page 33

amidst heartache and wall building (to prevent further heartache), i finished page 33 last night.

real life dusty is on the verge of leaving me again. or not. he runs hot & cold. he has this need to rescue some fucking damsel in distress and leaves me twisting in the wind with four kids. kinda like a comic book plot i know of. i keep hoping for a happily ever after with my dusty. he sometimes feels the same way.

and then he runs off with another woman.

to add insult to injury, his latest charity case wears a hello kitty backpack. she’s not six though.

i’m proud of myself for not sinking into a pit of despair and of being able to pull it together enough to work on moses jones. my life is falling apart, but at least i have mojo.

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page 32

here is page 32. i was hoping to have it ready yesterday. but today is better than tomorrow.

i keep falling asleep. i have poppy, who is 18 months, and misha, who is three and a half. my evenings are spent getting them ready for bed and helping them fall asleep. lately, i have fallen asleep with them. so my bedtime is around 7 or 8 lately. i usually wake up again around 10:30 or 11 but am not motivated to work on moses jones as i am usually pretty sleepy and end up spending quality time with dusty.

austin kleon, whom i have fallen out of love with, says if you want to–you can find time to do art. i want to, but with a large family and a precarious relationship with dusty that needs its fair share of attention. art, whom i love with all my heart, has to wait for me. i have to take care of my kids. i have to sleep. i have found–through trial & error–that i have to commit time to make a relationship with dusty work. ….& i have to do art. but of all the above, art is the one that can be put on a back burner. granted, i get grumpy without art. i get a bit depressed & distressed. but art waits for me. and, eventually, i do find the time for it.

i have determined that austin kleon’s audience is a more privileged class of people. i dunno. young & upwardly with sanity, time, and male genitalia…. his books were not meant for half-crazy mothers of four with a history of trouble. no worries. i actually already know everything he tells in his book. of course, i have been around. paying attention. succeeding & failing. i am relatively old in the game of art, and austin kleon writes his books to a younger version of himself. so i guess i shouldn’t be surprised that it doesn’t apply to crazy older mamas like me.

maybe i should write a book for the rest of us…hmmm…. (& when do i find time to do that?)

page 32. finished last night when i managed to survive the babies’ bedtime because i had to pee too bad to fall asleep. page 33 is not yet written, but i think i have it in my head.

i was going to point out what bugs me–what i feel like i messed up in page 32–but i have decided not to. because i think, overall, i am doing a good job and i really like my subtlety with shadows on this page.

page 25

okay–that took a bit longer than anticipated.  i think i am developing a 3 nights sleeping/1 night drawing pattern.  and on nights i sleep, i go to bed at like 7 or 8.  the baby just doesn’t let me get enough deep & continuous sleep.  i will drink a beer to relax and end up out for the night.  but–finally–finally i finished page 25 after having it drawn for several days.

this is the first page that does not have moses jones on it.  i hope to start developing some of the side characters.  lucy and malcolm are one of the two couples (not including moses & her haphazard coupling with dusty) that live at the squatter’s manor in my dystopian world.  they are expecting a baby soon.  which is scary in real life–and is surely terrifying in a dystopian one.

so here’s a peek at malcolm and lucy…of course their topic of conversation–moses jones.

moses jones–page 16

zombies & cannibals, oh my.

my therapist says it is impressive that i can put out about 3 pages a week while being a full-time mom & a half-time student. i’m not sure how good my pages are, however. i like them, but then when i look at other graphic novels, i wonder how they compare.
i should find out how most comics are illustrated. i know there is a penciling & then inking process, but there has to be more to it to make it look so uniform? research…i kinda suck at research…. my process, as i have talked about before, is ink then some more ink with some ink on top of that. lots & lots of ink. ink pens. ink on brushes. cups of water with ink residue which i try not to mix up my tea & coffee with.

okay, it’s late & i’m babbling on about ink.

even though i do not know how my process measures up–i truly enjoy my process, my stories, and my art. i hope you do too.

goodnight.

moses jones–page 15

as a good catholic girl, any reference to sexual matters makes me squeamish…but plot is plot. & you know what they say about “tits & ass.” (watch tapeheads if you don’t know what they say–watch tapeheads anyway, it’s very funny.)

i don’t know who killed the cannibal. i thought moses did…but in the context of mentioning dusty’s disappearance, maybe it was dusty? that would explain some things….

i’m not happy with my full body drawing/silhouette work.i it definitely needs work. maybe i will do some practicing of just that. maybe i should take a figure drawing class. i think that works towards my art minor anyway. hmmm.

my sarah connor moment

this is one in my moses jones series. again, i do not know where i am going with it. i started the series as an art assignment, but i am planning on improving & expanding the series. right now i am working on some cast pictures.