• Shop
  • Blog
  • Tilted Sun
  • About
  • Links For You
Menu

Becky Jewell

art and comics
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • Tilted Sun
  • About
  • Links For You
×
becky jewell ocean dreams.png

Sketchbook Confessional August 2019

Becky Jewell September 2, 2019

Welcome to another Sketchbook Confessional where I go through everything I did in a month!

Background on Sketchbook Confessionals:

I found that I wasn’t keeping track of how much art I did and that while I had a to-do list, I wasn’t keeping a good ‘done’ list. The Sketchbook Confessional is a chance for me to get it all out and just post everything I did in a month, a time-bound way of reeling in the chaos of art.


Art:

August brought many ups and downs for me in the studio and day-by-day, I made some art, but not a whole lot. I’m still working on relaunching Tilted Sun soon. For most of August I would get home from work and be nearly exhausted, too tired and too hot to do anything but eat Fruity Pebbles and hang out with Geddy. I mostly felt like the girl in the illustration above - knives everywhere, fun crystals everywhere, but at least I still have my pool of dreams.

To just get my art off the ground I made this work of a man with a lotus on his face:

becky jewell lotus face.png

In working on Tilted Sun I am thinking mostly in covers and symbols - which isn’t a bad place to be, it just makes the surface a bit hard to reach if you’re at the bottom of an iceberg. I wish there were more conversational parts of the comic where characters talk to each other and the plot advances, but right now I think it’s like 68 pages of world building, so, my plan is to change that with the upcoming set of pages. Holy smokes. If you ever feel like criticizing a comic try making one for yourself first.

tilted sun.png

I also worked on identifying more places where I was weak as an artist. Namely, shirt collars. Shirt collars are very confusing to me and I am not very good at drawing them.

Like saying the same word over and over again, the more you repetitively draw something, the weirder it ends up looking.

shirt collars becky jewell.png

But, I did learn a lot about collars, and, most of all I learned that it is good to look at references to draw these.

In August I worked on pouring ink patterns - these are not ‘art’ on their own, so what I typically do is cut each sheet into multiple pieces and re-collage them. The ink patterns are like origami paper - they are a material, but they are not yet in their final form.

becky jewell ink patterns.jpg



While pouring out ink, the excess needs to be dabbed with tissue or it will flow off the sheet. This ends up creating very beautiful patterns on paper towels and toilet paper.

ink paper towel.jpg

I’m not sure what to do with these by-products yet, but my instinct is to save them.

Travel:

columbine becky jewell.jpg

In early August I went to my hometown Leadville to get away from the DC heat and relax a bit. On a shakier-than-one-would-like flight, I drew these lotuses which I had seen near the Anacostia river at the Lotus festival, using a pen from Sekaido in Tokyo

becky jewell lotus.png

The Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike race happened to be happening during the same weekend I was in Leadville. It was super to see so many old friends in Leadville, including immense triathlete Alex, Leadville Laurel, and my old cross country ski coach, Mr. Quinn.

Many people have probably heard of the record snow this year in places like Colorado and Lake Tahoe. All of this snow allowed flowers to bloom in August, in amounts I had never before seen. Here are photos I took of the mountain flowers:

alpine creek mt sherman leadville colorado becky jewell.jpg
alpine flowers elephants becky jewell leadville colorado.jpg
blue trails leadville colorado.jpg
columbine boquet leadville colorado.jpg
columbine mountain field becky jewell leadville mt sherman.jpg
leadville halfmoon creek becky jewell artist.jpg
lupine forest leadville becky jewell.jpg
mountain lupine leadville becky jewell.jpg
mountain sunflowers leadville colorado becky jewell.jpg

It will be good to go into the winter with these photos as a reminder of summer, and I can paint the flowers from my studio in Maryland.

Reading and Playing:

As an unabashed nonfiction junkie, I read the following books:

Finding Ultra - A great book by Rich Roll, where he harnesses his extreme personality and transcends alcoholism to become one of the fittest athletes and ultramarathoners in the world.

Art Thinking - my boss lent me this book and it is the most meaningful book I’ve read about art in years. The book’s thesis is that art as a practice can be integrated into working life, not separated, an absolutely dazzling argument compared to the traditional narrative of dayjob/artjob splitting. It’s not just that art and life can be integrated, but when it’s integrated, all of humanity benefits. Read this book if you are an artist who is also a lawyer/doctor/software executive/worker.

Unfuck Yourself - An instant classic. I loved the positive affirmations. If you read the entire book in a Scottish accent, it’s even better.

And after carrying the book halfway around the world to Japan and back, I finally finished reading Cryptonomicon - It took me about as long to read this book as Neal Stephenson took to write a new one. 1000 pages of code making, code breaking, treasure hunting.

I played a bunch of Octopath Traveler after my friend Jesse lent me a Nintendo Switch.

octopath traveler.png

I also played Breath of the Wild, which reminded me a lot of exploring the mountains in Leadville and hiking around Colorado. I haven’t finished either game but just getting to play them for a small amount of time was inspiring from a production perspective - the details and artistry in each game gave me some hope for the world.

Related blogs:

Sekaido art store in Tokyo

Leadville Summer 2019 Photos

Making of Tilted Sun

July 2019 Sketchbook Confessional

becky jewell artist.png


Who wrote this:

I am an artist who lives and works in Maryland-shy-of-DC! I make comics, oil paintings, and I travel! See you next time …

-Becky Jewell
























Tags leadville, lotus
← Plein Air Painting at Harper's FerryLeadville Summer 2019 Photos →

Art, comics travel, books, life! Welcome to my blog!

xoxo

Becky

Visit the shop!

becky jewell artist leadville.png

Subscribe

Sign up for my newsletter and stay up to date on my latest projects, shows, and thoughts on life.

We respect your privacy.

Thank you!
Clip Studio Paint - Shop Now!
  • March 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • November 2021
  • September 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • December 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • October 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • August 2015
Clip Studio Paint - Shop Now!


View more cats by visiting my portfolio!

Liquid Memory
Portfolio

About

You’ve scrolled down far enough to see this image of a dude polishing a server rack!

server guy.png
Clip Studio Paint - Shop Now!