My oh my, Lynda Barry has been sharing a flurry of work lately. In this post, she talks about drawing the same picture three times in yellow, then orange, then blue. I have never heard of this technique before. She learned it from another cartoonist. I’m going to have to learn more about Art Spiegelman now.

 

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I learned about drawing in three colors from Art Spiegelman as a way to pull a vague image forward. I do three quick drawings, one on top of the next, starting with yellow, then orange and then blue. I ink over that. Four of 12.

A post shared by Lynda Barry (@thenearsightedmonkey) on Jan 17, 2020 at 5:54am PST

 

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Something starts to happen when I draw the same scene a dozen times from memory. The drawings don’t get better or worse as I go. Instead The scene seems to come in and out of focus. I have to really push past wanting to stop when I can’t tell where it’s going to get to this other thing I can’t see while it’s happening. Some sort of style forming and falling apart. It’s not really in my control. I’m not sure how it’s done except by staying in motion. I’m interested in these two characters and where they are and when.

A post shared by Lynda Barry (@thenearsightedmonkey) on Jan 17, 2020 at 4:11am PST