Welcome to my Studio!

I've hidden all the messy parts.

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If this post looks familiar to you, it’s because you subscribed to my previous newsletter on my other platform. And I wanted to begin my community here with an introduction to my studio. To my new subscribers, I hope you enjoy a peek inside the place I’ve spent my life for over 30 years. (there have been renovations)

I’ve moved my newsletter here for a variety of reasons. One is that Substack is free. My other newsletter platform was not. That’s a good enough reason in itself but there are others. I’ve been checking out the community here for a while and I like it. Another good reason. I like that there’s an archive for people to revisit posts if they want. I think Substack offers more visibility to more people outside of me shouting into the Meta void or if someone happens to come across my web site. Herein ends my marketing prowess.

In future, you can expect the type of chatter you might expect to have if we were having a friendly chat and a cappuccino-grande-non-fat-milk-with-a-sweetener-and-wet. (Insert your own beverage of choice) It will be cartoon-related chatter for sure. Process, influences, reader responses, anecdotes…maybe some industry griping, who knows? It’s going to be a friendly conversation between friends, remember?

So, once again, welcome! Here we go…

This is what you see when you enter my room. It's the first place I hit in the morning with my coffee while I catch up on email, update my Facebook pages with links to my strip and check out the roster of sites I like to follow.

Next to my computer station is my drawing board...where I spend most of my time. Yes, I work traditionally. Yes, I bought an ipad with the intention of transitioning to working digitally. No, I have not figured had the patience to figure it out. You can see by the window, I'm working in the lower level of the house.

My tool dolly. Very high-end...straight out of Walmart. I still cut my paper by hand and there are some trimmed pieces there on the floor. (I define myself as traditionalist, not a luddite) The red book is my brainstorming book...the paper just under it is the list I develop as I sort through the ideas I've already loosely written. Once I have a week of ideas listed sequentially in an outline, I will start fleshing out each day's strip...after which I do all my drawing, then all my inking and then scan into my computer to finish in Photoshop.

My red wall. Framed original art from some cartoonists I admire. The larger one is by Edwina Dumm, America's first full-time female editorial cartoonist. It's one of her Cap Stubbs and Tippie strips from the early 1930s. (Birthday gift from my hubby, think I’ll keep him)

Where I pile up my Sunday strips as I finish with them. Another Walmart tool dolly…I’m very matchy-matchy with my decor.

...and where I pile up my dailies after I finish with them. The door on the left is where I enter toward my computer station. The big "S" was a gift from a friend many years back. She gave it to me because I was such a big fan of the "Mary Tyler Moore" show. (Mary had a big "M" hanging in her apartment.) The Jumble mug was a gift from Jeff Knurek (thank you Jeff!) for being part of his Jumble puzzle once. The black frame with the piece of wood on it (which is a piece of wood from Walt Disney’s dreaming tree…HOW COOL IS THAT?) was a thank you gift for participating in Marceline, Missouri’s Disney festival. The plaque that is cut off in the photo was a poster from the Canadian’s Cancer Society’s campaign to promote mammograms using my Between Friends comic characters. (I’ll talk more about that in a future post)

This stack of dailies is kept separate from the other dailies for a reason. Whenever I write an extended story arc, I keep the story compiled in its own separate bundle. The above bundle is the story arc about Maeve and the Paris exchange. I take this bundle with me when I'm writing and reread them to get back into the flow. I also keep the strips handy in case I need to refresh my memory as to what the characters are wearing and the background...if the following week is a same-day continuance.

I won this at a cartooning get-together. Makes a good container for my markers, don't you think?

This frame sits to the right of my computer screen. For the past while I've been choosing a few inspiring quotes each year to remind me to keep a positive attitude when things kind of suck. (refer back to above comment re. industry griping) It actually really helps.

Okay, I think that’s good for a start. I’m not going to bombard you with newsletters but I will chat again soon. Maybe soon-ish. :)

©2024 Sandra Bell-Lundy

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