Metaphor and just putting something down
Just a brief example of metaphor on the fly.
This isn't an example of great thinking, great writing or drawing. It's an example of pushing through to get to that first decent draft and allowing some surprises that may or may not go somewhere.
In this instance, I had just completed page 14, below. Details about that are here. This post continues some of the process there.
First sketch I'm drawing that last panel as planned.
This isn't an example of great thinking, great writing or drawing. It's an example of pushing through to get to that first decent draft and allowing some surprises that may or may not go somewhere.
In this instance, I had just completed page 14, below. Details about that are here. This post continues some of the process there.
On that page, I had absolutely no ideas for panel 5.. All I did was scribble and doodle a little in that spot something from the text.
I was trying to draw a sort of hole in panel 4, where the phone was. It turned into a scribble. But would later inform panel 5.
Anyway, on to page 15.
For the next page, I had an outline/script:
Notice the last element: "shot of me looking down from nest, squeamish, vertigo"
I knew I'd be drawing her (Kathryn) as a baby bird, and presumably us in conversation in the nest.
And revising..
and even penciling. Note trying to figure out the birds responses...
suddenly I realize, this story isn't about me, and it doesn't matter what I think of the the heights, and where I am, it's about Kathryn, and the story is about her "choosing to disappear".
Obviously, she needs to fly away, and so the correct response to "How long do you look at something before you decide to change it?" is to disappear.
Thus, a decent idea, and metaphor.
Not brilliant, but the important thing to realize is I'm just doing this all on the fly! Gotta push forward! Gotta try something! Gotta get "the wrong ideas in the wrong words" first, as Peter Elbow says...
And more importantly, the lines of the nest echo the scribbles on the previous page, and are informing the next sequence on page 17, where the lines (which have been previously, forest telephones lines and nest) become abstracted and their own narrative element. The addition of the nest --as place that was left/abandoned -- is now one of the themes...
It's all just trying to push forward, to create something. Something personal. Good or great doesn't matter, if it moves you and helps you investigate the issues you're trying to investigate better.
But DO push yourself. Let the work speak back to you.
T
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