It's Alive!
Well, it's robots, so...
The Kickstarter for Universal Flaws of Robotics is live until August 13. I usually add a commission to each Kickstarter but this time is a little different. The commissions are tiny little robot sculptures! Abe took some fantastic photos of the test robots I made.
If you back the Kickstarter and choose a tier, you can choose this option as an add-on. The flowers are made with little nails.
Poetry
August 15, I am teaching an illustrated poetry workshop at the Lynden Senior/Community Center up here in Whatcom County. It should be a blast and is part of the Elder Voices poetry anthology. So to entice anyone who is up in this area (and for fun for everyone else), here are some of the most recent Sue C. Boynton illustrations.
You can see I had to digitally widen the original. I do that on purpose. 1) It is a fun exercise in planning to add more space in the middle. 2) It means I don’t have a weird piece of art with a boring, blank center. 3) I have watercolor paper that is 11x14 but not 11x17, which is the size the broadsides are. In this particular illustration you can really see the style I was trying out for drawing with a looser hand because of the carpal tunnel. Sometimes, it would hurt to even hold a pen. Fortunately, it is much better now! I am still practicing drawing loose and I don’t know if I will ever be able to back to the mad hatching I once did, but I actually love this style.
This is one of my favorites, more due to the way it compliments the poem. It features in the poetry class I’ll be teaching to discuss how to choose an image. The poem is very personal and heartfelt but also raw and filled with grief so I needed something that wouldn’t be to . . . visceral. Don’t want to steal the spotlight from the poem but do want to draw attention to it when the broadside is on the bus or in the library (which is where these broadsides go).
Cool Corner
Let’s get back to a more classic recommendation. A comic. I just read Danger and Other Unknown Risks, written by Ryan North and art by Erica Henderson. I was pretty sure this would be a good one. Ryan North is a well-known comic writer and Erica Henderson a prolific comics artist. She also drew Parasocial, which was also really good and also up for an Eisner this year. Go, girl. This pair has worked together on a massive amount of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comics (also very fun). Danger and… is a sci-fi, sort of. It includes a talking dog, which is an always-win for me. The main character and the dog are trying to “save the world.” There’s time travel and whimpy spells and characters I would like to meet in real life (and some I would not). And an evil man cave. I won’t say any more.
Stay curious,
Angela