Comics!

Click on the image above to read the comics…

I’ve started making comics! I’ve loved the medium since I was a kid, and even did some educational comics work at various tech companies. There’s a lot of research that combining images, text, humor, characters, and narrative improves comprehension and retention of information.

And they’re fun! I’m finding that it’s a great medium for storytelling because you can pack a lot of emotion and ancillary information into the art. Sometimes my subconscious will sneak something into the comic that I don’t notice until the end.

It’s hard and super rewarding. It’s been a long time since I’ve done something creative that tells “my” stories.

It was somewhat audacious of me to start making comics, since I’ve never studied art before, and I’m now mumble-mumble years old. So I’m taking lots of classes and learning lots, and accepting that the art is evolving. Though I must say, I find a lot of things fun about it even in these early days.

I’m sharingh my comics via Patreon. A lot of the content is publicly available, and you can “follow” me on Patreon for free to get all my public posts delivered to your inbox. If you’re interested in that, you can find me at patreon.com/synemitchell.

I’m going to keep this blog for talking about personal things I get up to that are not comics. Like a bookbinding class I took recently, prose fiction I’m working on, what’s on my loom, and fun things like that. 🙂

Inktober: day two, “Mindless”

The prompt for day two of Inktober was “Mindless”. The first iteration of idea I had for this was a drop of water splashing into a pool. But that seemed more like mindfulness than mindlessness.

Then I thought of an image of a woman with a head full of butterflies escaping out of her mouth. A metaphor for mindless speech and thoughts. One thing that didn’t sit easy with me was promulgating the idea that women’s speech is mindless. There’s enough of that in the culture already.

A hand-drawn sketch of a woman with butterflies in her head and coming out of her mouth.
First noodling around for an image for “mindless”.

And someone along the way made me angry. And “mindless” turned into “mindless rage.” In looking for a reference image to express how I felt I found this beautiful woman (and ended up subscribing to the BitchMedia mailing list.) For images of butterflies, I found an article on monarch butterflies. Looking at both images on my computer monitor, I drew the following pencil sketch. (Click on the image to view a larger version.)

A hand-drawn ink sketch of an angry mother nature screaming up butterflies.
Pencil sketch for day two of inktober, with the theme “mindless”

It was only after I drew it that I came up with the title: “Mother Nature is Tired of Your Bullshit.” That’s when I got in touch with my subconscious and realized what the imagery was saying. I liked the juxtaposition between rage and butterflies (normally not associated with anger.) And the more I thought about it, butterflies are symbols of transformation and change. And the monarchs are disappearing because of climate disruption. This piece started because I was angry in the moment, and changed into something that expresses my rage about what we as a species are doing to our planet.

Because this is “Inktober” and the original inspiration for the challenge was an artist wanting to improve their inking skills, the next step was to ink the work. I’ve used Micron markers in the past, and they’re easy, with good control and fineness (it’s what I used on day one.) The results are also a bit “flat”.

I’ve always admired the irregular, calligraphy-like lines in the inking of traditional manga, so I started researching what would be involved in using a quill pen. I found a couple of videos on YouTube: “Difference Inking with G-Pens Vs. Microns” by Whyt Manga and “Dipping Pen Tutorial ❤ EVERYTHING You Need To Know ❤ How to Ink, BEST Brands, Best Paper, & MORE!” by My Mangaka LIFE. Which gave me enough courage and information to try.

I started with a $3.50 pen and ink set from Michael’s. First issue: the ink bottle had adhesive on the side, so when I opened the lid and tried to set it down and pull my hand away, it stuck to my hand and 80% of the very, very black ink spilled all over my drawing table. Good news: my fear of spilling the ink was all over in one go. Better news: the ink was water soluable. Best news: the grooves in the drawing table (my grandmother’s old kitchen table) kept all but one drop from falling on the carpet.

Delayed but undaunted, I cleaned everything up and then took my dip pen and the remainder of the ink across the room to my light box. Back this summer when I went to bra camp (long story) a calligrapher there recommended an LED light box for pattern tracing. I knew I’d want to do comics one day (and trace bra patterns) so when I came home, I bought a Daylight Wafer 3. It’s what the woman at bra camp let me try out and it is ah-maze-ing! (Eric looked at it and got a bit envious.)

To make a long story short, I had so much fun with my cheap-o pen and very small amount of ink, that I decided to make a trek to Artist and Craftsman in Seattle and purchase some more ink and a few other quill pens to try out. Here’s what I’m currently experimenting with. (There’s a learning curve, so I’m trying to stick with one pen until I’m fairly comfortable with it.)

Japanese brand quill pen and ink.
Tachikawa quill pen, G nib, Carbon Ink

And after a few iterations to get past the first part of the learning curve, here’s what I came up with. (Click on the image to view a larger version.)

“Mother Earth is Tired of Your Bullshit” by Syne Mitchell, 10-06-2019

It’s one more step on my path of learning how to create art and comics. I learned a lot today and had a lot of fun, and I made something meaningful to me.

Inktober: day one, “Ring”

So I’m taking drawing classes this fall, with the goal of eventually creating sequential art (aka comics). Being me, I jumped in the deep end and took courses that had a prerequisite of Basic Drawing, even though I’d never taken a drawing class before. So I took them concurrently with the basic drawing class, started looking at some online courses (Brent Eviston on Skillshare is amazing) and hoped I could stay far enough ahead so as not to embarrass myself. So far it’s worked out.

Here are the classes I’m taking:

  • Basic Drawing
  • Figure Drawing
  • Cartoon Illustration
  • Graphic Novel Memoir

My thought was that if I took all the drawing classes at once, I’d spend so much time drawing that I’d progress more rapidly than if I strung them out over time. I’m also attending drop-in figure drawings and keeping a sketch diary, so there’s a lot of drawing going on over here.

And this brings me to Inktober. It was a challenge put forth in 2009 by an artist who wanted to improve his inking skills. Each day in October, you post online an inked drawing inspired by a one-word prompt.

Today’s prompt was: ring. So I drew a ring of roses. I’m dedicating today’s drawing to my friend Julie K. She knows why.

ink drawing of a ring of roses.

Spicy Lime Tofu

I was playing around in the kitchen today and came up with something tasty! I thought I’d share it with you.

Bowl of spicy lime-flavored tofu and vegetables.

DISCLAIMER: I created this recipe in the “splash of this”, “dash of that” tradition, so measurements below are my best-guess approximations after the fact. Try it, if something’s not to your taste, play around with the amounts. If you hit on a variation you love, please leave me a note in the comments. It’d be fun to share ideas. 🙂

BONUS GOODNESS: I’m currently following The Abascal Way of eating, which is anti-inflammatory. I’ve had great success with it in the past. This recipe is adherent to the first (and strictest) part of the Abascal program. In other words, it’s super healthy and good for ya.

PROLOGUE: I cooked Shitaki-Ginger Bok Choy right before I cooked the Spicy Lime Tofu, and without washing the wok in between. So it’s possible that some of the pre-flavoring of the wok influenced the Spicy Lime Tofu. Just in case, I’m including that recipe (also of my own improvising) here.

Shitake-Ginger Bok Choy

2 tablespoons diced fresh ginger
1 clove garlic
4 baby bok choy, washed and sliced horizontally into 7mm widths (Yeah, I can only estimate widths and lengths in metric, Mississippi was introducing the metric system when I was in grade school and it stuck. With me, alas not with Mississippi.)
10 shitake mushrooms, stems pulled off and saved in the freezer for making soup stock later. Chop caps into 7mm-wide slices.
1/4 cup of diced red onion, about 1-cm square pieces
2-3 tablespoons sunflower oil
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
2-3 tablespoons rice vinegar

  • Mix the shitake mushrooms, soy sauce, and rice vinegar together in a bowl and set aside.
  • In a carbon-steel wok, on high heat, heat up the sunflower oil.
  • Stir fry the onion, garlic, and ginger together until fragrant.
  • Add in the bok choy and stir fry until the top green parts are starting to get kinda wilty.
  • Add the mushroom mixture, including all of the liquid.
  • Stir fry until the mushrooms are cooked.
  • Remove from heat and enjoy!

Spicy Lime Tofu

4-5 tablespoons of sunflower oil
One 12-oz block of firm or extra-firm tofu (I used Island Springs Organic), cut into 1cm cubes.
Juice from 1/2 of a large lime
3-4 tablespoons of soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon of Shichimi Togarashi

  • Heat the oil on high on a carbon-steel wok.
  • When it’s hot, throw in the tofu and stir fry rapidly. Continue for 1-2 minutes until there’s some nice browning on the tofu.
  • Throw in the lime juice and soy sauce. Stir fry rapidly for another 1-2 minutes. The tofu will suck up the liquid and become “fluffy”.
  • Sprinkle the togarashi on top of the tofu and stir fry until it’s all mixed in.
  • Take off the heat and it’s eatin’ time!



Jacquard Open Source Loom

So I wrote this book, Inventive Weaving, that’s all about pushing the boundaries of what you can do with a rigid-heddle loom. And yet… I never considered using one as inspiration for building a jacquard loom!

Fortunately, Kurt did. Whether or not you’re interested in ever making your own mini-jacquard loom, watch the following video. It’s 7+ minutes of funny, maker goodness.

Kurt’s not only shared his adventure with us, he’s open sourced the code. For more information, read his blog post on the topic: Making a DIY Computer Controlled Loom.

So cool I had to share it right away.

Teaching at ANWG in June

Now that I’ve left the tech world, one of the things I’m picking back up is teaching fiber arts at select venues. So I’m excited that I’ll be teaching in Prince George, British Columbia at the Association of Northwest Weavers’ Guilds conference on June 11th – 16th. I’m honored to be included among an amazing roster of instructors.

I’ll be presenting three fun topics, and since seminars are two hours long, I’m developing never-before-presented content which means a lot of exciting research for me! (I’m doing some things for the e-textiles class, especially, that fill me with squeee!)

Woven Shibori

This is a super-fun class taught on the rigid heddle. On the first day, we learn how to weave supplement wefts, sneakily picking up behind the heddle for efficiency. Then we pull the wefts taut, and overdye to create patterns like these.

Woven shibori samples

Right now the class only has 6 students, which means lots of individual attention and opportunity to ask questions.

In addition to the usual hand-on class work, I’m bringing a slide presentation on the history and traditions of shibori in Japan, modern trends in woven shibori, and using man-made threads with shibori to create pleats and other textured fabrics. This presentation is new, and I’m excited about the research (and the opportunity to use a new slide projector I bought for teaching.)

For more information, see the Woven Shibori write-up on the ANWG website, and if it’s something you want to do, there’s still time to register. In fact early-bird registration runs through April 15th.

eTextiles

Enhancing textiles through electronics: lights, sensors, motors, el-wire and… exciting new content I’ve never presented before! More than just a class on technology, we’ll talk about how to incorporate electronics in a way that enhances the design instead of just plopping an LED on top in an artless way.

When I signed up to teach this seminar, I assumed it was the usual one-hour talk. Afterwards I saw it was two hours! Which to be honest freaked me out a bit. Then I realized this was an opportunity to present two eTextiles classes in one! Which means I get to play with all the new technologies, including an area of fiber maker-y that I’ve just started experimenting with and which has me positively gleeful: 3D printing on fabric.

So come for the eTextiles, get inspired to bring your cloth and clothes to life. And get bonus content: 3D printing for textile artists, including free 3D printing patterns to make fiber tools: cone winder adaptor, lags for mechanical AVL dobbies, and more. Note, you do not have to have a 3D printer to print designs, I’ll talk about that as well.

There are 7 spots left available in this seminar, so if you’re intrigued, I’d recommend signing up soon. If you register by April 15th, you can get early bird pricing.

Inventive Weaving on a Rigid Heddle Loom

If you’ve read my book, Inventive Weaving on a Rigid Heddle Loom, and wanted to touch the samples, or ask a question. This is your chance.

If you haven’t read my book, prepare to have your ideas about what’s possible on a rigid-heddle loom expanded. This book was my four-year exploration into applying everything I knew about weaving onto the rigid-heddle loom. And you know what? Most of it worked! Simple looms can do complex things.

There are 9 spots available in this talk, and if you register by April 15th… you guessed it, early bird pricing! It’ll save you $55 on the conference and/or $30 on workshops so it’s worth repeating. 🙂

Raffle Update

Thank you, everyone who’s contributed to the birthday blanket fundraiser! This is turning into my favorite birthday ever! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see a good cause being supported.

So far we have 10 entrants, and have raised $715 for Doctors Without Borders!

The most common donation is $25, and there’s no minimum. If you want to enter, please give what feels comfortable. I know my birthday comes at an awkward, post-holiday-spending time and the government shut down is causing folks a lot of pain. So if you only have a couple of dollars to donate, that’s enough! …and if things are tighter than that, I feel for you; may things get better soon.

If you sent in an entry, you should have gotten an email “thank-you” message back from me directly. If you did not get one, please resend through the contact form on my website.

Someone asked when the raffle will end. I’ll take entries all the way until February 18. The drawing will happen on February 19th. For details on how to enter, see the original raffle post.

One last detail, if you were one of the people who sent in yarn back in 2009, I kept all the cards and envelopes and hope to send you a special thank you. Given how long this project has gone on, if you’ve changed mailing addresses since then, please drop me a note with your new address.

Birthday Blanket Raffel

I’ve finished the Birthday Blanket and am ready to raffle it off for charity!

If you’d like the chance to win a handwoven (by me!) king-sized, mostly wool, blanket. All you need do is donate money directly to Doctors Without Borders and then email me and tell me the amount that you donated. There is no minimum donation required; give what you can. One entry per person. On February 19th, I’ll randomly select a winner from all of the entrants and mail the blanket to them.

Birthday Blanket Hem

If you’d like to see the blanket in person, I’ll have it in the rotunda at Madrona Winter Retreat in Tacoma on Friday (2/15) and Saturday (2/16). I don’t have a booth or any formal support, so just look for the woman spinning on a Pocket Wheel with a ginormous folded blanket next to her.

The blanket is delightfully cozy. I used Highlands Shetland in Black Cherry as the weft and it became lofty and soft once washed and brushed. The other yarns are mostly-ish wool. They range from hand-spun silk and cashmere, to alpaca, to acrylic, to various types of wool. They were sent in by people all over the U.S., and some overseas. Much of it is handspun, including some of my first yarn, a lovely three-ply by Brenda Dayne, and some singles yarn spun by my son Kai when he was three years old.

The binding is recycled silk from old shirts. I folded it over as in a quilt binding and hand-stitched it on. This blanket is full of intention and love. It’s light enough for three-season use in most parts of the United States. And it’s a generous king size. If you have a smaller bed you can probably fold it in half and use it. Here’s what it looks like on my king-sized bed.

It’s been a long time since the project started, so let me restate what this is. When I was 39, for my 40th birthday I asked that people would send me 40 yards of a yarn that represented them. My plan was to take their warp yarns, weave it off with a weft that represents me, and have a wonderful reminder of all the people in my life who encouraged and supported me.

I got yarns from WeaveCast listeners, WeaveZine readers, friends, family. I was heart warmed by the amount of yarn that came in. I had a birthday party / warping party in which people, both weavers and not, helped me wind 21-yard warps. The plan was that I’d weave off two king-sized blankets. One to become my bedspread, and the other to raffle off to charity to support Doctors Without Borders.

Then life happened, or rather life and fear. Or if I’m completely honest, mostly fear.

I hate to disappoint people, and ironically, that often leads me into doing exactly that. Fear that what I create won’t be good enough can paralyze me.

So the fact that this blanket is finally finished, and that I’m posting it here is a triumph of sorts. A slow, painful triumph over eight years of fear and exhaustion.

I’m trying to learn from this experience how I can get out of my own way when working on big projects. Some of the things that made this one hard were:

  • Being afraid of failing, of disappointing others.
  • Fearing the technical challenge of weaving a warp with so many different yarns, each with different shrinkages.
  • Fearing my new-to-me AVL loom, with all its unknown complexity.
  • Moving house, and being afraid to re-assemble my loom.
  • Working insanely long hours at Amazon and coming home too exhausted to think.
  • Having a breakdown from overwork and getting diagnosed with a chronic condition.
  • Looking away from the project because it had been sitting idle too long, and I was embarrassed it wasn’t done. (repeat endlessly)
  • Avoiding the project while writing a book.
  • Avoiding the project while working at Google.
  • Finishing and then being too embarrassed to write this post or ask for help getting the word out about the raffle.

Through all of this, however, I never forgot the project. I felt that I owed finishing it to the folks who’d sent me yarn. Slowly, quietly, I worked on it. Not as often as I could, not as frequently as I should. Now it is finally done, and I’ve gathered up the courage to write this post.

The emotion I’m feeling is some combination of pride at never giving up, embarrassment at how long it took, and relief that I can finally get this out into the world and let it go.

The blanket is lovely. Like me, it’s imperfect. It was created with love and intention. I hope the person who wins it enjoys it.

My First Protest

On Thursday, Google employees held a global protest against the way the company handled several cases of workplace sexual harassment.

It was my first protest. Everyone I’ve told that too has been surprised, including my son. I always meant to join marches, hold up signs, join the fight. Women’s rights, racial equality, climate change… I’d admire folks I saw doing defending causes in news stories.

Only I was never in the loop, too introverted, and to be perfectly honest… I trusted that other folks would carry the load. At this point in history, however, I don’t think it’s wise to sit out anymore.

The most amazing thing happened when I got up from my desk at the appointed time, 11:10am, to go protest. Nearly every man in my team went with me. It was incredibly moving, and I felt supported, like there was an army who had my back. Even writing about it now, I’m tearing up. If any of you are reading, what you did was awesome.

Protesting was hard. It brought up issues that I feel passionately about, reminded me of old wounds. And yet, it also gave me a platform and a safe space to express.

I created a set of story cards and showed them to people. Some were shocked and saddened. Too many women nodded knowingly. One young guy said, “Did that really happen?” It hit me later the irony that even a man at a protest against sexual harassment would ask that question. To be fair to him, he seemed earnest and concerned.

My favorite moment was when a young woman in her twenties was surprised and shocked by the story. As comforting as it can be to see another woman nod and affirm a shared experience, I very much hope that workplace sexual harassment someday becomes extinct.

One woman walked by as I was presenting and said to me, “that face, we always make that face.” And I thought about my expression. My lips were tight and my eyes were wide. I’d stare straight into people’s faces as I silently flipped through my story. It was a strange emotion, and after that woman’s comment I realized what it was. Solid, strong, calm, anger.

I cry easily, but I wasn’t crying that day. I wanted to drill the importance of this message straight into people’s brains. I wanted them to understand that it didn’t just happen to anonymous people far away. That it happened to people working alongside them, all too ofter. And likely they’d never know.

It was hard exposing this part of myself to strangers, and to coworkers I’ve only known for three weeks. After the protest I felt raw, and emotionally vulnerable. I woke up the next day with this panicked feeling of “Oh god, what have I done? How will I ever face those folks again?”

And then I saw this, and knew that even in a very small way I’d helped get the message out, and spoken up for someone who’s been silenced. It made it all worth it.

Geek Wire’s TLDR; report [1:34 minutes]

My first protest, I don’t expect it to be my last.

Poem: End of the Road

This is a poem I wrote when I was 26. Feels like I wrote it for my older self. What a thoughtful youth I was.


End of the Road

As people age, they become more themselves,
Less society’s construct.
As if our culture, obsessed with youth,
forgot to lay a path for old age.

For some, this is a tragedy:
Concrete conformity peters out,
Stranding them on dirt and gravel,
They stumble through their last years.

For others, a liberation:
As bruising asphalt fades
Revealing long-sought paths,
Through private wilderness.

–Syne Mitchell

 

ASL Midsummer Night’s Dream

Yesterday Eric and I went on a date and saw a play put on by the Sound Theatre Company and Deaf Spotlight. It was a bilingual version of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” presented in both English and ASL.

Poster for "ASL Midsummer Night's Dream" featuring Titania gazing lovingly at Bottom, who's been transformed into an ass.

The stage was small and intimate, with the only setting being curtains and a few pillows. It’s always amazed me how actors in such venues can transport you, evoking a setting with their performance.

Stage for the 12th Avenue Theatre, set with stairs and silk streamers hanging from the sky. Lit blue with spotlights.

All the actors were great. A few performances I’d call out…

Ryan Schletch, playing Nick Bottom, was amazingly energetic and expressive. He chewed the furniture in perfect William Shatner style and gave a tremendous performance of an “over the top” actor in the play within a play. His presentation was wonderfully funny. Especially the two instances where he stood behind another actor and spoke as them in ASL by replacing their arms with his own. Each time ended with a certain amount of bawdiness and then indignation on the part of the “puppeted” actor.

Puck was played with mischievous glee by Michelle Mary Schaefer. Her antics were fun and she fully embodied that trickster elf.

Kai Winchester, as Lysander, won me over with his gentle wooing of Hermia, and then briefly Helena, and then Hermia again. Oh Puck, what trouble you wrought!

Michael D. Blum and Kathy Hsieh brought dignity and gravitas to the roles of Oberon and Titania, respectively.

Kyle Seago’s performance of Demetrius was masterful and ardent. He also brought humor to the role. My ASL instructor once told me that Deaf people can easily pick out hearing folks signing ASL from native speakers, and having watched a play with both hearing and Deaf actors, I can see what he meant. Kyle’s ASL was so crisp, however, that I was startled when he spoke. Now that I’m looking at the program, I see he has the same last name as one of the directors, I’m guessing he grew up in a family both Deaf and theatrical, which explains his dual skills in ASL and acting.

Eric’s favorite was Guthrie Nutter’s performance as First Fairy, calling out Nutter’s expressiveness and the way his hands moved like poetry.

What impressed me most about the production is the way ASL and English were integrated seamlessly. Sometimes ASL was at the forefront with one a background character on the stage providing spoken translation. Other times spoken English was at the center of the action, with a background character providing ASL translation. The hearing actors had been coached in ASL and often integrated ASL signs with their speech. It flowed beautifully back and forth. I was impressed at how inclusive the Deaf community is.

For the past year-and-a-half I’ve been taking ASL classes. I very much enjoyed watching Shakespeare translated into ASL. I recognized about 20-30% of the signs and learned a few more. As with any translation, there were places where the translation changed the meaning a bit, sometimes creating in-jokes for the ASL crowd.

Eric, who knows only a handful of signs that I’ve taught him (I tend to be non-verbal before coffee, and sometimes use ASL then) also enjoyed the performance.

The play was abbreviated from the full Shakespeare, but masterfully so. I found it more fast-paced and engaging than traditional productions of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

Howie Seago and Teresa Thuman, the co-directors, brought us a wonderful theatrical experience. I’d recommend that you go. Unfortunately, Eric and I caught the last show. I will definitely be on the look out for future productions from these directors, Sound Theatre Company, and Deaf Spotlight.

Another joy was getting to interact with the Deaf community. I’m shy, and my ASL is still primitive. Still, I managed a few brief conversations and people I interacted with were very friendly and kind.

P.S. If you’d like to leave a comment, please do so below. I don’t always see comments left on Facebook and Twitter, but I read every comment posted on my blog. Thanks!