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I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but over the last week, I have been taking part in PNCA’s Graphic Novel Intensive program, seven full days of lectures and workshops about comics. The first three days were dealing with storytelling and scriptwriting and were taught by Trina Robbins. The next two days were on character creation and development, taught by PNCA’s own Daniel Duford. The topper for the week, however, was a two day workshop on narrative and persuasion taught by the man himself, Scott McCloud. I’d like to truly thank Scott for making such a memorable stop (for me at least) on his family’s mad dash through North America. It was very inspiring to be around and learn from someone who obviously cares as much about comics as he does. In a way I am glad the class is over though because now I have the time and extra drive to work on my own comics again, something I had lost during my 16 day trek to the Midwest.

The days were split up between lecture periods and studio time. The exercises that we completed during the studio portion of each class were a lot of on the fly, quick thinking, “how the hell will I ever finish this on time” sort of things. So nothing I finished in class is very “polished” I suppose, but it wasn’t really about that. Here’s a picture of Scott contemplating my final comic (see below). What is Scott feeling while looking at my comic? Skepticism? Fondness? Perhaps a little resentment? ;) (Just kidding, the words above were from a previous exercise in facial and body expressions)

Here’s the comic seen above. We had to take the third letter of our name (I took the G in Bigtime as BT is only two letters) and think of something that starts with that letter. We then had 40 minutes (only?!!) to ideate, write, draw, and ink a one page story that involves whatever the thing is you just thought of. I picked a giraffe, obviously.

The first day of Scott’s class yielded my favorite exercise of the entire class though. Take 16 identically sized panels, pick 16 moments from the entire span of your life, and put them in chronological order so they create a narrative story. I chose to focus on the educational hits and misses of my life. We had about one hour and 15 minutes to complete this. The toughest part is remembering what hairstyle and glasses I had at the time. (Yes, I did have a big, black pompadour for a period of my life) In case you haven’t known me since I was 5, below the comic is a rundown on the panels if any are confusing.

1) First day of kindergarten
2) Age 5: Drawing is fun!
3) Age 7: Math is boring!
4) Age 10: Reading is boring!
5) Age 15: But drawing is still fun!
6) High school graduation, didn’t want to go, but I was happy to be done
7) Went to art school, 8 am art history = sleepy time. Still the only class during which I have fallen asleep
8) I HATE art school!
9) I drop out of art school after three months and a mental breakdown. Drawing is no longer fun… for about three years…
10) I discover Minneapolis Community College, where I learn…
11) Photography
12) Sound recording
13) Web design
14) Graduated with a web design degree but skipped out on the ceremony this time around
15) Moved to Portland, discovered PNCA
16) Drawing is fun again!

Hey everybody, did you miss me? I’m back from my two-week plus trek into the midwest and I have returned to Portland fairly unscathed. I think I’m going to ramp back up into posting by showing a few sketchbook things this week.

Oh, and today is my 27th birthday. When I was about 20 or 21, I made the prediction that the years of 23 through 26 would be the best years of my life. Now that I am officially beyond that range, I can look back and say that yes, the past four years have been the best up to this point, but you know what? I’m already excited because I think 27 may be even better. I also predicted in December 2006 that 2007 would be a breakout year for me creatively, and in a way it has been already, but I still have six more months to make even better on that, so prepare yourself for the glut of Bigtime-awesomeness coming your way.

Here’s an illustration of mine that was in today’s Portland Mercury. The article it accompanies is about renters’ rights. In Portland, many apartment buildings are being converted into condos. The renters of those apartments get evicted, some on very short notice. There is a proposed law that would make the owner of the building pay the moving expenses of the renter if he/she was evicted for this reason.

Also, the last thing I will post about my new uke:

I really wanted to bike around to parks and play the thing, as well as take it on a trip I will be leaving for shortly, so I made a carrying case for it. It’s made from a pair of cargo pants that had been ripped. (My bike saddle has the reputation of ripping out the crotches of many a pair of pants; other than that, it’s perfect) I had been holding onto them for just such an occasion. I took a bunch of the pockets from the pants and re-sewed them onto the case, so it has two big pockets (one on either side) and three smaller ones for picks or spare change or other doo-dads. The shoulder strap is part of an old bike tube, a favorite material of mine lately. The tube makes the perfect strap, it’s made of very pliable rubber so it just sort of stretches itself to whatever size it needs to accomodate. You can’t see it in the photo, but the interior is lined with 1/4″ thick thermal fleece, the leftovers from Rembrandt’s hair.

There were a few requests to actually hear the uke so here’s a quick mp3. I apologize for the poor quality of my computer’s internal microphone and for the fact that I’ve only been playing ukulele for a few days. DOWNLOAD

I’ll be taking a little bit of a summer vacation for the next two weeks, so I probably won’t be posting much as I won’t have access to my scanner. I plan on having quite a bit of free time to finish up a few necessary projects and comics though, so I should have a glut of material to show you when I return.

That’s it, I am officially the proud owner of my own ukelele! Here are the specs: Spanish cedar body (cigar box), mahogany neck with a 14-fret, rosewood fretboard. It’s a baritone ukelele so it’s a bit lower in pitch than your average uke, but it’s tuned similar to a guitar, so as a guitar player, I’m finding it easier to wrap my head around playing chords on it. It plays like a dream too. I spent countless hours today in a coffeeshop, in a hammock, and generally just wandering around playing this thing. I have yet to give it a name but I think it deserves one, so if anyone has any ideas, lay ‘em on me!

Also, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve contributed a page to the upcoming Kid’s Book Project. 60 different artists are all creating one page of the story and all profits will be donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The book is 20 pages in right now. I ended up getting page 8 and I’ll let you know right now that it is awesome. Here’s the catch, we need to get more people to pre-order the book now to make sure we can give a good amount to Make-A-Wish. If you could find it in your heart to order one (or more), that’d be swell. There are a lot of people attached to this project who are much cooler than I am so don’t let this opportunity to help out pass you by. Please click on the banner below for more info.

This post is dedicated to my good friend Liz, the first woman to teach me the true meaning of the word… ukelele.

I haven’t really been drawing much this week. I did an illustration for the Portland Mercury that can be seen in SUPER TINY VISION!!! in the photo, but that’s about it. I’ll post a more detailed shot of it on Thursday when the issue comes out. I’ve also been finishing up my part of a three-piece collaborative work for a show in July. It’ll be very different from my usual stuff, but I’ll have to wait until July to show you more. Anyways, the photo above is actually to show something else that’s super rad, the first steps toward my prototype for a plush robot series. If you can’t tell, the neck, arms, and legs are made from bicycle tire innertubes. Hooray for recycling.

I’ve also put a lot of work into the cigarbox ukelele I am making for my summer math class. I keep forgetting to bring my camera to class, so here is a shot from my phone’s camera. It’s really coming together, and check out those sweet mother-of-pearl dot inlays! I venture that I may in fact be finished with the uke by the time some of you are reading this. All I have left is to drill and install the tuners, attach the bridge, and slap some strings on it. I will post happy shots of me playing it later this week hopefully.

And a detailed shot of one of the sound holes and fretboard.