Play on Words

I always get a kick out of a good play on words, idioms, and double-meanings.

I saw a Facebook post by a friend on her son's birthday about her memory of the day she found out that she was pregnant with him. My comment was, "Urine Luck!" The phrase got stuck in my head and I came up with this visual to illustrate the word play.

Two more pages

Adele, encore

Over the years I have been working on-and-off with an idea for a graphic novel featuring my character, Adele, from an illustration I created in 2001 inspired by my first trip to Paris, France that March. Since I lack knowledge and experience with sequential art and comics, I have also lacked confidence in how to move forward on this, and have had doubts about even trying at all. I haven't shared the story or sketches with many people... it never seems to be "ready" for others to see! I am always sketching and re-sketching the panels and pages.

Recently I traveled to Paris for a third time and 10 years (ouch!) have passed since Adele first came to life on the pages of my sketch book, I've decided that I owe it to her and to myself to push forward to see what can happen with this story. Plus, I can't seem to completely drop the idea, that has got to mean something.

Although it feels a bit scary, I've decided to start posting sketches and finished pages on this blog. I hope it will make the project seem more tangible, plus many of you might have comments that could help or encourage me. So please click "follow" on my blog page, add me to your RSS feeds, or catch the posts on Facebook since my blog updates automatically to The Nancydraws Shop page.

I may not be posting the pages in sequential order as this experiment goes along, but here's page 1!

From My Brain to the Page!

I really love it when I have an image or an idea in my mind and I can get it exactly as I imagine it onto a piece of paper and into the world without a glitch!

Believe me, this is a rare occurrence. Usually it takes me a few drafts, centimeters from my eraser, turns with the pencil sharpener, and layers of tracing paper to get the art to look the way I want. More often than not, I either can't seem to make it as great as I imagined it in my mind's eye, so I have to compromise, or I didn't have a clear enough vision of what I wanted until I started sketching.

The drawing that inspired me to write this blog entry happened just an hour or so ago. I really am pleased and surprised with how easily it flowed from my mind to my pencil. The image has been floating around in my imagination for a few weeks and I just could not let it go until I made it real. I wish it was always that easy and quick.

Unfortunately I can't go into much detail about what the image is or what inspired it for reasons that I don't want to give away right now. I will be able to share all later in the week!