Kelci D Crawford

I’m sorry…again. I didn’t update on Saturday like I promised.

As a legitimate excuse, I am graduating from college, so my schedule has not given me the time to really attend to my blog like I should. The next week and a half are also looking busy, since I’ll be on family vacation and then moving into my apartment to start my summer job again.

To make up for this busy schedule, I would like to share another comic!

This one I did as a final project for my Contemporary Issues in Drawing and Painting class Fall semester of 2011. It’s called “Mermaids.”

This is actually one of the few comics I have made based on events that actually happened. Characters have been changed a bit, but the events themselves are true to life.

To read, just click on the first image and it’ll enlarge. There will be a scroll along the bottom you can use to get to the next page.

“Mermaids” was made with watercolors and ink.

I hope you enjoyed this!

I won’t be able to update again until either May 12 or May 19, so I would like to apologize in advance. I’ll be sure to bring another comic I did, though, because I did a lot of them this semester. :D

As always, Don’t Forget to Be Awesome!

I did not post anything last week. I am a terrible person.

To make up for it, I’m sharing with you an 8-page mini comic I finished recently for my Senior Studio in Art class. It’s called “Shadow”.

This was made with 6 inch by 10 inch pages, with India ink.

Just click on the first page and a scroll bar of the pages will appear on the bottom. I hope you like it. :D

This past weekend (March 30th to April 1st) I had the pleasure of leaving with BGSU’s Arts Village to stay in Chicago, and BOY did I have a blast!

The first night there we went and saw Second City perform, and if you ever find yourself in Chicago, see them. ASAP. Seriously. To tell you how funny it is, let’s just say that a lot of Saturday Night Live cast members (including Tina Fey and John Belushi) got their start with Second City. Their humor can switch almost effortlessly between skits from sweet to politically-charged to absolutely raunchy. Go find them when you’re in town.

We saw a lot of other sites, including Michigan Avenue, the Disney store, the Hershey’s store, and the Marylin Monroe statue! We also went to the Chicago Institute of Art, Millenium Park (and the Jelly Bean) and the Museum of Contemporary Art. The MCA’s current exhibit actually covers art from the 1980s, which is….interesting. Better than their fashion sense, I’ll give them that.

AND WE FOUND QUIMBY’S BOOKSTORE! Holy snood was that freaking amazing! And the taxi driver who took us there was even nice! (Not the guy on the way back. He was presumptuous and demanded a tip.) Literally half of all of my souvenirs came from this bookstore because they have the coolest and best self-published comics and zines and independent/underground comics I have ever found in a book store so far! This is also a go-to place if you find yourself in Chicago, even if you don’t like comics: some friends who came with me to Quimby’s don’t even read comics, and they still found stuff they liked…..mostly smut….

I WOULD include pictures of all the places I saw in Chicago, but 1) those pictures were all taken on my phone, and the quality is crap because I don’t have an iPhone like all of my other peers, and 2) I’m trying not to spam this blog.

Instead, I shall include pictures of all the souvenirs I got from that marvelous city.

Ta-da!

The Jack Skellington Shirt came from the Disney store. I’m going to be gifting that to someone soon.

A delightful shirt from the Chicago Institute of Art.

All the books I found at Quimby’s are here.

Postcards and a Bookmark from the Chicago Institute of Art.

Found this Sticker at Quimby’s. It now decorates my Sketchbook.

My other souvenirs not Quimby’s-related. The shirt came from the Museum of Contemporary Art and says “Fear No Art.”

By the way, if you didn’t notice, I also got both volumes of Maus while in Chicago. If you haven’t read it yet, why the fuck haven’t you? This is probably the best damn graphic novel I’ve read for a long time in terms of brutal and raw emotions.

That’s all for now. Next week I hope to post a comic I’ve finished recently, but if not, expect some sketches!

Don’t Forget to Be Awesome.

Before I show any work-in-progress, and before I go off to Chicago for the weekend, I would like to show to you a two-page original comic I call, “The Reunion.”

The first page is, I believe, ten inches by seven inches. The second page is four and a half feet tall by two feet wide.

As you can imagine, it won’t be easy to make prints of these. But here on the internet, you can enjoy this brother and sister duo meeting again after the brother’s year of absence.

Please click on the images to enlage them. They’re best seen when they’re larger.

I enjoyed making this, every minute of the way.

For those of you who do not live in Ohio, there is a store that exists in Columbus, Cleveland, and a few other cities called Half Price Books. It’s a second-hand book store, so all the books have been previously owned (duh). They also sell used DVDs and VHS’s, and some stores also sell posters.

What makes these store AWESOME is their size and sheer breadth of subjects carried. Everything from Art History to Biography to Science Fiction to Popular Fiction to Teen Fiction is carried there, and their comics section is actually the best that I have seen in any used book store.

Case in point, these lovely titles that I found while I went shopping there:

I was especially ticked at having found BOTH volumes of Persepolis, a Seth (HOLY FREAKING BAZINGA you can’t find that even in a retail book store!), and Confessions of a BlabberMouth and Clubbing (I heard those books were out of print!).

I feel like my comics collection is now just that little more complete. It’s certainly getting there, at any rate.

If you have any of these books, you are awesome, because these comics are awesome. Understanding Comics has definitely helped me begin to see the possibilities within comics as an art form, broadening its artistic and literary scope and bringing all kinds of new thoughts and understanding to how comics works. I know practically everyone else has read this, but this is my first time reading this book. Please be patient.

Also, as a bonus for waiting for this post, here are two links that hopefully you will enjoy: one is gorgeous art, and the other is practical advice.

Sean Phillip’s Art Blog is always wonderful. His life paintings are beautiful to look at.

Plus there’s the Savvy Musician’s blog post, Why Most Artists’s Websites Fail. I really like this man’s work, because he has one of the few blogs out there that artists can use that contains actual helpful information, and makes it interesting to read. As an extra bonus, if you can get his book, The Savvy Musician, you should, especially if you are a musician. It’s pretty much like a bible of artistic entrepreneurship.

That’s all for this week. Next week, I’ll be sharing some of my sketches, works-in-progress, and finished art (and prove that I actually am what I say I am: a comic artist), plus a little surprise.

As always, Don’t Forget to Be Awesome!