Cute drawings are my comfort zone, so it’s an excellent place to warm up the creative brain. Today I drew four foxes, each with a little different personality but all the same basic shape. A simple tick or line can affect the whole mood with a comic-style drawing. Comics art is subtraction, removing superfluous marks till reaching the essential expression. Look at Charlie Brown; his face is two dots and the letter C for a nose. This simplicity makes room for the reader’s imagination to join the story.
I also like Lynda Barry’s wisdom that the life of the image world happens inside the frame. She recommends drawing the frame first as a place for the image world to present itself to you; the frame is a portal to a different dimension. When I color in their world with my markers, I hear the foxes come to life with voice and personality. Truly magical and transporting.
