Up and down emotions

    I've been slow in recording my son's growing up years. That's because when it's my free time at home, it's usually time to look after him and I don't have my hands free. I sometimes think that I can form entire comics ideas just in my mind. But with lots of distractions around me, it usually doesn't come together.

    To boil it down, I think I have 2 ways I do these comics. One way, I sit down undisturbed and pencil out a story. Then I would ink it and colour it on another occasion. The other way? I use a pen and draw it out straight from my head. With this method, I can't be distracted. (Ok I can't be distracted either way!) So drawing it at a cafe by myself or after everyone has fallen asleep is ideal. I would also draw it out slowly. I make every sentence and picture count.

    When journalling small separate moments, I don't have to worry about a start and end so much. There isn't much of a story structure like - want/problem, attempts, and solution. But I do think of the emotions- whether it is moving up or down. In this comic, The first few are rather positive. The emotions go up. Then I have 2 problem scenes. So the emotions go down. The last one is lighthearted. So the emotions go up again. I want to keep this comic lighthearted and not be a complain journal. So I decided to end it with an up emotion scene.

I used my Sailor Zoom fountain pen and Lisa Glanz's textures to do this.