First Friday Sketches

why the boston women's rugby team loves me

I drew these for their 2009 t-shirts...!

Twittering

tweet tweet tweet...

Okay, I bit the bullet, and now I have a current and running Twitter account. Wish my too-many-applications-self good luck...

twitter.com/kmegaphoned

Wonderful Illustrator!

Check out this new school, old school illustrator... Some great themes running through here!

http://juliancallos.blogspot.com/

Pocket Zines and Octo-pulp

So, the octopus comic book has turned into a pocket-zine mini-comic sort of deal. Oh, and it's sci-fi poetry. Just thought everyone should know. A verse from the mini-comic:

"Thighs heavy with water, I trudged
Down the center of the street,
The crack in the asphalt widening between my strides."

Why has this become the structure, you ask? Well, I learned a long time ago that I really am not the best at sequential art that is very plot driven and/or paced in a certain way... My comix convey messages and have narratives that are short and to the point. So, I figured, I'll actually complete these mini-pocket-comic-zine things better and faster than other longer projects I do.

Whew! Anyway. Speaking of longer projects, here's a picture of Fuzz the Cynical Bunny on the computer:



And for giggles, someone has compiled covers of old pulp comix that involve OCTOPODES..... it's amazing.

Photo test!

Okay, so I don't know if this looks as awesome as I want it to, but it does do a good job considering this sketch is supposed to be rough anyway... I dunno. What're people's thoughts? iPhone photo uploads a no-go?

This is so meta.

So now I've got an app for my iPhone as a way to make it so I blog about art and politics more. It's probably just more clutter but I guess that's the point huh!

New comix coming soon!

So, there are a variety of new comix in the mix, coming on up! For one, I have a strip I've started that the first one is ALMOST done.

I know, I know. ALMOST done? WTF, Katie? But the truth of the matter is, I've been SO BUSY that I'm lucky I even drew it. I've been struggling to edit some of the imagery in photoshop... I tried this new schtick and it's the one thing holding me up. I promise it's coming soon.

Next, I have an IDEA for a comic book. Just one single comic book. No words. And it's about octopodes. So, I'm pretty excited about that. Soon as I finish writing this post, I'm gonna do some sketches and thumbnails. I'm thinking it'll be my usual dorky sea creature educational jazz. You'll love it.

Anyway! That's that for now. I'll try updating with something of more substance next time, you know, like an ACTUAL COMIC.... :)

Awkward kiss...!

condoms condoms condoms condoms condoms condoms...

Safe Sex Supplies

Nervous?

"Because when you're 11, you don't care about the boy sitting next to you, you care about the fact that you feel funny."

"Gloves are sexy...!"

True Colours Presentation!

True Colours!

This weekend, Lyndon and I taught at True Colors, a wonderful LGBTQ youth conference in Connecticut. It went so fabulously! And it has inspired me to really get my act together--I need to obviously be more intentional about drawing more sex education comics.

Annnnd here are some pictures from the presentation!

Sarah Palin and the Feminists

(Disclaimer: I do political work full-time for the League of Young Voters. This is my own personal opinion of politics, not the League's. This is also pretty out of the realm of comix and art, but I figure rather than create a whole 'nother blog for my thoughts, I'll just go for it here.)

There has been much talk about Sarah Palin and her gender, just as much as there had been about Hilary Clinton and her gender. But there is something important to note here—these discussions, while to the naked eye are the same, are actually deeply, and inherently, different.

The common misconception amongst the “post-feminist” mainstream media is that Feminists simply want a woman in office. That, regardless of everything else that could make a worthy potential candidate, a female candidate is more important than the issues and ideologies that candidate may stand for.

This is a very misguided concept.

It is simply problematic to assume that simply being a woman brings with it the checklist Feminists want to see in a Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate. It is, essentially, the flipside of the argument Feminists and women-alike are constantly railing against—that being a woman means very specific “woman things,” that there are certain denotations to being a woman (concepts such as being weak, weepy, talkative if you are white; or crude and loud if you are black; or saucy if you are Latina—etc.). Simply being a woman and simply being a woman in office does not a Feminist choice make, for it applies the same logic that those who wish to box in the concept of woman for their own anti-feminist, sexist, misogynist uses.

Does being a woman mean that you are more likely to understand a need for childcare availability for working, single moms?

Does being a woman mean that you are more likely to protect women’s right to choose, and proper sex education for your teen daughter?

Does being a woman mean that you are more likely to vote in favor of higher and equal wages for all?

No. No. No.

Lets get something clear: you have to be more than “female” to get my vote. You have to have a pretty transparent platform based off of my Feminist principles—and in an ideal world, you’re also a woman. But the two aren’t intrinsically connected.

Writing to show Sam blog RSS feed on facebook

This is a promise to myself to write more on this blog now that the election is over and it is SUMMER!

Wowza!

So it's been really hard to balance working full-time, organizing Dr. Sketchy's, organizing more art events in collaboration with other artists and performers, AND drawing comix. In fact, drawing sequential art has fallen totally off my radar. I can't even seem to muster the energy to THINK sequentially, let alone put the comix in my brain onto a page. It's a sad feeling.

I've been having a little bit of a blockage when it comes to my own art. I've begun to wonder if maybe I'm not supposed to be an artist who does work for herself... I've been definitely doing ART--but not a lot of work in my sketchbook, not a lot of life drawing, not a lot of painting... All of that art seems to have fallen to the wayside, while I heavily pursue my freelance and really rock out graphic design at work.

I don't think I'm willing to make that concession... I know this is a roadblock I've come upon before and it's really all about balancing. I've begun to run again--the first times since injuring my knee!--so if I can make space for running CERTAINLY I can make space for comix and sketchbooks... I think it's time to go back to a little old-school artistic discipline and actually give myself personal deadlines and timeframes for sketchbook/comic work.

Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School!

Next WMPG design!

Whoa, it's been forever!

I know--it's been far too long. I do have a ton of new work, but since holidays and then starting my new job at the beginning of the new year, it's been crazy busy and I haven't made time for a website update. I also haven't done a lot of comix-specific work. A LOT of design, with ink-illustration, or entirely adobe-illustrator-done. But not a lot of sequential art. I think this is in part due to the fact that drawing a comic is HARD. I have a bunch of comix in the pipeline, half drawn, or sketched and in need of inking... I really need to sit down and dedicate time to them. I also have a ton of paintings I've begun, and not finished. I need to carve out more time for the more organic art. Anyway... Here are some fun designs I did for WMPG!

Back to simplicity

So I did a couple of highly detailed drawings in the past few days in brush and ink, like the stingray below... I started out using a hard tipped pen, and then moved into using a fine brush with india ink... I couldn't control the ink so well, and so I moved on to a brush-pen (specifically the Faber-Castell Pitt Pens) filled with india ink... The affect was similar, almost identical really, and easier to control.

However, just for kicks with these exercises, I chose to go back to the ol' brush and ink well method, and I think that the line quality is much better. I'm working on technical vellum, which holds the ink really well. I've been using cotton comp, trace paper, and a variety of thicknesses of technical vellum with the brush pens as well, so the paper isn't new. I'm surprised how well the vellum holds up to the brush work.

I think I might do the "Inconsequential" comic (my chosen title for the series I'm working on outside of my paid work) in brush and ink... I was already thinking I wanted to work double-size for the series anyway, but now I really want to go all out. The attention to detail returns when I work in a fine brush...

We'll see how that goes!

Fiction writing continued, last two characters for this piece

Fiction writing continued!

Here's the opening two paragraphs for this story...

"The leaves were crunchy beneath his wheels, but he didn’t care. It was a cool sound, like something out of the sound effects of a scary movie. Or a funny movie. He couldn’t be sure. Josh was far ahead of him, using his longer, more powerful legs to propel him across the neighborhood, over sewers. He was much more skilled at skateboarding than Carlos, and he proved this point again and again by swinging his lower body skillfully over curbs and steps.
The autumn air made Carlos’ eyes water. It was only his second fall in Maine, and he wasn’t quite used to the colorful leaves, the smell of the cold, and the itchiness of his wool sweater. It was all very foreign, and very exciting at the same time. He found himself purposefully forgetting to wear socks, so he could whip his shoes off when school was over, and charge barefoot across the tile and wood floors of his family’s third floor apartment. Bare feet just weren’t as exciting in Southern Texas. Hot tile was sweaty and seemed to gather food and grime much easier, thus removing anything remotely enticing to the underside of a foot."

Fiction writing

I used to write only fiction... Then I got into a huge non-fiction comic segment, and now I'm coming out of it. I think that having the ability to be semi-autobiographical AND pull from other people's stories, AND make shit up all at once is just...so much more fun. Plus, I feel better about how I draw the characters... It frees me up to do what I want with them, rather than attempt to even remotely cater to the features of an actual human being.

That being said: here are some character designs for a series of vignettes of intertwining yet unrelated characters. These guys are for the first story.

Trying to post more often, I promise

Life has just been crazy for the past few weeks. I haven't had much time for comix, and that makes me sad. So! I'm trying to set aside more time for comix, but also get sleep. We'll see which one wins.

Here's a detailed ink drawing I did earlier today.

Out of comission comic wise

So I've been trying so hard to get comic work done. It's been a real struggle. I have all these other jobs to do, website design, graphic design... I'm not complaining, but I miss drawing panels so badly. Here are some comics I never finished... The second is the beginning of a story I'm going to rehash, about my accident with my knee and surgery and my feelings behind that. (For the uninitiated: another part of what kept me from getting certain types of work done was the fact that I tore my ACL playing Ultimate Frisbee this summer, and subsequently became depressed, un-depressed, had surgery, am in physical therapy, etc...) Now some people would think this would be PRIMO time to get comic work done, but comics are, honestly, the HARDEST art for me. Therefore my most time consuming, and my most passionate. I draw, redraw, sketch, find references, redraw, ink, edit...and then some. I do this for my GD work as well, but the intensity is much different... Plus my comics tend to be deeply personal or intense, so spending hours fixating on them requires me to be in tip-top emotional shape. And to be honest--up until recently, I just haven't been because of my knee and a few other things going on.

But enough about that.

The first comic is the VERY beginning of my reflections on the very first comic class I ever took... Basically, it's just a cartoon version of Katie at age 9. Enjoy.

Full Retail Comic

For your viewing pleasure!

Last installation of Retail Comic

Third installation of Retail comic

I actually inked a comic yesterday... I should do this more often...!

Next installation of the Retail Comic

I'll post one with all of them together, because right now the story is jagged and awkward.

My Multi-Faceted Experiences in Retail, part 1

More to come! It's much more fun all together, but I am taking forever to ink this one...

I don't actually feel this way anymore

But I don't like the leave work unfinished so... Here's a way delayed comic update!

Last HIV/AIDS page

Okay...now I'm off to bed. The computer is beginning to bend and twist... By the way, these are scans of a print-out... I lost a lot of work one night (much like this night...) working till 4 AM and then accidentally moving files and losing them... so the original art for a lot of my Sex Ed work is forever gone.

Fourth HIV/AIDS page

Yes...it is 3:15 AM when I am posting these... I drank too much red bull while I was redrawing Bonnie...

Third HIV/AIDS page

This was when I was juuuuust learning photoshop...

Next HIV/AIDS page

Sex Education Comic: HIV/AIDS

Written by Sarah Eidleman, Drawn by Myself

Last Bonnie Page

I have an issue where I redo and redo and redo a lot of my Sex Ed comix... coming up shortly: I bite the bullet and finally give in that a comic I drew two years ago is actually good.

Next Bonnie

Bonnie was originally written almost three years ago now... Her text, since then, has become more inclusive, and the imagery has gone from thin ink line, to photoshop color, to painted, and finally, this version.

Bonnie, continued

Bonnie the Beaver teaches us about safe oral sex for vuuulvas...

color sketching

a first draft sketch of a poster series I'm designing for Family Crisis Services... Illustrator (computer art program, for the uninitiated) rocks my socks.

Sometimes I do graphic design.

Okay, I do a lot of graphic design, even though I have not taken ONE design course. It's all the same to me--illustration, graphic design... I just taught myself the programs.

This one's special though cause I designed it for my own set of business cards for my roommate and myself. We've started a little printmaking business on the side of our regular jobs/stuff/everything. It's fun. I took a high resolution photo of some of the bike parts I've been getting in (I am building a bike, p.s.) and made the woman's symbol out of them. Photoshop, and enjoy with some coffee. Whee!

Another teaser!

I'm just really proud of the shadows on this one...

Come see some finals pages of my comic book in the Institute of Contemporary Art inside of MECA this coming Wednesday, March 28th!

To get a sneak peek at my process, i.e. how I do this in a long, convoluted Katie Diamond way... Come to the 3-Floor Gallery show, opening April 27th.

Website!

So it's official--my website is complete and up and running. Never fear though! I'm going to keep this blog for comix stuff, as it is becoming increasingly popular to have a blog as an artist (I started that trend, you know!)

Visit Katie Diamond Art & Comix

Obligatory Scene--teaser 3!

"I don't know, Vivey. I'm not you."

The Vagina Monologues

Okay, so it wasn't THIS dramatic...but it felt like it!

Teaser number two!

Teaser half-page

Half of a finished page of my thesis and current long-term project... Are you tantalized yet!?