Thing-a-week: Playing catch-up

I haven't painted in watercolor since I was a small child, so when I spotted some watercolor pencil crayons at my friendly neighbourhood art store the other day, I went for it.

I've been noodling around a little in my sketchbook, without photo references, while watching Mad Men with my significant other and two judgmental cats. 

Doodling with watercolour pencil crayons.

Watercolour pencil crayons and pen-and-ink.

But I think my plan for the next little while will be to start experimenting with comics. This weekend, I was at the Creative Non-Fiction Collective's annual conference, at the Banff Centre. There were plenty of great speakers, including Sarah Leavitt, author of a graphic memoir called Tangles: A story about Alzheimer's, my mother, and me. As a graduate of the UBC creative writing MFA program (the same program I'm taking right now), I was initially interested to hear about her publishing experience, more so than graphic novels. But her presentation transformed how I see the genre. I've just started reading the book, and I'm impressed at how text-driven it is and how the panel art pulls the reader through the story.

I'm inspired to play around with the genre myself...so, stay tuned!

In other news, my billboards are up all across Alberta - about six in Edmonton, five in Calgary, four in Lethbridge and one in Medicine Hat.

They look something like this:

So, if you spot one, take a quick picture with your camera phone and e-mail it to me at caitlin@inkslingermedia.com, with info on where you spotted it and your mailing addy. I'll send you FREE postcards in the mail, with images of my work! That's right, free -- just a small thank-you for passing along an image of the billboard. After all, I can't possibly find all of them before May 22!

Oh - and I'll be posting regularly next week. Last week I was pretty overwhelmed with work, but things are returning to normal - or, whatever passes for normal in a freelancer's life!

As always, check out my delightful blog buddy Mike Kendrick's Thing-a-Week. He's a talented dude - and way less flaky than I. :) You may have noticed that he posted last week, while I totally spaced...three thumbs up to you, good sir!