Hey guess what I’m in Yerevan again!

A few months ago, the TUMO institute invited me back to Yerevan for another two week workshop on recipe comics! TUMO is a very cool free educational institution for teenagers, focused on art, music, and technology. When I was here last September to teach recipe comics, it was during the school year, when they only host one workshop at a time. This time, it’s summer vacation for the kids, so it’s nonstop workshops at TUMO! I’m here with (I think) about a dozen other international lab leaders, who are teaching photography, animation, programming, and illustration.

I’m still pretty jetlagged and I’ve been a little too busy for sightseeing (not to mention drawing you a new comic, sorry), but here’s a fun rundown of what’s been going on.

My students are as great as ever. About half of them are repeat students from my last workshop, so it’s been truly fabulous to see them again. The new students are smart, engaged and enthusiastic too! We meet every day from 1:30-5:30 to work on our project.

We’re putting together a comic book cookbook of Armenian recipes! We are finalizing the work that we started last fall, actually. The students are learning about recipes, instructions, layout, design and illustration. They’re all over it and doing excellent work and asking some of the smartest questions. Our biggest challenge is making a book of comics by 15-20 different illustrators look like a single cohesive work, but I think they’re doing an amazing job.

I am staying in a little room in a cute little hotel called the Silk Road which seriously has the most impeccable late 90’s Lonely Planet vibes. I ate a lovely dinner on this courtyard this evening.

Like I said, I haven’t had a ton of time or energy yet to get out and see much, but I did have an incredible dinner last night with a bunch of the other lab leaders, and they’re all amazing, interesting, very cool people. We walked back to our hotels through Freedom Square and were treated to this lovely view of the Opera House.

It’s very hot here during the day, but deliciously cool at night. I’ve eaten some great food and met some amazing people, and I really hope I have time to draw some pictures about all of it soon! For now I’m going to go to bed early and try to sleep off the last vestiges of jetlag.

What I’m Into Lately:

Not a whole lot of time for reading or gaming at the moment, but I have fallen in love with the internet’s latest celebrity, Jimothy, and I adore every bit of fan art that has been filling my feeds.

What Toki’s Into Lately:

I miss him!!! and Niles too, of course. Niles says he’s being extra clingy and complainy in my absence. Here’s a photo I took of him hanging out in a drawer last week.

(actually don’t shop books and prints until I get home from Armenia, I turned off online orders for now)