Category Archives: illustration

Welcome home

Looking Back, ACEO. Markers, 2014
Looking back
Markers, 2014

I’m back! (And so is the prints and paper-comics store) And I’ve returned with the awful problem of wanting to do everything at once. Between the break and the sheer busy of the start of this year, June suddenly feels lonely. Quiet. Like I’m not doing anything, despite the to-do list and that the month has only just begun. What I really need to do is sit down and plan out a few (big!) things, but it’s so much easier to just busy myself with all the little things instead.

Like this new card.

News: Consent Zine, Zine Fair and new art!

EVENT! I’ll be at the CZE Zine Fair this Sunday …and then I can get to writing a re-cap of all the month’s previous events. ;;

For the past almost-week, the YES | NO zine has been my baby. The most magnificent EmmaJeans and I are meeting tomorrow to go through the submissions we’ve received and put it all together. Thank you to everyone who supported this project, whether by tweet, promotion, encouraging words or incredibly beautiful submissions at the shortest of notice (you particularly crazy and amazing people). THANK YOU.

We WILL be selling the YES | NO zine at the Zine fair, for a gold coin donation. All monies from the zine will be donated to the Domestic Violence Crisis Service ACT or Beryl Women.

I’ve also got a submission for the zine that I finished just on deadline-day:

LOVE is NOT CONSENT for the Yes | No project CG, 2014
LOVE is NOT CONSENT
for the Yes | No project
CG, 2014

This was a difficult one to get out, but I think this is as close as I’m going to get for now.

Love is not consent. With the exception of very specific types of relationships between consenting adults with a clear idea of what they want, loving someone or having someone who loves you does not make that person(s) a 24/7 open access ticket to sex. For marriage, for relationships of any sort, for not-yet or never-will-be relationships.

My first drafts of the Love is not consent theme were more to do with one partner as an aggressor, with the horrible idea of marital rape and sexual assault within a relationship.  But on reflection, I wanted to do something more complex – to show that this can happen even within a happy ending.  I think that stems because I’m personally not in this situation – I see this expectation so often in relationships I hear about, but I don’t have any of this sort of pressure now. And it’s wonderful and safe.

Love itself is a positive happy thing – in my mind, the couple in this picture are deeply in love and have a healthy, happy relationship. But if you can’t take the time out to pause and ask your partner “is it okay if we do ___?”, and receive (or give!) and honest answer, then that’s something that needs to be fixed.

…In other news, here’s the earlier, back-up submission I did while trying to figure out how to best express the LOVE theme:

OPEN LEGS are NOT CONSENT. Being able to do the splits is awesome, not consent. CG 2014
OPEN LEGS are NOT CONSENT.
Being able to do the splits is awesome, not consent.
CG 2014

Some time ago I read an article about how splits and oversplits were the new cool meme for Chinese netizens. That’s super cool! Except for the comments from the peanut gallery, mainly along the lines of “she’ll tear her girl bits apart” and “durr hurr hurr all the better for me to drill her hurr hurr”. I have a variety of very snarky comments for the latter, but it all pretty much drills down to: go away and leave me to do my splits in peace. There are some things I do, even as a female, that are amazingly not for the sexual gratification of barely developed monkey men.

Clear skies ahead

SKY - Digital piece by SpAE, 2013.
SKY
Digital, 2013.

The CCAS members exhibition came down on the weekend. So from now to the end of the year, it’s time to catch up on some other projects. I’m on the home stretch of NV2, in the middle of designs for an issue of another series, and doing a little more writing on my own. Today’s quick warm up sketch comes from admiring just how silver the clouds have been lately.

At the exhibition opening last last week, I overheard some people talking about my painting. The most interesting group, and the group who spent the longest looking at it during the time I was there, were gesturing and chatting very excitedly, though unfortunately in a language I don’t understand (yet). And then one of them went right up to the picture and pointed at one of the people turning into ice cream and there was a big “a-ha!” moment in the group. It was kind of thrilling to watch people get right up close and connecting with my art.

I’ve never been so proud of my own work.