis comics (Begin Again). ;-D

Major admiration aside, this project was really HARD!!

We were each assigned one random page from the first 6 issues of the comic. Our task was to recreate the page (not changing the text or intention)... in our own STYLE! Yowza! It's not easy to "redraw" the work of a master!

I agonized over it for a few days until my daughter, in her typical "mini-art-director" fashion, started to comment on what she thought were mistakes and bad design. "But what does that MEAN?!" and "the weird guy is just talking, he's not doing anything," and "it's the same picture of a weird guy from different directions..."

Here's the original page that I was assigned:

(comic art by Jason Lutes)

Huh. Yes, she was kind of on to something... What would Jason do? and more importantly, if I was to interpret the page in MY style, What would I do?

As we analyzed the page, I jokingly said, "that weird looking guy looks like my bride-of-Frankenstein Lilah Bean! But with five o'clock shadow and a cigarette!!"

my bride-of-Frankenstein Lilah Bean, with bat wings

And then we KNEW that we had a plan! Lilah (my mini-art-director and layout artist) sketched out the panels with her vision and interpretation of what the typed text really meant. I had the idea for the final panel, with the newspaper-reading-Lilah-Bean-editor-guy sitting on the pile of stones. I contacted my son who speaks a gajillion languages, and he told me how to write "pile of stones" in German, for the paper's masthead. I did all the inking, coloring and lettering.

Well... it's definitely recreated in my style.

It was agony to wait to see everyone else's pages - and to keep it all secret! But the original artworks were collected from 159 artists and bound into huge volumes housed in a handmade wooden box - and presented last week (at the graduation dinner) to Jason. I think he was pleased...

from Center for Cartoon Studies, Instagram

The complete hardcover collection of Berlin comes out this fall, but you can still get the individual issues on Amazon (and other places), as well as Jason Lutes' other graphic novels.

It's a Sign!

I've been sick in bed for two weeks, but I did get one day off to bring some more Stuff to the new Studio in Concord. And my door had a beautiful new sign!

Here's a closer view of it with the studio behind  it...

I was blown away by all the detail that Christa was able to put into it - each color is another layer of vinyl! This sign, and the previous Bumblebat sign, were both cut by Christa who runs The Place. The Place is now one of my neighbors since I am on the second floor at the Concord Community Arts Center!

When I'm feeling a bit better, I promise to plan an Open Studio so you can come see for yourself how COOL all these studios are!

Post-Party Check-in

So THAT worked! We had a great party...

Guests arrived and left in small groups all afternoon and evening so it never got overwhelming for me. I got to talk to almost everyone. It was unseasonably humid, but still a beautiful evening.

 My daughter, Lilah, made carrot cake cupcakes that were SOOO yummy!

Laurie and my new friend Jim organized the food and decorations. 

 

I got lots of lovely birthday gifts!

 

I was able to show off my comics and sketchbooks from Cartoon School.

 As the hour got later and we consumed more cupcakes - we got a little sillier!

Meanwhile, my chalkboard received lots of great new quotes!

And I added the ones sent in by email and in the blog comments.

 There is still some space left, so feel free to give me some more quotes!

And thank you to everyone who helped get me launched on this new adventure, it means so much to me to have your support and encouragement.

Summer Solstice Sip and Paint

We've been cleaning out my mom's house for weeks. This past weekend, my sister, Jen, and her husband came up to help clear out the barn. There were tons of paint cans that needed emptying, so Jen and Brian decided to dump them on sheets of cardboard on our old sandbox.

Then Brian brought out a few bottles of Prosecco and the "clean up" became an event!

And my sister became Jackson Pollock!

And my mom showed up as the paparazzi...

And a neighbor wandered over to see what the fuss was about...

It started to look really pretty! My sister, the photographer, was in heaven.

Even her feet looked artsy!

There was a lot of depth and texture to the paintings - some of that paint was really old and thick!

Really thick!

And they tried adding cat litter - but I think that was a mistake.

When my friend Debbee, the art teacher, showed up, she was sad to have missed the paint throwing portion of the party, but had the brilliant idea of pulling prints from the splatters.

It took a few days for most of the paint to dry. We ended up cutting up the giant, very heavy pieces of cardboard, so we could drag them to the dump. I think my lawn is destroyed.

Then this painted gnu wandered into the sandbox and it looks like he left his - very colorful - contributions to what we have been calling - "the world's largest litterbox".

It was a very original way to spend the Summer Solstice, don't you think? I will never look at "Sip and Paint" Parties the same way again!