Februrary recap – the drawing itch, whoops anxiety, first kids book
Category : Les CabtualitésDate : March 1, 2020
Hello world! My titles are becoming more and more insane, which might be an insight on my mental state! February was good for most parts. School’s out for two weeks, which is a welcome breather. Some surprising warm weather made it possible for me to start jogging again, something I’ve been thinking about for months!
After I got the Chapter 2 storyboard duly reviewed and corrected by cartoonist extraordinaire Axelle Lenoir, I gathered my supplies, dusted off my pencils and started actually drawing. It had been months since I had drawn actual comic pages and I could feel this intense itch to pick it up again. Penciling those pages was an absolute charm. Guys, I fucking love drawing.
I reread my January recap and boy did I skim over that month. I had an intense whoops, anxiety! moment in January and I think I was too exhausted to even write about it. I could blame it on the workload that comes with being a teacher for the first time, or the winter blues, or anything else for that matter. But truth is, it’s me. Just me. I set the bar high, so fucking ridiculously high, like, all the time. Even though it’s not considered a “real” condition (like generalised anxiety or social anxiety), I check all the boxes for high-functioning anxiety. Bad at “real life”, over-planning, avoidance, restlessness, impatience, forgetfulness, overindulging, etc. Looking back, I keep finding a million things that connect to this, and how it is intrinsically part of my personality. I don’t mind talking about it publicly at all–in fact, I wouldn’t have known about it if it weren’t for people on Twitter sharing their own experience. I’m very grateful for it!
Okay! The bummer stuff is out of the way! The children’s book I illustrated last year came out in February! It looks real good and I was super happy to hold it in my own hands. CSI: Ruelle follows three intrepid little girls who are on a mission to find out who’s been destroying their community garden. They have gadgets, a secret hideout, tons of pets, basically, everything I wanted as a kid. Check it out!
Anyway, here’s what got me excited this month!
Watching: The Shape of Water (finally!) I also rewatched Spiderman: into the Spiderverse and it’s just as good! And I have a confession to make: I had never seen The Godfather in its entirety. I remedied that last week.
Listening: Some artsy, post ensemble named Preoccupations. Perfect mood for dark nights of the souls. And Bodega, which is really growing on me. Grimes, aka, the most out-of-place artist in my library, has a new album and it’s fucking fantastic.
Artist: Jordan Nickel. Super colorful, slick AF, pop-art collages/paintings. If I had a LOT OF MONEY I would commission him to decorate my exceedingly large house.