#SixFanarts (Patreon)

Remember in the Before Times when #SixFanarts swept through Artist Twitter? (Creatives asked their followers for characters to draw into a six-paneled template. ...it was a simpler time, then)

At the time I solicited your suggestions here and, man, I would love to link you to that post but I’m using the Patreon app and I... don’t know how to save this post AND go look up a previous one. Would the app even give me a post’s URL so I could use it in a link? I’m grateful for Patreon’s existence and I struggle with its backside infrastructure /:)

Anyway, anyway.

From your suggestions, I selected:

• Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus
• Pizazz from Jem and the Holograms
• Margo Hanson (High King) from The Magicians
• Rainbow Brite
• Jane Lane from Daria
• Steve Lieber from my studio Helioscope

And because I yam what I yam, obviously I had to participate in a flash-in-the-pan internet fad intended for quick, digital illustration by painstakingly embroidering my selections onto fabric by hand, which takes a million years even in the best of times.

Listen.

I just gotta be me, man.

Like I mentioned above, I did share some of my progress here but then a ““global”” ““““pandemic”””” happened and I got distracted and then eventually I did finish it but that was a while ago and I forgot to show you. So, now I’m doing that!

In Ye Olde Times, I would trace my designs by hand onto the cloth, but this led to really kinda fudged, imprecise line work which then became further distorted as I embroidered, producing subtly distorted illustrations. Now, when I’m working on a piece that needs precise lines, I print out my design onto a water-soluble material that I then stick onto my fabric and sew straight through. At the end, I rinse away the printout and I’m left with basically in-line stitches!

At some point into quarantine, I put it down and did not pick it up again for a couple months while I acclimatized to The New Normal. When I was ready to resume working on it, I decided not to document my progress on it because, mentally, I needed a project that was just for me to focus on without thinking of it in terms of using it for #content online.

So now it looks like I just -BAM!- summoned this finished piece out of thin air!

It’s hanging on the wall in my home studio, so even though I can’t go to my office downtown, I still get to say hi to my studiomate Steve every day anyway /:) HI, STEVE! I miss you! And... you know. Everyone.

Thanks for reading ❤️