Another question which I will briefly answer

According to my mom, since Pre-K, and I remember writing and illustrating my stories when I was about 5 or 6. But I thought the writing was just a hobby until high school.

And when that English teacher accused me of plagiarism after I turned in her synopsis assignment (you know I'm never forgetting that, right?), I knew that writing would become a part of my life just as much as my art.

Right now, if you're on my Instagram, I have been working on and posting sketch pages from a longtime story idea from 2000.

SUMMER TO WINTER(c) is a rambling saga in the life of a student who falls for her high school teacher. However, when they both meet years later, she as an adult, they fall for each other, she for the second time and he for the first.

The story will be organized as follows: Full-color front covers with Ohuhu and ShinArt Touch markers, first few interiors will be fully inked with full color and subsequent pages inked but gray-shade with gray markers.

I will be practicing with my new illustration software, Krita, on filters, effects, and how to do technical backgrounds. On advice from a former student that since I already take photos and screenshots as references, that I use free-stock photos as reference and alter in Krita.

I will continue to post my work-in-progress to the following Instagram: handdrawnbycarmenjr. I'm also actively looking a home for a handful of completed comics strips and as soon as I do, will shop this larger and longer story to those same publishing houses.

And, as always, dear readers, thank you for reading my blog and a Happy New Year to you all!

Front cover style

First 2-3 interior pages

All subsequent pages

More from the notebook...

By speaking to many Southerners (of Color), I learned how my Caribbean/West Indian background has been woven into the narrative of Southern U.S.A.

Also, Inktober is coming up and I'm left to wonder how much of Adobe Illustrator I will have to learn in order to do my comics or if I must also learn that basic manga software?

Not To Become Stagnant, I Often Turn To Creating Digitally

         When I am overwhelmed with other work, errands, or, just Life in general, I like to let my whimsy step in and create something crazy on the computer. Since I'm trapped, for whatever reason, and I can't pick up a pencil, pen, or sketchpad or to even lean over my art table, then I try not to let my imagination go stale by updating my site, post text, or do some quick digital art on my desktop.
This leads me to what's been going through my mind for almost two weeks: Book Covers.
One of my Facebook groups posted a URL I'm sure would've been hilarious if I could just get to it. Unfortunately, the particular site's server kept timing out and so I could not see the list of inappropriate children book covers.

On Tor Books, I had just read a delightful article on an artist-turned-author whose fantasy books got a gleaming, freshness from a pro artist the author admired.

I also read on The Paris Review that Edward Gorey, one of my favorite and macabre artists. He used to do book covers during the 1960s.(Those that remember "Masterpiece Theatre" in the 80s, the bleak but whimsical cartoon intro is his creations all the way. (There's even a running gag in my family with the young woman draped over a tombstone, her ankles tied, and she's wailing 'Oooh, oooh, OOOhhh' for help! I used to do this scene as a child to the delight of my family).

I even read another article I posted about the horrendously, inappropriate new edition cover for V.C. Andrews' notorious and infamous story "Flowers In the Attic", which I read while in junior high, my big sister read, and our mom saw the movie while visiting our grandmother in Jamaica.
So I started surfing the 'net for other lists of book covers.

This got me thinking about my own novel draft I'm working on and what type of cover it may get. Now, I know I may have little to zilch control of my cover, but I thought it would be fun if I made up a couple of drafts on my own. Months ago, I was painfully trying with Adobe InDesign, to no avail. But when I decided to use my trusty Microsoft Publisher, the ideas flew. It's a hodgepodge of images reminiscent of those late 60s and early 70s paperbacks, or pocketbooks, as they were called back then. Maybe I will have the guts to upload it to 'The Copper Sphinx' blog. We shall see.