Illustrated Thesaurus Originals
February 10th, 2012 by Ajay
If you’re an artist you know how great it feels to have your art on a nice thick piece of paper strewn about the floor of your artin’ room.
I started out drawing these poorly in a sketchbook. Eventually I moved to some series 300 Strathmore vellum bristol. In terms of a boring, white sheet of paper it is pretty great. I have a pad of plate bristol in another brand(borden & riley) and it’s awful. The ink spreads out and bleeds so that the artwork looks all fuzzy. Eww. However, the vellum of the borden & riley stuff is great and doesn’t bleed. I am almost out of the 9×12 pages that I use for the thesaurus entries, too *sad face.* If you want to be super nice and donate something so I can buy some more pads of this awesome paper, that would be great. If there’s any wallpapers or ATCs I can make as thanks, be sure to let me know in the comments or at aj dot stewped at gmail dot com.
I really want to make 2012 worthwhile for you visitors to any of my comics sites. I know that I’ve been a bit of a sappy screw-around the past 5, 6, 7 years? I think I started in 2003, posting stuff here and there. Then, due to some baloney or other I’d pitch a fit and give up for a month. Two months. 6 months. A year. Ugh. How embarrassing. Thanks, chrome, for telling me that there are two ‘R’s in embarrassing. However, this year is going to be different and awesome.
This year I’ve got a sweet schedule, thanks to the wife, and I’ve been super-good at sticking to it. For instance, in January I posted 4 Illustrated Thesaurus definitions and 6 comics on Chronic Malpractice. Not a bad start to the year. My plan is a minimum of 4 ‘comics’ to each site each month. The rest of my time is being spent on other secret projects. You’ve seen a bit of one of them on here. The Word Man artwork.
Oh, I just remembered that in starting up the thesaurus entries again I had to clean all my rapidograph pens. I let the ink sit in them for TWO YEARS. A big NO-NO. My favorite size broke while I was cleaning it. I soaked the nibs in 100% strength cleaning solution, even! However, the ink had so set in that when I unscrewed it the all-important inside parts busted. This was the .80 size pen and my favorite for lettering and drawing word bubbles.
When I looked up the price for just this pen: $30! I paid $70 for a set of 7 pens! Out. Rage. Us. I’m making-do with the .60 size for now. I thought about just buying a new set of 7 for the price of 2 pens. Then at least I’d have backups of everything else. If you want to help out and “buy” me some art supplies I’ll just leave that button below. No pressure or anything. I do promise to make this year awesome with comics though. At least 4 a month on Chronic Malpractice and at least 4 Thesaurus definitions.
And thanks for sticking with me.