Our Those People: A Love Story crowdfunding campaign was a success! I’m not supposed to be surprised, but, between you and me, I am a little bit. There were two solid weeks where it wasn’t looking promising…
But friends, family and fans came through with cash in spectacular fashion, and now it’s time for me to pony up with my humble “incentive” offering: made-to-order depictions of movie scenes about lovers (preferably star-crossed, but I’m not going to quibble if they happened to live happily ever after).
Once my client chooses their movie (and scene, though some leave that up to me) my “artistic” process begins with a cannibalized element from another process: Each piece is drawn the flip side of a “repurposed” 3×5 index card used to outline a movie script:
I pencil, ink with a Sharpie and then erase the pencil. I use black and occasionally one contrast color. For digital delivery, my husband takes a picture with an app that is supposed to keep art looking flat and not wonky.
My original plan was to work totally with stick figures, because it seemed easy and the idea of it made me laugh. This was my first attempt:
And this was the second: 
While both pieces they look similarly rudimentary, you might notice that by my second attempt I had already drifted from stick figure to boxy outline, because it somehow felt easier.
My first real order was for our kind-hearted supporter, Nate, who requested Atonement. I realized I couldn’t bring myself to render the iconic image of the character in his black tuxedo only in outline, so I reached for the thicker sharpie: 
And somehow the thick Sharpie carried over into Orly’s request for Annie Hall.
A practiced artist knows how to control style and tone. I am not a practiced artist, so who knows how the next 18 drawings will turn out? Not me! But I assume that anyone who chose something called “Bad Art” will have appropriately low expectations, so, unlike almost everything else in my life at the moment, I am not stressed about this. I look forward to finding out what my clients will choose, and giving it my best, “bad” shot!