Weekly Drawing: Commonplace 4

Weekly Drawing: Commonplace 3

New Comic, New Character

Announcing the completion of, "The Suit in: 'Surplus Property,'" a new collaborative comic with the writer Adam McGovern!

Page one of eight

Adam pitched me the script back in April at the MoCCA Festival, with a completed and polished script. I did my usual hemming and hawing about getting started on it, but once underway it went pretty fast. Adam is an exemplary collaborator, thoughtful, precise, communicative and straightforward. He's taking point on finding publication outlets, so more on that as it happens.

Weekly Drawing: Commonplace 2

Weekly Drawing: Commonplace 1

To keep the blog fresh and active I'll be uploading a new illustration per week. As of late I've been shifting my focus from natural forms onto man-made objects. I'm calling this series Commonplace, made up of everyday landmarks I photograph on the street.  Here is the first of (hopefully) many to be coming at a (hopefully) weekly rate.

I used sumi ink and chalk pencil on textured brown paper. Its a new technique for me, combining two methods I've used before, ink and chiaroscuro. I used to do drawings like this with charcoal, a much messier, crude medium. With the ink I can achieve charcoals mid-tones and sharp black lines.To get these gradients with ink I let it dry out enough to thicken, barely load the bristles and lightly brush across the high points of the paper's texture.

I really like the look of this, so perhaps after some more practice, I'll try inking a whole comic this way. No promises...