This is one of my ‘Zen Doodles’ that paraphrases a comment by the poet John Brehm – he doesn’t mention ‘the funny’, but clearly the ‘eternal transient delight’ has to be synonymous!

Struggling a bit this week to get into a funny mindset (back pain and tiredness), but chuckling away at other nice things (today ‘Taskmaster’ and funny texts from my neighbour/friend John). This morning’s cartoon sort of illustrates that everywhere could lead to funny. It draws on a cartoon that Sue Kenney created of me  – and the front cover to Matt Groening’s ‘How to Go to Hell’ – two inspirational cartoonists.

Comics Diary 3/3/21

This little sketch captures my feeling when trying to catch up with friends’ Instagram posts after a week offline.

Comics Diary 1/3/21

This is a little cartoon that condenses an interesting radio programme about John Cage’s composition of his silent piece ‘4:33’ in 1952, which was inspired by zen and a visit to Japan to see his friend Yoko Ono.

(Radio 4, Silent Witness – John Cage, Zen and Japan).

One of the birthday flamingoes created for Dad’s birthday cartoons this week (for more, see Creative Research Notes 36)

One of the birthday flamingoes created for Dad’s birthday cartoons this week (for more, see Creative Research Notes 36)

This was a card created for my Dad’s partner’s birthday. It was an illustration of his gag idea, so it was interesting to build this visually. I struggled a little with the perspective and condensing the idea into the small space. A good challenge though! (See Creative Practice Notes 35 for further details).

This cartoon was created on Valentine’s Day as an anti-Valentines card or anti-Chocolate and Card Industry Support day (excellent joke by my neighbour John).

It captures one aspect of romantic love and also expresses my love for Charles Bukowski’s work (but doesn’t capture that I am actually a romantic who thinks that love is also a many splendoured thing!).

This is part of my David Shrigley experiment  (see Creative Practice Notes 33 for details). Here, I’m responding to the art prompt ‘canary bird’

This is part of my David Shrigley experiment  (see Creative Practice Notes 33 for details). Here, I’m responding to the art prompt ‘book.’

Comics diary 17/2/21

Introducing my new personal trainer, Mick, who is zen in the calmest funniest way! In this moment, he is trying to persuade me to run in the dark too…

This is part of my David Shrigley experiment of 8-12 February (see Creative Practice Notes 33 for details). Here, I’m responding to the art prompt ‘thread.’

This is part of my David Shrigley experiment of 8-12 February (see Creative Practice Notes 33 for details). Here, I’m responding to the art prompt ‘zebra.’

This is part of my David Shrigley experiment of 8-12 February (see Creative Practice Notes 33 for details). Here, I’m responding to the art prompt ‘feathers.’

This is part of my David Shrigley experiment of 8-12 February (see Creative Practice Notes 33 for details). Here, I’m responding to the art prompt ‘ideal.’

This is part of my David Shrigley experiment of 8-12 February (see Creative Practice Notes 33 for details). Here, I’m responding to the art prompt ‘close.’

This is part of my David Shrigley experiment of 8-12 February (see Creative Practice Notes 33 for details). Here, I’m responding to the art prompt ‘joy’.

This is part of my David Shrigley experiment of 8-12 February (see Creative Practice Notes 33 for details). Here, I’m responding to the art prompt ‘bug.’

This is a cartoon of my ‘sketchy’ friend, Lene, who wanted to be turned into a fox. She is a ginger-haired goth, who claims to be a witch, so I’ve included these elements in the image and words.

I’m most pleased that I drew the fox from my imagination – this is a big step forward for me, as usually I don’t have the confidence and begin with Google ref photos. The habit of beginning with representation first is being slowly replaced by imagination first – a much more logical place to start for incongruity theory experiments.

This idea for me as ‘Sketchzilla’ was invented by friend, artist and entrepreneur Dulcie Ball. This name results from my love of sketching and the fact that Godzilla always sits on my desk. He is my mascot from my days in Japan (and that’s a whole other story…). What I love most about this nickname is that if you type ‘sketchzilla’ autocorrect changes it to ‘sketch silly!’ YES, EXACTLY! That is the point and the purpose – to find the funny playfully. Brilliant Dulcie.

This was my first attempt for my zoomorphism challenge (i.e. turn people into animals). Sue from my cartooning circle requested either a bear or a kestrel. She preferred the idea of a bear, but actually much preferred the kestrel version. When she saw the bear, she said, ‘Sue the Baloo!’ and it does conjure this sort of affable idiot (far from the real Sue).

This is a 7-minute portrait of fellow ‘Sketchy Bitch’ from our online drawing session of 24.01.21, where we were posing in the style of ID magazine (i.e. with objects obscuring our eyes). I’ve uploaded a few favourites from the session here to celebrate my first session the built funnies into the extreme time limit.

This is Lene, she’s a goth who is drawn to the unusual, creative and deranged.

This is a 7-minute portrait of the facilitator of the ‘Sketchy Bitches’ online drawing group (Dulcie Ball). On 24.01.21, we were posing in the style of ID magazine (i.e. with objects obscuring our eyes). I’ve uploaded a few favourites from the session here to celebrate my first session the built funnies into the extreme time limit.

Dulcie is ‘smokin’ as an awesome facilitator, creator and inventor of community ideas. She doesn’t smoke, but has a smoking pencil and always has ‘smokey-eyed’ make-up.  She is included here, not because this is a good caption, but because she has been so important for my work. She is also encouraging and for the Instagram posts of this session, she was particularly enthusiastic in a special Dulcie way (this means swearing, exclamatives, and emojis).

Notes:

This strip was a way to strengthen my resolve through a difficult month by remembering the mottoes of my nearest and dearest. I always wanted to fuse them all together and ‘Enjoy what you have‘ is an attempt to do this. It does not really work in times of depression though and recently Grandad’s worked best and I often repeated ‘Do your best with what you’ve!’ This motto was previously slightly resisted because it is rather a tough approach to life that reminded me of the Japanese version of this –  ‘Gambatte!‘ which literally means ‘Struggle!’ Still, sometimes it is a struggle anyway, so may as well go with it.

Comics diary entry.

Bad pain week this week that was much cheered by Dulcie Ball’s post on Instagram with 3 portraits of me from our ‘Back to School’ drawing session. In her message she says “Meet Continuous Clari – she plays by her own school rules! She’s a #sketchybitches superstar and a short story/comic book waiting to happen”

This is Dulcie’s sketch of me in continuous line (I traced it using the ‘Trace Table’ app and tried to keep as close as possible to Dulcie’s original, which can be seen on her Instagram feed).

Comics diary entry.

Working the allotment with Mum who had ‘fizzy energy’ that day and was zooming. She tends to leave tools abandoned in the soil and I always do a sweep for tools after she leaves.

I changed my plan for the format, which is why there is a grey line down the middle. It went from two panels to one.

Comics diary entry. I had just been nominated as the new chair of the Association of Midland Artists.

Comics diary entry that captures a conversation between Laurence Shorter, Carlos Saba and me. Laurence had just asked us to write down a list of unresolved questions that concern us and my list was long and catastrophic including questions such as: ‘how can I keep my parents safe into old age?’ and ‘when will I die?’ He then said ‘all can be solved in the non-doing space’ which I wrote in my notebook along with a doubtful ‘ha ha ha!’ As if, non-doing practice can tell you when you’re going to die…

We did some non-doing practice together (i.e sit do nothing and accept you have no idea) online. Afterwards, I realised that all of these questions involve situations that have not yet happened and sketched this cartoon in response. I love that Laurence was right despite my bitter laughing pessimism.

Note to self: invest in more permanent pens that do not bleed.

Dad used to do aikido when he was younger. He would do these dramatic aikido forward rolls across the floor to entertain me and my brother Will.

These days, his most common advice is ‘roll with the punches’ – so common that it merits motto status.

My dad is actually a clever engineer who might well disagree with this assessment. He often disagrees with my version of things and calls me a ‘fantasist!’ regularly, but he IS definitely zen in the way he approaches tasks with slow careful kindness.

This is a little sketch while thinking about my positive experiences and encouragement from the wonderful ‘Sketchy Bitches.’

Here are two of the inspirational members – Dulcie ‘Queen Sketchy’ Ball – the founder and organiser of Sketch Appeal, and Helen Girling – illustrator extraordinaire.

My cartoonist mentor suggesting that I sit ‘in my own genius!’ This was a little difficult not to joke about (and I mimed confusedly looking around the room for my genius until she explained further). This cartoon condenses the idea, so that I might (maybe possibly) remember to do this and to take it lightly and seriously.

This cartoon condenses conversations from that day with friend Fee. Her and her partner Len came over for ‘allotment curry’ (a lot of courgettes!) and we chatted about our favourite things. She likes Buddhism and birds as much as me.

Notes:

This comic was a useful way for me to condense the information from Laurence Shorter’s first official ‘The Art of No Idea’ coaching session on 30 July 2020.

There is a group of about 20 of us working with Laurence’s structure to develop constructive and enjoyable creative practice. There are more details on this in my ‘creative practice notes’ dated 04/08/2020.

I particularly liked the connection to a lexical chain of water that seems to be a visual metaphor. J.K. Rowling’s creative practice that involves her going to her imaginary house next to a lake and concentrating on the lake as a source of ideas. Also two members of the coaching group used watery terms; Christopher talked about ‘waiting to see what bubbles up’ in the yin practice and Katie talked about ‘sinking into‘ the work.

(Media: nib pen and ink, watercolour paint.)

Notes:

This was drawn in my wee sketchbook while on holiday in Lanzarote.

It’s based on an experience in a nightclub where some English dudes in football shirts got very loud to the beautiful sad love song ‘Miss You’ by band ‘Everything but the Girl.’ I remembered the lead singer Tracy Thorn talking about the sorrow behind the song and the juxtaposition amused me.

Notes:

January 2020 was a really awful month for procrastination. It actually felt painful ‘not to do’ (but turned out that I just needed to go on holiday for 2 weeks and really ‘not do’ properly and then all was well).

Notes:

This comic is about being stuck in theoretical circles for my PhD as the university asked for more justification for my ideas. I started to get depressed that all my time was going around in circles justifying the idea with theory, rather than actually doing the research on ‘finding the funny’ and creating comics and cartoons.

Notes:

You could do cartoon strips of people saying ‘I’ll be happy if…’ until the end of time!

Notes:

This conversation happened in front of me on a street near my house.

It wasn’t a wolf (in case you’re worried), but a large black dog. The mother never looked up from her phone as we walked passed.

Notes:

This was the beginning of drawing to feel better from burnout. I started to draw the things that I loved (cartoonist Rachael House with the pink hair, birds, the sea, the monkey king…). It was never finished, because I returned to the crazy world of work and burnout for two more years!

Notes:

This is the cartoon that planted the seed in 2004 for my future PhD research and it is the root of the idea really – i.e. the importance of finding the funny to lighten life for yourself and for others.

At the time, I was teaching in Japan and failing to manage a class of young children, which resulted in sleepless nights, circular thinking, and exhaustion. I called them the ‘kids on speed’ because they were so excited they were impossible to control. Interestingly, the solution did not come from strategic thinking or consulting books on teaching methods, but from drawing this comic. It helped me to notice the humour in the situation and to see the children as filled with incredible energy and enthusiasm. Drawing the comic shifted my thinking, so that the next time I walked into the classroom I was able to see the humour, to enjoy the energy of the children, and to begin experimenting with new ways to successfully channel this energy. This became one of my favourite classes and this is probably my favourite cartoon. It is only the second one I drew, but it makes me smile when I remember these kids – chilled Anju, tiny smiley Masatoshi, hyperactive Riichi, and confused Yusuke. These lovely kids!! Thank you.