Hourly Comic Day

2024: Occasional Painting Day

February 1st is Hourly Comic Day. If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, I explain it here.

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Good morning! I woke up today with a powerful urge to paint and little patience for writing by hand. It'll be a loose interpretation of comics this year, I guess.

Here's the daytime half moon I saw on my way home from dropping Milo at school, hanging above some gnarly oaks in a grey cloud-streaked sky.

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And here's me. I forgot to put on lipstick this morning. I think I look like a ghost without it, especially in the winter. Also, I mostly wear glasses now but I didn't feel like painting them.

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Okay, fine. Here I am in my glasses.

I obviously spent too long on this to keep up with the breakneck pace of hourly comic day. But I've been pretty burned out by illustration work lately, and I don't want to take a day off only to draw comics from morning til night as fast as I can. Usually I find that fun, but this year I want to do my own thing.

I don't love this portrait. It doesn't look much like me, but I do think I nailed the hair. My hair is turning white, folks. Right now it looks like I have blond highlights but this is the redhead's way of going grey. I'm almost 50. Eventually I'll be a white-haired lady like my redheaded grandma was. For what it's worth, I'm determined to adjust to and even embrace the way my appearance changes as I age. The alternative seems awful. So far it's going fine, but I'm only 48.

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Around lunchtime I went in to make a cup of coffee and there was a rough-skinned newt on my doorstep. They're so cute. I came back to my studio to paint it and after three tries, I gave up. I didn't like any of them. I posted the third newt painting and then thought, "Why should I post a painting I don't like?" and I deleted it.

Meanwhile, the sun came out. That's rare in Oregon this time of year and I thought, "I'll regret it forever if I don't go outside." So I forgot about the newt and made a painting of my house. The thing on the left is an old water tower. Long ago it had a windmill on top that drew water up into a giant tank on the top floor from a well below. Then gravity fed the water into the house. Or at least that's how I understand it.

As soon as I started this painting my cat came running. Imagine me painting this with a black cat bumping my elbow every few minutes.

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Misha is generally not allowed in my studio. A lot of my favorite houseguests - Maile, Mac, Vanessa - are allergic to cats so I try to keep this one space a cat-free sanctum for them when they visit. I don't know how much it truly helps. I have so many cats.

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I'm almost done reading Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. For those who don't know, it's a post-apocalyptic novel set in Kent, England a couple thousand years in the future, written in an invented dialect. The protagonist is a twelve year old boy who sleeps with an old lady and beats up a grown man. All this from the guy who brought you Bread and Jam for Frances. I know I said earlier today that I am burned out, but I kind of want to illustrate this book.

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Today is the last day of finals week for Hank and I told him we could go out to dinner to celebrate. Colin's out of town this week and I'm tired today. When Hank declared that he was ordering dungeness crab crostini for dinner I had misgivings. When it arrived, I saw the look on his face and I knew he wouldn't eat it. I was mad. But the server was nice and brought Hank a burger. I ate dungeness crab crostini for dinner and have suffered worse fates. All is well. My kids are pretty great, even when they order weird food and don't eat it.

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Well, I'm beat. Thanks for following along with my low-key no comics #hourlycomicday. It was fun. ❤️

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