My day in comics, hour by hour on Feb 1st. More info under this giant picture!
Hourly comic day, it’s exactly what it sounds like. You’re supposed to draw a comic every hour for the entire time you’re awake! It really is that silly. It is also great. I’ve never taken part before, although I have participated in other internet drawing challenges and always find them rewarding - but I think this one has been my favourite. I was definitely influenced by artist, Lucy Knisley’s superb efforts over the past decade or so!
I’m not a comic artist – YET.
I have been doing some research into it because of a personal project I’d like to start on which I think might (in some way) take the form of a comic. At least, it’s influencing the way I’d like to tell stories in the future. What better way to try my hand than drawing comic after comic about the mundane routine of my ever-reducing Covid lockdown life?
Up to this point, my illustration style has been quite precise, in a way. Fairly representational, it’s been map and architecture heavy and illustrations have been pencil drafted, inked and carefully rendered for adding flat, bright digital colour. Well, not any more! Well, probably there will still be some of that, but
I’d like to make work that is looser, quicker, less controlled, but with more character.
Throughout the day I got more confident, more daring as the hours clocked by. I drew the first two or three comics with zero intention of sharing them, except with a couple of pals. I looked back over my work and thought, “you know what? These are nice.” Sure, they are quick, rough and a bit wonky but they’re full of life and honesty and personality. I love seeing that in other folk’s work so I took a deep breath and went for it.
It was an intense day and creating the comics was really all I thought about, even when I was emailing or cooking or playing with my toddler. Seeing my world as a narrative isn’t something I do naturally, so it was a great exercise for that. Practice makes perfect, of course, so I think my illustrations actually improved, even through one single day of drawing.
I started to look for ways I could simplify shapes or actions to make them quicker to draw or clearer to look at.
Only by the end of the day did I really think about positioning the text sensibly so it would be read in the right order by a viewer, I tried a heap of different perspectives and views so it wouldn’t look boring, I tried to visualise all the fragments as part of one piece. Best of all, there were artists across the world all drawing with me, all covering similar ground and all looking to each other for inspiration and a bit of a laugh. A really great day. Hopefully I’ll be able to make the time to do it again next year!
Thanks to pal, Ishbel McFarlane for encouragement and to Joe for looking after everything else while I drew.
