Three Artist Trading Cards

I put together a “wisdom text” shelf after taking a meditation course with Lama Rod Owens. It’s full of texts that have helped me experience some liberation. I’ll describe this experience as one where I feel open, not stuck, an experience of not constricting around any particular thought or feeling, at least for a moment. I feel like I can choose.

So a few weeks ago I went to this shelf without much expectation. I took out Making Comics by Lynda Barry. And I started reading it from the beginning.

This is the spread where I stopped. Look at that last sentence! YES! I have FAITH in the “spontaneous ordering forces from which stories appear.”

I wanted to make artist trading cards immediately. I also wanted to try copying styles of artists I had seen online. So I made these three cards:

Each started with a squiggle. I made one with pencil, then I made one with colored pencils, then I made one with colored Flair pens. Then I was tired, so I stopped. The styles I tried copying (from memory) for the first two were Paul Peng’s and Hannah Lock’s. Their drawings make me want to draw. This is a quality that I find precious. The goal was to experiment, not to copy their styles well. The experiment was a success because I made three drawings.

Stories and characters took shape. I had faith this would happen.