Original Art Sundays No. 377: Sharp Invitiations: Esther's Hands, Interlude, page 1

 Hi again!

This is a short interlude. I almost left this out, but my girlfriend said it was an engaging story. On review, I decided it belonged in The Book.

As always, notes on content and process follow.

Read on.

The title alludes to the focus of this little story, planned to run four pages. While it doesn't deal with trans stuff directly, it says a lot about Mother and shows something of where I was at just after high school: aimless, drifting. The three of us- John, Stu and me. Sigh. There's a book in that too, but some stories deserve privacy.

I wince a bit at drawing myself pre-transition. It's sometimes necessary for the story, but... brr. I was downright scrawny in my post high school years, and I've tried to show that here,

Stylistically, I'm paying loose homage to my man Vaughn Bodé in this story. This is a tremendous opportunity to play with borders like he did. I love the use of ground elements -foreground, midground and background - to define panel borders. It works better in color, but it's an effective tool here too.

I'm just going to get the key moments of my relationship with Mother, especially those related to trans stuff, down, then reorder the story.

Foregoing equipment list on this one.

Next: arrival and an unwelcome turn of events.

Original Art Sundays No. 376: Sharp Invitations: Esther's Hands, p. 14

Well, we're back! It's been hectic, but I have a couple new pages to post. I've had this done for a couple weeks, but there's finally time to post!

First, the next page of Esther's Hands.

Story notes: for most of this chapter, the story is random memories of Mother, mostly related to trans stuff, since that's the main focus of the book. Some other material finds its way in. I suspect I will reorder these pages before going to press. As for the memories, don't we all remember people by random events? Some little thing happens that reminds one of something, which reminds us of...

This moment was quite stirring for me. It was one of those times when you realize that you can always learn from your Mother. I was in my mid 40s and was sure I knew everything.

Craft notes: Kept this one simple. The constant challenge of keeping dialogue heavy pages visually interesting applies here. The personal issue is that the living room looks quite sparse in contrast to its true cluttered/chaotic status. A conscious choice to edit reality for the sake of the narrative. I like the way Mother is drawn in panel 3. Just a few well place lines show so much age. I opted for fabric textures and graphite on clothing to give the page weight. 

Not doing an equipment list on this one. Pretty standard, much like previous lists. Page turned out pretty clean, so minimal Photoshop was used, mostly levels and curves to get the light/dark balance down.

Next: a strange interlude.