Read and Erase Drawing Notes
One last process post for those interested…I drew For Lives with my left
(non-dominant) hand. I tried to do so again for Read,
but for reasons I don’t understand it didn’t feel right after
about a dozen drawings. Weird! At the time it was frustrating, but maybe
it’s a good thing that Read
is visually
differentiated from its predecessor.
Plus I’m always very pleased when I fail because it means that I’m making progress.
I
did, however, replicate the drawing and sequencing process I used in
For Lives:
I had a rough idea for the story, but I just drew straight to
pencil/ink until I had roughly double the number of drawings I
needed. Then I edited down, sequenced, and added text from my
research that I had already divided into panel-sized pieces on index
cards. This is a variation of the method Frank Santoro teaches in his
correspondence course. Above are a few pictures I took as I was
working – as you might see, I also printed out the photos of
Stein/Toklas to include them in the sequencing process. Rearranging panels like this isn’t something I do for every project – it doesn’t always feel right – but there is a strange alchemy to the process of rearranging images until everything fits together.