Pictures of people – myf draws apparently

Inspiration: Paula Rego

April 11, 2017April 16, 2017Posted in pastels, Pictures of peopleTagged film, inspiration, life drawing, Paula Rego, TV2 Comments

I’ve always counted Paula Rego among my favourite artists, but before I watched this documentary (Paula Rego: Secrets and Stories) I didn’t know the half of her life story, and how it has fed into her pictures. Having now sat down and watched in riveted attention twice over, I’m finding her work all the more resonant.

One thing to take away from this film is the fact that she’s clearly worked away at her drawing every single day for years, driven — to the detriment of her maternal duties, as she freely admits! I’m always captivated (and slightly jealous) of those who have followed the life of an artist to the exclusion of all else, although beguiling as it is to see her many-coloured pastels and huge artist’s studio, there’s nothing to envy in the life story that unfolds. She endured poverty, a difficult marriage, multiple abortions, and the terminal illness of her husband before becoming the celebrated artist of today.

Art aside, it’s amazing to see a life that was captured so thoroughly in home movies and photographs. Rego was a stunning younger woman: you get to see her from childhood through to the older lady she is now.

Unfortunately, I think you can only watch if you’re in the UK, and it’s only up on the BBC site until 23 April*; however, it has all the signs of a film that will also be travelling to arthouse cinemas and festivals, so keep an eye out if you can.

Now perhaps it’s rather crass to take such inspiration and turn it into something consumerist, but one side effect of having seen the art-materials pornography of those vibrant sticks in close-up as they press and crumble against the sugar paper, was that I went and bought a nice new set of pastels. To be fair to myself, I had also been a very brave person and endured root canal surgery that day, so I was due some kind of treat.

I took my pastels to my regular life-drawing slot this week and really enjoyed the ease of use – I’ve been having a hard time recently, struggling a bit with watercolour and pencil crayon, so it was nice to work at a larger scale and more freely. I’m no Paula Rego, but, hey, I can smoosh pastels onto paper with the best of them.

The model was Frankie, whose hair is a wonder to behold: it really is that long, and she goes by the name of Floor-length Frankie.

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*If I have counted properly, but the BBC tell you what date it went up and how many days it’ll be available, and I’m not sure how they calculate the start day. Do just hurry, as I’d hate for you to miss it by one day just because of my poor understanding of calendars.

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Illustrated Women In History exhibition

April 9, 2017April 7, 2017Posted in Pictures of people, WatercolourTagged events, exhibitions, Swindon, women in history, zines2 Comments

Kathrine Switzer by Myfanwy Tristram banner

I’m really pleased to say that I have a small illustration in the Illustrated Women in History exhibition and the accompanying zine.

The exhibition is up in Swindon Central Library now, and runs until the end of April. You can buy the zine here.

Its maker, Julie Gough, has for some time now been doing a great job of collecting pictures and short biographies of women from a variety of artists — this is the third issue of Illustrated Women in History. She herself is on a mission to draw a woman a week: the project was prompted by the scandalous story of a London museum which gained planning permission on the grounds that it would celebrate the lives of women. When it opened, it had somehow transformed into a Jack the Ripper ‘attraction’.

Julie’s exhibition and zine profile women as diverse as Tove Jansson, Banana Yoshimoto, Boudicca and Grace Jones. For my own submission, I chose to draw Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon. I could identify with her a little, as I enjoy running myself — albeit on a much less ambitious scale — and I found her story interesting (and, it should be noted, not entirely without controversy).

In reading up on Switzer, I discovered that running, like so many other areas of life (and even those which seem so obviously gender neutral in the present day), was once a far more male-dominated pursuit. Suffice to say that the sports bra wasn’t even invented until 1975.

This is my illustration (along with genuine quotes from other runners, journalists and race officials of the time); it takes some liberties with colour and clothing, as I wanted her to stand out. It was in fact raining on the day, and in Switzer’s own account she notes that she was annoyed at having to wear a grey full-length sweat suit, the only weatherproof running gear available in those days. Again, rather different to today’s picture when the sports shops are bursting with lycra running gear with a different colour for each season.

If you’d like to see the accompanying biography, and many more pictures of interesting women by lots of talented artists, you’ll have to swing by Swindon library, or grab a copy of the zine for yourself. Thanks to Julie for bringing so many women, some obscure and forgotten, back to light.

My #HourlyComicDay 2017 in full

February 4, 2017Posted in Cartoons, pencil crayon, Pictures of people, Sketch diaryTagged #hourlycomicsday, comics, diary comics, family, hourly comic day, hourly comics day, Lush, sketch diaries, sketch diary2 Comments

Myfanwy Tristram Hourly Comic Day 2017 www.myfanwytristram.com

I’ve been absolutely up to my neck in the Draw The Line project (comic artists drawing positive political actions that anyone can take), but when Hourly Comic Day rolled around, I couldn’t bear the thought of not taking part.

I’ve participated for the past three years, and the concept chimes very well with my tendency towards diary-based comics. This year though, I’d be in Leeds with work, for an all-day meeting that would neither allow for the luxury of regular drawings and uploads, nor provide very interesting or varied content. So I cheated slightly, and completed my hourlies on the Saturday beforehand.

As with every year, it was slightly stressful and time-consuming, and I ended up feeling a bit unhappy about sharing rough work. But also as with every year, I believe that the narrative supersedes the quality of the drawing in the end.

Anyway, awkward preamble over, here’s my Hourly Comic Day. Click any of the images to see them at a larger size.

If I have time, I hope to do my usual round-up post of other people’s too, but it might not be as quick off the mark as it usually is.

Happy Christmas

December 22, 2016Posted in Cartoons, Greetings cards, Photoshop, Pictures of peopleTagged Christmas, Christmas cards1 Comment

christmas-card-by-myfanwy-tristram-snippet

Best wishes of the season to you all, from me and my family (including the furry components thereof).

Sketches from Kendal

October 30, 2016Posted in pencil crayon, Pictures of people, SketchesTagged drawing, Kendal, Lakes festival1 Comment

Our trip to the Lakes Festival was so eventful that I plan to make a comic about it — that’s always supposing life quietens down enough to allow for a bit of drawing soon.

Meanwhile, here are a few sketches I did from behind our table. Click any of them to see at a larger size.

If you’re drawing directly from life, you end up with a lot of views of people’s backs, which isn’t the most compelling subject. That’s because the ones who have their faces towards you are probably also talking and/or buying stuff.

These were the very first three people to come to our stall. No-one sticks around long, and I soon remembered how much more comfortable I am working from a photo — so a quick snap on the phone it was.

Zara and I both drew these ladies, having been struck by their super hair – here’s Zara’s version.

On the way to the loo, I spied these young adults in a shaft of sunlight: clearly they couldn’t wait until they got home to start digging into their new comics.

And finally, I drew this child and woman from a photo, while traveling home from Kendal. Not bad, if I do say so myself, on very little sleep and a bumpy train table! I don’t know if the two subjects were related to one another, nor whether the woman’s slightly disapproving look was directed at me for pointing my phone towards her, but I do like the resulting picture.

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See you at the Lakes – & I’ll have a new comic with me

October 3, 2016October 4, 2016Posted in Cartoons, Graphic Novels, pencil crayon, Pictures of peopleTagged comic festivals, drawing, Instagram, social media

It’s not long now until my compadre in comics, Zara Slattery, and I hop onto a train to make the long journey to the Lakes International Comics Art Festival. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll come and see us.

Here’s a map of the Clocktower building (click to see bigger) — we’ll be on the ground floor, not far from the entrance. And here’s a very large photo of my face so that you can recognise me.

I’ll be selling comics I’ve mentioned on here before: Two Birds, Everything My 10-year-Old Daughter Wore In November, and Salon of Rejects, plus postcards and stickers. All being well, I’ll also have Hello World, a brand new comic about Instagram.

If you follow me on Instagram itself, you’ll have seen some of the drawing process and, far more challenging, the cutting, sticking, unsticking and resticking that ensued when it dawned on me that a comic about Instagram could only really have one format: it needed to be a vertical scroll. Cue lots of rough print-outs and mock copies in various configurations.

This proved to be a more difficult printing job than I’d anticipated. Fortunately, Rich at Comic Printing UK was far more patient than he needed to be for such a small print run, and after several emails back and forth we hatched a plan which means it won’t be impossibly expensive to produce (partly because it is to be printed in three parts, which I’ll be gluing together myself) — and therefore, crucially, won’t need an impossibly high price tag either.

While I’m talking technical stuff, this is also the first comic I photographed rather than scanning: you may remember my recent blog post when I compared the results of the two methods and how scanning negatively impacted some of the pencil crayon drawings.

The comic deals with a mobile phone app and was shot via a mobile phone camera: how’s that for consistency? Maybe I should pretend it was all part of a high-concept plan.

Totnes & Lyme Regis holiday diary, part 6: in which we break everything and go home

July 17, 2016July 18, 2016Posted in pen, Pictures of people, Sketch diary, Sketches, WatercolourTagged holiday sketch diary, lyme regis, sketch diary, sketchbook8 Comments

Totnes & Lyme Regis holiday sketch diary by Myfanwy Tristram

This is the very final episode in our Totnes and Lyme Regis holiday. If this is the first page you’ve seen, you probably want to start at part 1, actually.

Ha! I only wrote that page (above) out a few days ago, and several new things have happened in politics. It’s as if someone has pressed the fast forward button by mistake.

This map (below) was available free, all over the town, for tourists to pick up — and it was drawn by Hugh, our B&B proprietor. Taking a proper look at it, it’s clear that there is still plenty to do in Lyme Regis, so we will have to return.

We were sad to come home, but drawing it all has, as always, helped me relive the holiday. Hope you’ve enjoyed it too!

Totnes and Lyme Regis holiday sketch diary, part 5: Beatrix Potter’s windswept hair

July 16, 2016July 18, 2016Posted in pen, Pictures of people, Sketch diary, Sketches, WatercolourTagged holiday sketch diary, holidays on public transport, holidays without a car, lyme regis, sketch diary, sketchbook, Somerset2 Comments

Myfanwy Tristram sketch diary - Totnes and Lyme Regis

This is part 5 of our holiday in Totnes and Lyme Regis. If you haven’t seen prior episodes, you’ll want to begin from the beginning, so start here.

We’re nearly at the end of the holiday now: just one more installment after this.

As before, click on any image and then click again to see it at a larger scale.

The final episode is here.

Totnes and Lyme Regis holiday sketch diary, part 4: cows, worms, moles & other animals

July 15, 2016July 18, 2016Posted in Landscapes, pen, Photoshop, Pictures of people, Sketch diary, Sketches, Street illustration, WatercolourTagged holiday sketch diary, lyme regis, running, second hand books, sketch diary, sketchbook, Somerset3 Comments

The image at the top of this post is a happy accident which happened on Photoshop, as I was trying to clean up the picture of the bookshop that appears in the third page below. I like it better than the actual painting, so here it is as a header.

Part 1 is here, part 2 is here and part 3 is here. If you’d like to see the pages at a larger scale, click on the image and then click again.

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Episode 5 is here.

Totnes and Lyme Regis holiday sketch diary, part 3: my baby steampunk gets a taste of celebrity

July 14, 2016July 16, 2016Posted in Pictures of people, Sketch diary, SketchesTagged Devon, holiday sketch diary, Plymouth, sketch diary, sketchbook1 Comment

This is the third section of a holiday sketch diary covering a week in Devon and Somerset. Part 1 is here; and part 2 is here. Enjoy!

Click on the images below, and then click again if you would like to see them at a larger size.

Part 4 is here.

Totnes and Lyme Regis holiday sketch diary, part 2: otters, steam trains and Ballardian dystopias

July 13, 2016July 15, 2016Posted in Character illustration, Pictures of people, Sketch diary, Sketches, WatercolourTagged Devon, drawing, holiday sketch diary, Plymouth, sketch diary, sketchbook2 Comments

This is the second part of a holiday sketch diary in which we stayed in Totnes and Lyme Regis. Probably best not to start on day 2: you can read part 1 here.

As ever, click on the images below, and then click again if you would like to see them at a larger size.

Totnes and Lyme Regis holiday sketch diary, part 1: one man and his gluestick

July 12, 2016July 13, 2016Posted in pencil crayon, Pictures of people, Sketch diary, Sketches, WatercolourTagged Devon, drawing, holiday sketch diary, holidays on public transport, lyme regis, sketch diary, sketchbook, Somerset, totnes9 Comments

So, here it is! Every time we go on holiday I swear I’m not going to bother with a sketch diary — and every time, I end up spending more time and attention on it. I suppose I have to admit that there’s no escape now. This is what I do.

So here’s part 1 of 6, chronicling our recent family trip.

We started in a part of Devon we know well, Totnes, before a few days in Lyme Regis, which was new to us. As usual, the whole holiday was by public transport — well, it had to be since none of us can drive. :)

Click on each image, and then click again, if you’d like to see the page at a larger size.

Apologies about the next page; I know the wording is badly placed for reading – but it turned out to be difficult to fit it in any other way, so in the end I left it as it is. I hope you can still get the gist.

My complete Hourly Comic Day 2016

February 2, 2016April 8, 2016Posted in Cartoons, pen, Pictures of people, Sketch diaryTagged #hourlycomicsday, hourly comic day, hourly comics day7 Comments

Hourly Comic Day 2016 by Myfanwy Tristram p4

So – was it more difficult completing Hourly Comic Day on a working day?

You bet it was. There’s not very much of visual interest to draw, and it means you have to do a full day’s work and then put in several hours drawing into the night.

I saw a few canny people shifted theirs to Sunday, and I’m beginning to see what a good idea that is. If you were really clever, you could even draw your frames on the Sunday and then schedule them to go out once an hour on Twitter the next day… or is that just too duplicitous?

I was really looking forward to Hourly Comic Day but actually… I’d forgotten that it can be quite stressful, what with aching shoulders as you hunch over your pages, the insecurity of seeing everyone else’s work pouring out (and of course it’s *all excellent*), and the hardest thing for me, which is trying to keep up a decent standard of drawing in real time. It’s a real test of just how well you can extemporise, and that, for me, is a real challenge.

But enough moaning. Ignore my insecurities. I hope you enjoyed these cartoons. :)

Three handmade birthday cards

January 11, 2016April 8, 2016Posted in Character illustration, Greetings cards, Pictures of people, WatercolourTagged birthday cards, neko atsume, tapirs4 Comments

It took me about 30 seconds to decide what to draw on my daughter’s birthday card this year.

We’ve both recently been charmed by Neko Atsume, a Japanese kitty-based tomodachi-style game/app, bonding over our collection of pussy cats and trying out different virtual cat food to attract them.

If you’re hooked too, you’ll recognise the smiley cats below (apologies for all the phone snaps in this post, but hopefully you can still get the general idea).

The cats in Neko Atsume are almost all the same basic shape, and are seen in one of a limited repertoire of poses.

My original plan was to make a little rubber stamp of one of those standard poses, but it turned out too be too fiddly for the amount of time I had at my disposal. For my second attempt, I went for the primary-school technique of tracing paper and pencil (basically a monoprint if I want to make myself feel better about it).

As always, I learned something from sitting down to try and replicate someone else’s drawings. The Neko Atsume cats are all marked in some combination of a small group of colours: dark grey, light grey, orange, light tan, white, and black — and all marked in a combination of stripes, spots or one colour all over.

Inside was the greedy white cat Tubbs, who comes and snaffles all the posh cat food from time to time.

The card went down even better than I’d expected: those Japanese kitties sure provoke some strong emotions!

Just a week after my daughter’s birthday, it’s my husband’s. Recently, he’s been going through a mid-life crisis sporting a surprising range of hair colours: I never know what my own husband will look like next!

This quick card is meant to be a gentle mockery of that.

That t-shirt was one I picked up at Thought Bubble as a way of saying thank you for staying home and doing the childcare while I flitted off to Leeds.

Finally, while I’m showing greetings cards, here’s one from last summer.

My friend and colleague Dave has a particular fondness for tapirs. Sadly, he also has a particular dislike of people making a fuss for his birthday, but it was too late by the time we’d discovered that: a rousing round of ‘Happy Birthday to you’ and a candle in his cafe breakfast granola it was, then.

Hopefully a nice tapir card went some way towards making up for the embarrassment:

It was a layered accordion-style card so that it had room for all my colleagues to sign it.

Inside, we wrote the very best tapir-based pun we could come up with after several days of hard thinking: Hope the celebrations don’t TAPIR out too soon.

Dave accepted the card, read the inscription, then replied, I don’t mean to sound UNGULATE-ful, but…’. Ah, his pun was better than ours.

Can I be a mother and a successful artist? Hmm, let’s see

January 1, 2016April 8, 2016Posted in Cartoons, Fashion illustration, Graphic Novels, pen, Pictures of people, Sketch diary, Sketches, WatercolourTagged drawing, graffiti, illustration, parenthood, sketch diaries, sketching, street art11 Comments

This piece of graffiti is a fairly new addition to an underpass on one of my running routes. I enjoy graffiti and street art well enough, but my goodness, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a piece of it that spoke so directly to my own concerns. I’d like to meet whoever scrawled this and have a good long chat with her.

I’m not sure whether the big ‘NO’ underneath it is in answer, or whether it’s part of a previous piece of graffiti. Either way, it adds some hollow humour that I also enjoy.

Anyway, with all of that in mind, here’s my review of how I did on the ‘artist’ side for 2015 (the parenting side is always a work in progress, and another matter).

Comics

Lots of my work comes directly from motherhood and this year that was reflected in two cartoons: one about the school run, and one about my own mum.

In 2014, I drew Underdog, which relates a true experience of sewing with my daughter, and this year it was placed second in a prize, which is very gratifying.

I once again had a shot at the Cape/Comica/Observer graphic short story contest, but feel more and more resigned to the fact that I’ll never make a dent in that one.

I made a four-page comic about what happens when you take synchronised swimming to an extreme.

Feb 3rd brings the annual challenge of Hourly Comics Day. I’m looking forward to this year’s, although as it’s a working day, I’m a bit concerned as to how I’ll manage it…

Clothes

The 30-pictures-in-30-days Clovember project was also a motherhood project: I drew everything my daughter wore (far more interesting than my own outfits).

This year I was lucky enough to work on a couple of projects with the Swedish fashion label Gudrun Sjoden, purveyors of beautiful, sustainable clothes. In March, I painted customers in their shop, and then of course in August I had an amazing two days pretending to be a model. This has to be the wildest and most incredible reward that drawing has brought me yet.

The sketch diary I made around that trip has had an amazing amount of comments, likes and shares: it’s wonderful to have had it enjoyed by so many. And that’s not the last of it: I’ll be working with Gudrun Sjoden again this year, and I’ll share more details when that happens.

Travel

We had family holidays in Frome and Barcelona, and I drew a sketch diary for each (16 pages and 26 pages respectively). The Stockholm diary added another 12 pages.

I also recorded a trip to Madrid for work (26 pages). I was particularly pleased to find a way to combine my very interesting day job, and my drawing.

I love having my sketch diaries, and I do enjoy the process of making them, but as my drawing ability improves, so do my ambitions, until I am in the silly situation of having to spend a couple of hours a day on them for weeks after our return.

This time could be used for other types of drawing, so this year I will have to think carefully about whether to continue.

As it happens, my favourite type of sketchbook appears to be really thin on the ground at the moment: I haven’t been able to find any in TK Maxx and Homesense, where I usually pick up two or three at a time.

I have two unused ones in a drawer at home and after that it’s entirely possible I won’t be able to find any more, which is a real shame as I’ve never seen any other sketch book that’s quite as well-suited to sketch diaries. Maybe it’s a sign that it really is time to give up.

Other stuff

As I only just posted, I drew my daughter’s stocking and all its contents (twice in one year, as it turned out, as I only completed 2014’s stocking on January 3rd 2015).

I also made my daughter’s party invitation – more happy combining of parenthood and drawing.

People and events

This blog was given an incredible boost by WordPress when they featured it in a round-up post at the beginning of the year, and then in a couple of subsequent features. That recognition has brought almost 5,000 subscribers to my blog. That’s great, and makes me think of ‘success’ and ‘exposure’ in entirely new ways.

But sometimes you also have to meet people in the real world, right? Even if parenthood has put you in the habit of staying in of an evening.

I went to a few excellent drawing-related events this year: an talk put on by the Lewes Children’s Book Group, and the inspiring Graphic Brighton conference.

Then there was the Brighton Illustration Fair which had a strong comics slant. This year, I’m going to try and be on the other side of a table.

Finally, I rediscovered Cartoon County, a group specifically for cartoonists, and right on my doorstep – I really should make more effort to go.

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So, can you be a successful artist and a mother? To answer that question quite seriously, I’d say that yes, you can.

I’m not pretending that I’m a successful artist myself – that must depend on your definition of ‘successful’, but I’d bet that most people’s definitions would include making a living from it. I am an artist who’s becoming more content with her work, and enjoying a burgeoning readership though, so that must be a good thing.

If I had to guess, I’d say that the anonymous graffiti artist is probably in the early stages of motherhood (or maybe even pregnant, and thinking ahead?). If that’s so, then my answer would be to hang on in there. The first few years of motherhood do not allow for very much else, but that’s not a permanent state. And motherhood will inspire your art in new ways.

Illustration for a petting party invitation

December 23, 2015April 8, 2016Posted in pen, Photoshop, Pictures of peopleTagged party invitations, petting party2 Comments

petting party birthday invitation by Myfanwy Tristram

Sorry – you’re not actually invited, which is why I’ve deleted the time, date and venue details from this image (you’ll have to imagine how they are in the same lettering, to her right).

I just wanted to show you the most recent results of my favourite annual job: designing invitations for my daughter’s birthday party.

You can see some previous invitations here (the year she had a party at Lush) and here (ice skating).

Tabs did have the nice idea that we could display them all framed up on a wall at home, so that’s something I might try and get organised over the holidays. She also said that she’d definitely wear a t-shirt like the one I invented for this illustration. :)