Issue 42: Color Swatching and Autumnal Musings
Autumnal musings, an abundance of swatches, and jack-o-lanterns!
Hello hello, friends and good folk!
IT’S FINALLY SWEATER SEASON FOR THIS POLAR BEAR!! Ahhh, I’m so happy that it’s feeling more like fall now by me. Every year, I have this fear that we won’t get the cold anymore, so each time I finally tug a sweater out of my drawers, it’s a relief.
Apologies for the delay of this issue— I got a bit stressed from some personal news (I’m all right!), and then, as a way of reassuring myself, I decided to ground myself and be present in this beautiful season instead of hurrying to get everything done “on time.” As such, today’s newsletter will serve as both the Oct 15 and Nov 1 update, so it’s a bit longer than usual!
I hope that wherever you are in the world, whatever season you’re experiencing, that you’re able to take a few moments for yourself to enjoy it to the fullest 💖
Anywho, onto the newsletter!
SLOWING DOWN… EVEN MORE?
Every time we reach autumn, I always hear people talk about how it’s the time of year to slow down, but for my partner and me, it’s usually our busiest time of year. October kicks off a five-month holiday season, starting with a bunch of birthdays and, of course, Samhain / Halloween 🎃
But this year, I’m really embracing the slowing down messaging— for my art.
My art has changed a lot in the last few years, starting out with strictly black and white pieces inked on paper like my Disabled Witches series I made back in 2018, which featured 31 (mostly nude) fat, disabled, queer, and trans witches, like this lovely person:
That entire series, like most of my works back then, consisted of using a size S Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pen (0.3 mm nib) and a 005 micron (0.20 mm nib) or XS Faber-Castell Pitt Artist pen (0.1 mm nib) on mixed media paper. For a piece like this one, it required hundreds of teeny, tiny strokes on paper, which, over time, kinda fucked up my hands lol. At the time, though, it was the only technique I could afford since even paper and pen were expensive for me back then.
Gradually, though, I moved into adding paint and liquid ink…
…then switched to mostly painting…
…then switched to working digitally…
…which has all been lovely!
But nowadays, I find myself frustrated by something in my process that’s grown over time. And I think this comes from a few main elements:
It’s more painful for me to make art these days, due to various disabilities, but mostly my hands, so I can’t make as much art as I used to.
Switching more of my focus to making comics, which is already a slow process.
Having fewer days to make art due to disabilities, I feel more pressure to focus on portfolio-oriented works and feel like I have less time/ability to explore and play.
All this pressure has led to me feeling completely frozen when I try to make anything at all. Which has, in turn, led to a decrease in how much work I actually do make.
And this isn’t unique to me, I know. Many artists go through periods where they struggle with changing their style, especially with capitalism’s ever-looming presence being so pervasive in our relationships with our work. It’s why I’m so passionate about the Cartoonist Cooperative— we all deserve a world where we can make and explore our art without the risk of going hungry or not having a home.
But having multiple disabilities on top does add an extra element of difficulty that I need to address for myself. So as I see it, if I want to make more art, I either need to just stop having disabilities (lol) or I need to adjust how I approach making art, including accepting that I need to slow down even more and allow my style to change to what it needs to be— even if that means I make it messier, looser, or wildly different from how I create now.
I’m not sure where my art is going next, but I do know this is an exploratory season for me. I’m eager to expand my skills and tools and to see where they take me. If I’m being honest, it scares me to do this in a world that demands strong, consistent branding and rapid productivity rates in the name of serving capitalism.
I’m feeling a bit nervous to even share all of this with y’all here. It feels very vulnerable to talk about what, for me, is a pretty intimate topic.
But I need to do it if I want to continue making art, and I wanted to talk with y’all about it because I’m determined to make changes where I can to improve my relationship with my work. I deserve to make art more freely and happily, and you deserve to see those experiments in a world so dedicated to only showing “perfect,” refined works.
All this to say— my art will be going through its awkward, growing-out-a-haircut stage, and I hope you’ll bear with me here as I try new things and share those unrefined works with you more. I think we’ll both be rewarded in the long run!
As always, I appreciate you being here for this journey! 💖
IN THE STUDIO
As I mentioned in the last issue, I’ve been getting reacquainted with my traditional art supplies lately. I decided to swatch my all my colors since I hadn’t touched them in over a year and because it occurred to me that it could be handy to have a swatch book of my own to refer to— especially gouache, which I find to be a mischievous medium lol.
I decided to make a saddle-stitched booklet using my preferred watercolor paper so I could know exactly what to expect in terms of how they interact with the paper.
I swatched the colors individually first, then moved on to the fun part— seeing how they interact with each other!
(Side note: I got really into saddle-stitching again after I made this— went on a bit of a spree, printing out reference materials and notes and just binding them all together as quickly as I could 😂 I’m actively trying to convince myself not to hand-bind Burden when I’m ready to print it lol)
Y’all— it’s been so much fun!! Just look at all these gorgeous colors! 😍
I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely Naples Yellow plays with so many of the other colors. It’s a color I didn’t reach for much on its own before because it can feel very dull to me, but mixed with other colors, it really shines!
I did accidentally mess up my color order a bit in the greens and browns, so they gradually got a bit more smooshed as I tried to cram them all in there lol. But it still does its job!
I’m also learning that I have different color palette preferences when working digitally vs. traditionally. In digital, I very much prefer to use a cool palette, but with traditional, it’s very much a warm palette! I suspect this is because of how much pigment comes from the earth, giving it a naturally warm feeling.
Having said that, I’ve decided to create Burden using mixed media, and I’m very excited for it! (For new folks to the newsletter, Burden is a disabled horror fantasy comic I’m working on.) I’m creating the line art digitally, printing it onto watercolor paper, painting it, and then scanning it back to digital for touch-ups and lettering.
I’ve tested a few pages with the supplies I’d like to use, and I’m feeling pretty confident despite the fact that I’m still getting back into the swing of using mixed media again lol. I’m also working with some new supplies I haven’t used before: soft pastels!
I really enjoy working with the Neocolor II’s that I use, but I also wanted something softer that spread a bit more easily, and these Sennelier soft pastels feel very exciting to try out with this. Making a note to myself as I type this, though, that I will have to remember to clean the scanner thoroughly between scans because this shit gets everywhere 😅
Anywho, I also swatched a bunch of other supplies I’ve collected over many years, so if you find that to be a helpful resource when looking into supplies to get yourself (or if, like me, you just like seeing all the pretty colors), feel free to check out the blog post about it! It includes all of the swatch images from my watercolor, gouache, colored pencils, wax pastels, soft pastels, and Zebra Mildliners.
Read the Artist’s Field Guide! —>
CO-OP MEMBERS AT SHORTBOX COMICS FAIR!
As promised, here are all of our Co-op members with comics in this year’s ShortBox Comics Fair! 😃 You’ve got til tomorrow at 8 PM UK Time (which is 4 PM ET) when the fair closes up shop for the next two years. A lot of artists make their comics available after the fair, too, but many also do not, so get your favorites now!
ON A PERSONAL NOTE
(I haven’t shared much of my photography with y’all, have I? I really need to change that lol. Enjoy this autumnal bird from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden a few years ago!)
I’ve dropped out of the Co-op’s NIF Committee (other than one project I’m working on for them)! As part of my dedication to slowing down and because Events Committee is planning to do even more wonderful work in 2026, I decided that I needed to focus on just this one committee for the foreseeable future.
I’m already finding myself more relaxed and with more time on my hands, so I’m eager to see how this helps me in all kinds of ways moving forward!
Additionally, I’m sad to say that I just had my last therapy appointment yesterday with my absolutely wonderful therapist I’ve been working with since January 2023. My health clinic decided this month to enact a previously unenforced rule that forces an end to sessions after two years of therapy, which… is a terrible policy imo lol.
I’m so grateful, though, to my therapist who has been an ardent, kind supporter through these years and has helped me grow into the person I am today. I know that I’ll be more than all right with all the tools these sessions have equipped me with over the last three years, and I’m so happy for her as she also moves on to a new clinic where I know she’ll continue to have a positive impact on her patients for years to come! 💖
RECENT READS + FAVORITES
The latest updates for Recent Reads are up on the blog! You may see some of the same titles repeated for a bit— that’s because I’m a very slow prose reader, and I’m working my way through a few of them at the same time! 😄
And here are some of my favorite things from the past few weeks:
Drinking: Apple cider with cinnamon sticks
Watching: Andor, Abbott Elementary, and Halloween Baking Championship
Experiencing: Rust-colored and golden leaves decorating our neighborhood skies
Doing: Carving pumpkins with my partner! Happy Halloween! 🎃
How about you? What have been some of your favorite things lately?
Hope this week is kind to you 💖 Thanks for reading!
