Kate's Christmas Card

I have a coworker who wants to be a kangaroo. She believes her life would be exponentially easier if she had a pouch. And since kangaroo Christmas cards are hard to come buy, I figured I would just draw her one.

Initial sketches

Tried to personalize the kangaroo so it looked a little like Kate with the hair and glasses

The panda is me

I googled images of kangaroos for drawing references and set them up on my desktop the way I envisioned the card in my head. I knew from the start I wanted to use Gemna from the manga Ranma 1/2 as my panda model.

I started sketching everything out in pencil. Then I traced over the lines with a double-sided sharpie. I've found in the past that when I use a pen and I go to erase lines the ink smears some times. Sharpies dry instantly and I haven't had any smear issues. Sharpies do bleed on the paper and are not always the best choice when detailing something small like an eye. So I did use pen on the eyes of panda beth and at least one of the kates. Then I colored everything in with colored pencils.

Inside of the card

She loved the card.

So to all my one follower--hope you have a joeyful Christmas and a kickin' roo year!

Gotham Central--Don't Judge a Book…oh, you know

Covers:

First I had to cut the book board to the right size. Just a smidge bigger than the comics themselves.

Actual dimensions: 7 1/4" x 10 3/4"

Next, I trimmed the book cloth and pasted it onto the book board. 

I decided to go with black book cloth for the covers. Cause, well, it's Batman. 

Not only does the black look sleek and matches the darkness and grittiness of Gotham City, but it's going to look great with the Caution Tape. I plan to get some Police Do Not Cross Tape and have it wrap around the book starting on the front cover, wrapping around the spine to the back cover. In my head it looks amazing. 

Stay tuned to see if I can pull it off.

Gotham Central--Destroy All Ads

Comics are filled with ads. I get it. To keep comic prices low, ads were another way to make money. And some of the ads are neat--showing upcoming comic lines, toys for Teen Titans or Batman the Animated Series. But the ads slow down the action and interrupt the dramatic moments. So the really annoying ones have to go.

Ads come in different forms, each needing a special way to destroy it.

1. Some pages I can rip right out because there's an ad on the front and back.

Separating Cover from Spider-Man Ad

2. And some are two-page spreads which can be glued together.

3. The third type of ad has comic on the back side. I can't rip that out! But usually there is a another ad on the next page. So I rip out (carefully using a ruler and x-acto knife) the one page, flip it and paste it down on the other ad. That way the ads are covered up and the story can continue uninterrupted.

4. And lastly, there are ads with comic on the back but no other nearby ad to cover up like in step 3. For these ads, I plan to draw something related to the series and paste it over these ads.

Owlfghan Final--Just in Time for Christmas

Finally got the letter pattern I wanted to use from home. Helpful hint: Never throw any patterns away!

This came with an anniversary cross-stitch kit I made for my parents 25th.

I'm a very visual person so I need to see what her name would look like before I started stitching. Pull out the graph paper!

I played around with the "z" but for lack of space, I decided to stick with the one from the pattern. Knowing I had 42x42 squares to work with, I had to make sure I could fit Liliana's full name, so I mapped it out on graph paper. You can see all my notes and questionable math in the margins.

Liliana Elizabeth Juarez Dovey--gee, thanks, Mom.

I did have to manipulate the "L" and "E" so no letters would be touching.

And now to begin the actual stitching which is a combination of cross-stitch and back-stitch.

Whew! Just enough room.

And the final owlfghan….(drum roll please)…

MERRY CHRISTMAS, LILI!

Gotham Central

Next Book Arts Projects:

Step 1: Read! 

Gotham Central: Soft Targets

Owl Birth Record

On the Road Again

Last weekend I was working on a running scrapbook of my dad's races.

Using Mom's Cricket to make the letters. Mom made the runner.

I use the inside of album cover as a sort of title page. Dad keeps a spreadsheet on all the races he runs during the year. Every title page I've made for Dad's running scrapbooks has a pinwheel that is super simple to make out of paper.

Mom made this runner too.

Close up on Mom's runner.

1st Page: 1st Race of 2012

I always plan out both pages before I start pasting anything down. That way I know what color backgrounds will look good together and where to post the pictures/stickers/etc. on the page.

Then I got bored and started cross-stitching. You can't force inspiration. Blog to come on that next week (Beth Hawbaker: Creator of Worlds at ebethwrites.blogspot.com). Link to come...

Owl-fghan

In September of this year, little Liliana Elizabeth Juarez was born to my best friend and her husband.

Awww

I took it upon myself to make a blanket for her when she was still in the womb. Her mother is very much into owls and the other gift I would bequeath this newborn is a cross-stitched Owl Birth Record to be framed with her name, birth date, and 3 owls that was picked out by Mommy. (It's almost finished, I swear!!)

Going along with this owl theme, I decided to buy a white afghan from Michael's and design an owl pattern to cross-stitch onto the afghan. I wish I were talented enough to make an afghan by stretch, but the baby is already 2 months old and I still haven't finished the cross-stitching.

I looked at some owl pictures online and then sketched out my design:

This is what the finished owl looked like:

I had 8 owls in 8 different colors with 25 squares to fill. We needed some hearts.

Sorry for the green discoloration

And owl with a heart:

And now the blanket with owls and hearts:

Last step:
The middle square will have Liliana's name cross-stitched.

Hopefully in time for Christmas!!

Birds of Prey--The Gatefold

In the last issue of the Birds of Prey comics I was binding, there is a beautiful four-page spread. These four pages naturally fold in half, creating a gatefold. This acts as a set of double doors, which you open to the four-page spread. But then I had two white pages that needed some adornment. The following is the process of putting that together.

The sketch:

From left to right: Helena (Huntress), Zinda (Lady Blackhawk), Dinah (Black Canary).

Then I drew Helena and Dinah on sketch paper, colored them, cut them out, and pasted them onto brown paper.

Helena and Dinah ready to pull open gatefold.

Now to add Zinda.

It's Zinda!

And the final result.

Voila. Decorated gatefold.

Birds of Prey

So, had I had this idea of sharing my creative process with all my fans--okay, let's be honest, with my one fan (love you, Grandma!)--I would have documented the binding of Gale Simone's 50-some issue run on "Birds of Prey" into a 9 volume collection of hardback books. But since I didn't have that brain blast until later, you're stuck with only the end result.

Notice the trees are growing right to left! Oops!!

Ta-da!

With my beautiful 4-page spread!

Okay, so they're not completely done. There are a couple artistic flares I have added since I took these photos. 

Check in next time for the gatefold.

So It Begins...

All right, fans (and by fans, I mean you, Grandma)! Let's get started.

I always seem to have multiple creative projects going at the same time. And I love to share the end process with my friends and family. But why not the ENTIRE process? Watch me take issues of comic books and bind them into hardback copies. Follow me as I design baby blankets for my best friend's infant (it's almost finished, Lauren, I promise!!). See the miraculous final projects...and the inevitable mistakes (What do you mean trees don't grow horizontally?).

So, what's the purpose of this blog, you may be asking yourself. Well, it's to shamelessly show off the projects I'm currently working on. (And maybe get some credit for my epub class). And hopefully to inspire creativity and a community of sharing.

Enjoy.