Hello, welcome, it's time to get comfy.

🌱 ISSUE 01. 🌻 JULY 2023

Welcome to Work of Art!

I’m Jordan, a queer illustrator and creator based in the Finger Lakes. If you’re reading this, you probably signed up for my newsletter at a market. Thank you for doing that! At the time, this didn’t actually exist: the signup form was the first step toward something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. It’s important to me to make a space away from the bustle and shine of social media. I’m thinking of it a little bit like coming in from the party, kicking off your shoes, and settling onto the couch. There’s a place for polish and a place for clutter. This newsletter is the paper-strewn desk where the work gets done, so come in, settle down with a glass of sparkly water, and get comfy!

Also, while I know this is mostly me throwing words at you, please feel free to email back, respond, what have you! I’m hoping that this will become a nice lil community space (hence why it’s on Substack!) and I truly love chatting with folks about everything. If there’s content you wanna hear more about or you have thoughts, let me hear ‘em!

First, some logistics.

So that we’re all on the same proverbial page!

You’ll get this newsletter once a month, unless I’ve got some really exciting news in between that I just can’t wait to share.

Generally, I’ll be writing about:

The art-making process. Sketches and messy concepts, step-by-step dives into the making of art pieces, and notes on creation and art as a skill rather than a talent. I’ll talk about the process of writing picture books, and give folks some art tutorials if that’s interesting to y’all!

Stuff I’m doing, places I’ll be. Where you can find me at markets and online, and any new stuff I’m doing folks might want to know about.

Seasonal botanical stuff. There’s so many critters and creatures around here, and it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t share my excitement about them all. Right now, we’re in high summer here in the Finger Lakes, and cicadas are humming dutifully outside my window.

Things that I like. Links, picture books, recipes, notes: the stuff of life and things worth sharing.

There might be more that makes it in every now and then, but generally, that’s what you can expect from these newsletters going forward!

Sketchbook

I don’t want this to get too long, but I did want to include something substantial for y’all for this first newsletter, so today we’re diving deep into the making of the painting up top there: Nasturtiums. We’ll start with a little process gif!

This piece was a commission from a friend of mine. She asked for nasturtiums on a dark background, similar to a piece I’d already made for her about a year ago. I happen to know that she likes little critters as much as I do, so I asked her if she wanted any and she sent me Nemoria pulcherrima, a tiny green moth. With that, I had my subjects!

Step 1 was to grab my neocolor crayons and some water and head out to the side-garden bursting with nasturtiums for the “getting to know you” phase. Honestly, it’s one of the most fun parts because you get to sit there and touch something and look at all its facets and angles and forms. Where to the leaves connect to the stems? Where are the veins? What is the shape of the flower? How do the petals intersect? I poked and prodded (and chomped—nasturtiums are edible!) and doodled until I felt like I had a solid understanding of how this plant actually works. I also got minorly sunburned.

Step 2 is to dive a little deeper. I went back inside and found some photos of other nasturtium plants on google and did a more detailed study in gouache this time. This also functioned as my color test. I had the idea that I wanted to mix a teal and a yellow-green to make the leaves, and I needed to see how that color mix would work.

You can see some of these exact shapes repeated or elaborated on in the final piece! This was a really helpful part of the process.

Step 3 is usually sketching out the final composition. Since this was a commission, I made two options and ran them both by my friend, asking which vibe she liked. She went for a leafier, fuller sort of vibe, so that’s the sketch I dove into. Composition and layout is that secret thing that takes your piece from a study to an illustration. I'm making conscious choices here about which way I want your eye to move in the piece, where my focal points are, where I'm leaving white space (or black space, in this case!) and where I'm putting leaves, flowers, and critters.

As you can see, this isn't final. I made some changes particularly to that middle-top section because it wasn't flowing right on the page, but this is what I worked off of to get:

Step 4 is getting it onto paper and then painting! Some folks use lightboxes and trace their final sketch onto the page to get clean lines. I like to keep the looseness of a sketch by just drawing (and erasing!) onto my final paper. I used Arches Hot Press paper and a light green colored pencil here, and the great thing about nice watercolor paper is that you can erase into it and not hurt the grain. Obviously don't go too hard, but it's pretty forgiving!

Once I have my final sketch down, I'll usually block in my important shapes first, hence why I started with the leaves, then lay down textures and other colors, add final details, and then in this case I added the black background last, which was terrifying. I took a lot of pictures just before blocking in the background in case I messed it up!

Thankfully, I didn’t, and we ended with a piece I’m frankly pretty thrilled about. Keep an eye out for it, because it’s definitely going to be a print!

Markets

I’ve got some more markets coming up! Come hang out with me at:

The 2023 Arts Off Main Festival
Cortland, NY
Saturday, August 5 from 10am – 5pm

And, EXCITINGLY:

The 41st Annual Apple Harvest Festival
Ithaca, NY
Friday, September 29–Sunday, October 2

Really, really excited for both of these, especially Apple Fest! It’s an honor to get to be part of something so big. I’ll be there for all three days with a fancy new tent setup and a bunch of new work that y’all will get sneak peeks of 👀

Both events will have some new work debuting and should be a lot of fun, so if you need something fun to do on the weekend, check it out!

On the digital front, I’ve also just updated my Etsy shop with a ton of stuff! If you couldn’t get your hands on something at the market and wanted a sticker or a print, now’s your chance.

✨ Use the promo code MARKET for 5% off your order, because that’s where y’all found me and you deserve it! ✨

get some stuff!

In the Garden

Some stuff I’ve been loving from around the internet.

This list of native Finger Lakes plants, with a ton of pictures and cool info.

An indulgent list of July recipes using stuff that’s in season right now. Obviously I need to start making my own milk tea???

This queer fitness trainer who makes super accessible workouts, aimed at everyone but also just like, so nice for queer folks! I tried one of the posture correcting ones and oh man, my arms, oh wow.

The return of N.D. Stevenson to Tumblr, and clicking around his archives. He was and is a formative artist inspiration for me and if you haven’t watched (or read!) Nimona yet, you gotta!!

And that’s it!

Thanks for sticking around if you have, and thanks for signing up because you did. It’s so cool to be able to talk to folks like this, so again, don’t be shy! I want to gather your thoughts and opinions up into a little foraging basket.

Happy July, sunflower buddies! Stay cool and hydrated and make something neat for me 🌻 💕