Hello, July, here comes December!

As a rather laid back online retailer, I was surprised to see an e-mail today about "Free Shipping Day" on December 16th in my inbox.

Then again, every year I wish I had stared on my Christmas card illustration earlier! Maybe I should start sketching now.... I know that my 2011 card will involve another city scene, but that's all I'm giving away.

Merry Christmas!
http://www.freeshippingday.com/about/

Henrí in the Spotlight

One of the characters in my story and an important part of Adele's life is her feline companion, Henrí, named for Henrí Matisse, one of my favorite artists. Henrí is rarely seen without his beret and can converse with all humans, not just Adele. On this page he is terrorizing pigeons, one of his favorite pastimes.

Two more pages

AIR Gallery art

I painted and drew the artwork picture above for the A.I.R. gallery's benefit show Wish You Were Here 10. Many artists, both well-known (for example, Yoko Ono) and lesser-known (for example, me) contributed 4" x" 6" original art. I was there tonight for the main opening of the postcard show and it was a lot of fun to see all of the different styles and materials that the contributors worked with.

For more info, visit the gallery's exhibits page:

http://www.airgallery.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.event&eventid=269

A Show of Hands

In this post I have to be honest, I am not good at drawing hands. Since my college figure drawing classes, rendering that body part has always given me the most trouble. In my sketches, they end up looking like "Attack of The Claw," sausages, (as one of my Illustration professors put it), or worse! So please bear that in mind when you look at the next page of Adele's story. The "hand" that appears here is definitely better than how they usually come out, but I think Adele's hands should look more elegant, so I'll be working on that some more.

Also, I have been uploading the pages out of order, this is page 2, page 1 was posted on May 25.

Rainy Weekend Post

I'm taking a break from the errands and cleaning doldrums on this rainy Sunday to share another page of the Adele book. Most of what I currently have is at this level of completion. I am still fine-tuning the composition and details, but I have decided that this one looks good enough to share. I may post it again once it is more complete.

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!