Hello my lovely subscribers!
I hope you’re all well and enduring whiplash of weather temps we’ve been having in New York these past few weeks. Hopefully spring will fully arrive soon and we can shed our many winter layers :’-)
With only about 2 weeks left before I lock in my project to send it to print, I have officially entered Crunch Time. Here’s a pic of my studio, with all 90 of my inked thesis illustrations!!
I’ve been working near-constant 14 hour days recently, trying to finish this gigantic project o’mine. Now that inks are long-finished, and coloring is winding down as well, I’ve been very much “burning the candle at both ends” and I truly feel like the lump of wax in the middle that remains.
I talked about that “last push” experience recently in one of my weekly comics on instagram last week. In case you missed it, here it is:
These weekly sketch comics have been so cathartic to make. Even though the last thing I need right now is more work, they’re still a great non-thesis exercise. One of the biggest things I’ve taken away from this year is something that my teacher, David Sandlin, said at the start of the year. “In such a big project like this, you need an anti-thesis to work on alongside it.”
When I first dove into thesis, I really disagreed with that. Thesis was all-consuming and I thought, how can I stretch myself more than this when I’ve already taken on so much? But, of course, David was right.
It’s so important to have something to turn to when you’re overwhelmed or too preoccupied by your current project. These weekly comics, that take around 1-2 hours to make (if they’re short), have been my anti-thesis. I hope you’ve been enjoying them as much as I have.
There’s been so many great things going on too, too many to include in this update! I’ll be sure to catch up in another update soon.
In the meantime, I thought I’d share some more exciting thesis news….
TA-DA!! My wall display plans for my upcoming thesis exhibition!
This is just a sketch/mockup, but I’m so excited to dive into this part of my project. Especially once my finished book is turned in. I won’t explain too much at this point, since I think there will be some very exciting behind-the-scenes content I can share here, but it’s all starting to come together.
I do miss having the more slice of life newsletter posts of mine with cute recipes and crafts, but I hope you’ve been liking the comics too! You can vote below to let me know which kind is your favorite!
Anyway, I hope you’re well. Talk to you soon, and have a gentle week. :-)
Until next time,
Chloe
