Radiant Comics

Here are my bookbinding adventures part two. This week I try to turn six issues of mine and my friends’ comic that we published in the late 1990s, Kansas Thunder, into a hardcover book. This is all new to me. I’ve never tried to bind individual comic books into a hard cover before.

The first thing I did was I decided that I needed a sewn binding. I’ve watched a few ways of doing this on YouTube videos and decided that I wasn’t going to punch new holes in the comics. I was going to use the existing staple holes. So I took the staples out of the comics and used waxed thread to replace the staples. It actually did more than replace them.

I put the thread through the eye of the needle and tied it to the eye. I also tied a knot in the other end of the thread and put the thread through the outside of the top hole. I then looped the thread on the inside back through the second hole on staple number one. With the thread back on the outside of the book I drew it along the spine and put it in the top hole of the bottom staple. Then it went through the bottom hole of the bottom staple and to the outside of the spine.

That left the thread running the length of the comic book but that wasn’t enough for me. So I doubled up by putting the thread back through the top hole of the bottom staple and then running it along the inside spine of the book. Then it was back out the second hole of the first staple, back in the top hole, and then back out the second hole to be tied off on the outside.

It reads a little complicated but it’s fairly obvious when you’re actually doing it. It leaves thread in the staple holes and between the two staple. Both inside and outside the comic. It’s sturdy.

They first time I sewed the spine it came out fine but the one thing I changed was how I tied the knots. On my first attempt the knots went on the outside of the comic and I tied one end to the other. This made the knots stand out on the spine too much. The second time I tried tying a knot on one end of the thread big enough to not pass through the hole and then tie off the other end to a piece already there. Around the vertical piece and through the loop it makes. Twice. This second way worked much better.

With six comics done each individual comic was a “Signature” in the binding process. For the first and last comics in the pile I added a piece of thick folded paper around the cover before I bound them with the thread. I bound in the paper so that the front and back cover (of books one and six) were now blank paper. This is the paper I would use to glue the comics to the case.

After I bound the six comics with string I clamped them in my book press with the spines sticking out. I used some flexible book binding glue to glue the spines together. The glue I already had was pretty good but I watched a video which recommended another brand of glue that was even more flexible. I bought that second brand of glue and it worked better.

After the glue dried (I applied a few coats to make sure it held) I took some book binding fabric ( it looks like a net) and glued that to the spine. The fabric was about half an inch wide and the length of the comic. That half an inch was really not enough. The second time I wrapped the fabric around the front and back about an inch each. This worked better.

After the fabric was in place and glued down I also glued some paper to the spine to reenforce it. The paper was about half an inch and flat in the middle with another two inches or so on either side. I glued the whole thing and stuck it to the spine and folded it around the sided too. This gave more strength to the spine.

Next I made the book case (the actual hard cover) with two pieces of cardboard for the front and back plus a half inch wide piece of cardboard for the spine. There is a half an inch of space between the spine and the front and back so the book can bend. So it goes cardboard for the front, half inch gap, half and inch wide piece of cardboard for the spine, half inch gap, cardboard for the back cover. Make sure to take this half an inch gap off the width of the front and back cardboard. The first time I tried I didn’t do this and the book was too wide.

The first (and second) time I tried to make the case I used art printed on a piece of 11×17 inch inkjet glossy paper. I printed the template of where the front, back, and spine go on the back of the paper. I tried to put a piece of clear book cover paper over the art on the front of the inkjet paper but this was tough. It looked good but it was not easy to get the paper in place and with no air bubbles. I could only get one out of two to work. I gave up on this method. I think the thin paper didn’t help.

Finally I decided to go with thicker white paper. I used a piece of mechanical board left over from my 1990s Marvel Bullpen days. It was 15×18 inches but I cut it to 13 by 18 inches to fit it in my printer. I printed the template on the side with the blue lines which left the outside white. This method worked pretty well.

On my third attempt I printed the cover on a slightly thicker piece of paper that was bigger. 13×19 inches rather than 11×17. I was patient and got the clear book cover paper on in one try.

I used book binding glue to attach the cardboard to the paper and also glued the flaps of the folded paper to the inside of the case. I found it easier to pour some of the glue into one of my round watercolor pallets and dip a foam brush in there than to try and squeeze the glue directly onto the cardboard. The glue also dries quickly so you have to work fast.

On one attempt I tried using Mounting Adhesive instead of glue and this worked well except for the flaps that folder over to the inside of the cover. I think the glue kept these small flaps down better than the Mounting Adhesive.

After the case was made I sat the comic in it to check for placement. It seemed to fit (on my second attempt at binding that is).

There was white paper on the front and back of the comics and I glued the front white paper to the case and then the back white paper. It glued down fine but looked terrible. The thin white paper looked warped from the glue. So I glued some thick black paper to the inside front and back covers and that made it look nice.

For the covers of the second attempt that were blank I decided to paste down some art. I discovered that I had some 8.5×11 hologram sticker paper so I decided to use that. It worked well. I left a paper a little small so that it would have a small white border around it. I still have to figure out what to do with the spine. I tried the sticker paper but didn’t like it. We’ll see.

So I ended up with three attempts to make the book case. One was too wide, the second had the blank cover, and the third had the cover with my printed art. This left me with two finished copies. The second one with the new glue is the better one. That’s where it stands so far.

An old bound mini-comic of mine.

I’ve been learning something new this week. Book binding. That’s book binding by hand mind you. I don’t have any automatic machines to do it for me. I saw a video online made by a woman who upscales old hardbound books into sketchbooks. She sells them too. I thought that was a cool idea and wanted to try to make them myself.

I actually bought two books on the subject. One written by the woman who made the video. It’s called “Simple Book Making” by Unbind Books and it’s available at Amazon. So is “Zine Making and Book Binding” by Lauren Simkin Berke. Plus I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos.

Being that I’ve never done this before I had to buy a lot of stuff to get started. It’s not especially expensive but it adds up. It’s mostly a lot of drawing and writing paper in different sizes and styles. Plus I had to get some bookbinding thread and needles. Though I’m looking to upscale existing hardcover books I also bought some book cover cardboard to make my own hardcovers.

By for the most expensive thing I bought was a $70 book press. This is a metal machine that either clamps a book in place so I can work on it or presses a book flat as can be. I bought it with credit card points so the price didn’t hurt as much.

I already had some bookbinding glue from another project so I haven’t had to buy any more of that just yet. I’m a little bit clumsy with the glue anyway and prefer to use my 3M Repositional Mounting Adhesive in it’s place but that led me to the discovery that they don’t make that anymore.

Back in the 1990s Marvel Bullpen we called that stuff “3M paper” for short. We used it to glue stuff down. It comes on a long twelve inch roll with the plastic paper backing on one side and sticky stuff on the other. You cut a sheet to size, 8.5×11 inches if the paper you want to glue down is letter size, and then place the sticky side on the sheet of paper.

The “Repositional” part of 3M Repositional Mounting Adhesive means that it doesn’t stick fully right away. You can move it around a little bit. After you get it in position, sticky side down against the paper, you rub the back of the plastic paper with a burnisher. This pressure transfers the sticky stuff to the paper you want to glue down. Now that the glue is on the paper you want to glue down you place the paper where you want it to go and use your burnisher again to stick it down.

This 3M paper is easy to use, useful, and archival. This is why it’s been used for years to “Dry mount” photos. I’ve used it to make my photo collages since I started making them back in the 1990s. I decided to use it in place of some of the glue in book binding and that’s when I discovered that 3M stopped making it in 2025. I found what is supposed to be a replacement for it “Neschen Gudy870 Double-Sided Adhesive Film” but it’s not repositionable. That makes it much harder to use.

Meanwhile back at the book binding things are going frustratingly slow. Some of it is easy and some of it is tough. I can’t even figure out how many pages go in the sketchbook I’m making. The first one I did I put in what I thought was the same volume of pages that came out other it but there were too many. The book wouldn’t close correctly. Or maybe I messed up the spine binding. I’m not really sure.

I also added an extra step. The woman who upscales her books finds interesting old hardcover books to use. Since I’m new I only have dull old hardcover books to use. She uses the existing covers (because they’re interesting). I decided to make my own covers. This meant that I had to print something out (the easy part), cover it with book cover film (frustrating to use), cut it to size, and then use the mounting adhesive to attach it to the book. This took way longer than I thought it would. They look good but it’s a lot more work.

I’m also finding out the difference between hand sewing signatures of pages versus glueing individual pages. This probably means nothing to the average person but it’s two completely different ways to book bind. I’ve done it both ways and messed up both of them. It’s slow going.

At the same time as all this I’m also trying to figure out how to bind individual comic books into a hardcover book. I’ve bit off a lot.

So far it’s been a frustrating week trying to figure all of this out and it has me contemplating the nature of learning. I’ve always been good at learning and have always liked to learn to do new things despite it being hard and frustrating sometimes.

I’ve often hear it said that it’s easier to learn things when you’re young than when you’re old. They say that learning new things often means unlearning old things that are wrong. I think there is a bit of truth to this but for me there is something different in play. That is the other axiom that to learn something new you have to be willing to be bad at it.

I’m good at a lot of things. I’ve got a lot of expertise in making art. I’ve been working in a lot of different mediums for decades. If I want to make a painting I know how to. Even if it gets frustrating at times I know it’ll all be good in the end. I’ve done it before. Lots of times. I draw, I paint, I write, I make videos, I do photography, and I do other stuff I can’t even think of right now. But I’ve never bound books before.

Also when you’re older time is shorter. I know I have more time behind me than in front of me. If I want to learn something new I have to leave my area of expertise and be terrible at something. This is tough to do when I could be spending my time making stuff in the areas I’m good at.

I think when I was younger it was easier to learn because I wasn’t expert at anything. Being terrible at stuff was normal and having to put in the hard work to make something nice was normal. Tough learning was part of wanting to be good at something. Now that I’m older and I’m good at a lot of things my choosing to learn something new (and not be good at it) is rougher than ever.

But I’ll figure out this book binding thing yet. At least that’s the plan.

This week (the first week of May 2026) I was showing some of my drawings to a student of mine and he asked the question, “Where did you get the idea for that shape?”. I had used a, sort of, halo shape behind the person in the drawings head. I gave him the short answer of it was a halo like in Russian icon paintings. But then as I thought about it later I came up with a longer answer. It has to do with how I draw as seen in my sketchbooks. This is that longer answer.

First off I name my sketchbooks. That way I can tell them apart. I started doing this back in my college days and have been doing it ever since. I wish I had learned to date the pages of my sketchbooks back then but that didn’t start until sometime in the early 2000s. I am lucky if I dated when I started or finished the book back then.

The first sketchbook that explains the evolution of my drawing is an 8.5×11 hardbound one. It has a black cover and you can still find a lot of sketchbooks like this one. Its name is “Snow” and it’s from my college days. It’s probably from 1988. It has maybe eighty pages in it. It’s filled will unimpressive drawings. And when I say “Filled” probably half the space in it is used up. Some pages have a single little drawing on them.

I used this book as a space for working drawings. There are no finished drawings in it. There is some writing in it, some layouts for comics, some drawings for paintings, and even some math. It’s student work. There is nothing in it for anyone but my young self figuring things out. I remember being a little embarrassed when people would look through it. That’s standard for young artists. I carried these type of black hardbound sketchbooks with me well into the 1990s.

The second sketchbook I have has the date of December 1994 in it. It’s a 6×9 inch spiral bound (on the top/short side) one with 30 pages in it. Its name is “Prospect” but I don’t even remember this one. I don’t think I carried it around with me. It’s one that sat in the studio and waited for me to draw in it. This one has a lot of me figuring out character designs in it. Some in ink but most in pencil. It also has some figuring out of compositions and layouts. There is even some Magic the Gathering notes in it.

Out of the thirty pages in this book there are actually two finished drawings. They are nothing like the “Realism” of the sketches and working drawings and are two strange characters that predict where my drawing will go in the future. There is also what looks like the begins of my “Triangle” style of basic drawing that I eventually adopted. That’s where I view the very basics of the human form as triangles. The arms are two triangles, the shoulders and waist form a triangle, and the two legs are triangles. It’s not quite there yet but I can see it coming.

The next sketchbook has the dates 12/10/95 to 3/5/97 written in them. It’s 6×9 inches with 70 pages in it and is spiral bound on the long side. Its name is “Hydraulic Ram.” In this one I can see more of the triangles taking shape and it is also mostly filled with character designs and working drawings.

This one also has a lot of comic book storytelling type of work in it. There are layouts for a couple of comic book stories that I drew plus the scripts for them written in the back. This one even has the sketches for my first business card. Most of the book is in pencil but somewhere near the back I start drawing in ink.

“Clipper” is from January 1, 2000 until June 18, 2001. It’s 5.5×8.5 inches and has 100 pages. It’s spiral bound on the long side. This one is important because it’s my very first Inkbook. This first one took me a year and a half to fill but now I get one of them done a year and I am on Inkbook 27.

I call these my Inkbooks because I draw in them in ink. No pencil allowed. This one is full of ink drawings some of which could almost be called finished. Most pages have one to four drawings on them. Some of the drawings were made into finished drawings or paintings but most exist on their own in this book. Over the years my Inkbooks have evolved. Now I do about nine little drawings per page and it’s all about generating ideas out of thumbnail images.

Next we have a hardcover spiral bound 5×6 inch sketchbook. For some reason it has no name. It has about forty pages in it and has the starting date of May 2001. This begins the specialization of my sketchbooks. I’m always buying different sketchbooks of different types and sizes. I was back then too but now I try to find different uses for them. This one started out looking like one of my Inkbooks with small ink drawings in them but then quickly turned into one I used for general working drawings. It has layouts and ideas for some of the prints and “Covers to Comics That Don’t Exist” I was making. Lots of triangle people basic drawing in this one. It even has some comic strip layouts in it.

Four by six inches is the size of next sketchbook dated May 2002. It also has no name. It’s spiral bound across the top short side and has 24 pages in it. It’s filled with single page ink drawings. Each one is as finished as I’d expect and is made up of spontaneous shapes that I make up as I draw. But themes develop in these shapes like beams of light from people’s eyes and halos around their heads. There is a little writing in this one too.

Then we have one that is the same type as the last one. It has a name. “Slideshow.” This one is from 5/19/03 until 7/5/03. This one is filled with finished pencil drawings. I was drawing my oracle deck and I used my Surrealist Automatic Drawing technique to make all these drawings. That technique is like finding faces in clouds. I scribble all over the page and see what I can find in the lines. This leads to all sorts of shapes and weird figures and brings out my influences. A lot of those influences art the art of the ancient Egyptians, Mayans, Japanese, Chinese, and anyone else you got.

By this era of sketchbooks I was almost 100% specialized with my sketchbooks. Each had a purpose. But I still do usually have a general purpose one but those take a long time to fill up these days.

That brings us to Inkbook 27. My current one. I now use basic shapes to draw small thumbnail drawings spontaneously on the page. That leads to a lot of basic shapes in drawings. Circles, rectangles, and triangles. Add that to my love of historical art form long ago and I end up with halos from time to time. That’s where that shape came from. And I made a video about it.

Since I was wrote about my college summer job I thought I’d try to write something down about my high school summer job. I first got it in the summer I turned 16. That puts it as the summer of 1982. Or at least I think it was. I had to be at least 15 to get an official job and my birthday is in August so it couldn’t have been the summer before since I would still have been only 14 then.

It was my friend from school Adam Miller who told me about the job. Adam’s mother worked there as a cook so she told him about the job. It was a dishwasher job at a local place called Don Bosco: The Marian Shrine. It’s a Catholic public religious shrine. It’s got a wooded park you walk around with statues in it, sports fields, various buildings, and a group of priests who live there.

One of the buildings in the place has a big cafeteria, a larger dining room, and a small dining room. Plus a commercial kitchen. The small dining room is where the priests were fed, the large one had up to around fifty people who came on weekend retreats to the place, and the big cafeteria fed the public on certain days. Plus summer camps. It was those camps that kept me busy all summer.

I don’t even remember applying for the job. I don’t think I was even thinking about getting a job that summer but I probably wanted some money. I’m guessing I told my parents about the job and they told me to go up there. They may have even taken me up there to check it out or I could have gone on my own. It was about a twenty minute to half hour walk away from my house. Or a quicker bike ride. Or a five minute car ride but I didn’t have a car.

The job paid minimum wage. $3.35 and hour. That means I worked about seven hours to get $20. I may have only worked on Saturdays that first summer. Eventually I worked all summer but that may not have been until the second summer. I can’t remember. I know I worked on only Saturdays during the school year.

There were also two shifts. We served breakfast and lunch first shift and then diner. So I think we worked from about 8AM until 2PM and then left and came back at 4PM until around 6:30PM.

I worked a commercial dishwasher. I had a big sink with an overhead sprayed to rinse the dishes off in and then they went on a big plastic tray that was sent through a conveyer into a four to five foot long dishwasher to come out the other end clean. The waitresses would drop the dishes off and I’d clean them and put them away. I must have been there full time that first summer. I remember doing a lot of dishes.

The second summer I was there the cook decided that he wanted to make me his assistant. I didn’t have much cooking experience but that was okay with him. I was smart and a quick learner and he wanted to show me how to do things his way anyway. So for the next three summers (two after sophomore and senior high school years and one after freshman college year) I was an assistant cook there. It didn’t come with a raise. Still $3.35 an hour.

I got my friend and neighbor, Steven Ward, a job there too. It may have been that first summer or the second. He may have taken over as dishwasher after me. Either way we were there together a lot of the time and we had fun. Let’s see if I can remember who else worked with me.

The Cooks.

Of course there was Adam Miller’s mother. I think she was only there for a short time and only part time. I remember her but never actually worked with her much. She also had a woman with her who was her assistant. I don’t remember the assistant’s name at all. I think they continued to cook and worked in catering over the years. Just not at Don Bosco.

There was a new cook who was hired there that first summer. His name was Donald Munderville. I remember that because he lived down the street from me. I didn’t know him at all until he was hired on. He was a nice guy. He had an assistant named Dale Manupeili. I think he was a senior in high school and he was planning on going on to culinary school after graduation. Or maybe that was the summer after his graduation and he was leaving for school in September.

The next cook, who I think was hired for the summer of 1983, was Dave McMurdo. He was an old navy cook and had a drinking problem. He was the one who made me his assistant and taught me to cook. Unfortunately on the most high pressure days of the year he would show up drunk. That was a problem but he was mostly fine and lasted there for a couple of years. For some reason my friend Steven Ward remembered his name as McMurdock. I think I’m right because I remember Dave telling me his navy nickname was McMurdo the Turtle.

Dave eventually had another full time assistant work with him too. She was an adult and not a high school kid. Her name was Dorothy “Dottie” Dunn. She was a very nice woman who did her best to look after Dave when he was not doing well. I think she took over for Dave my last summer there after he finally got fired for being unreliable.

The was also an older woman who worked there my last couple of summers named Rose. I think she was a full time waitress there but she may have also assisted Dottie after she took over. I can’t remember. In the 1990s I used to run into Rose on election day because she would be one of the people working the poles at my voting place. I always stopped by and chatted with her for a few minutes.

One last cook who was there occasionally was named George. He also had an assistant who I can’t remember. There was a second commercial kitchen on the grounds and George ran his catering business out of it. Sometimes (I think on winter Sundays) when the other cooks had off George would come in and make meals for the people. I only worked with him every now and again.

There was a full time dishwasher hired after me. I don’t remember his name at all but I do remember he was from the Dominican Republic. He was a nice guy. We would chat and he would tell me stories about where he came from.

Besides my friend Steven (who I wish was still here with us so he could help me remember) the main people who I hung out with were the waitresses. They were high school kids like me. Some older and some younger. Let’s see who I can remember.

The Waitresses.

Patty Mayer – She was probably the first waitress I worked with on Saturdays. She was a couple of years older than me. Maybe she was a senior when I was a sophomore. I remember her being the blond all American girl type. Bright and very pleasant. She was always fun to work with.

Dawn Manupelli – Dawn was in my grade in High School but not in any of my classes. She was the sister of the first assistant cook and the reason I remember his last name. I liked Dawn. We got along well. I I ran into her once in the mid 1990s at the supermarket. She had a couple of young kids with her and was busy so we only said hello for a moment. Her mother also worked at Don Bosco in the office. She was nice too.

Shannon Something – I think she was a friend of Dawn’s but she might not of gone to our high school. I remember her being brunette and smart but not much else.

Theresa Echer – I remember Teresa being a fun person. She was usually up tempo and looking for a good time. Steven and I actually ran into her at his daughter’s Sweet 16 party back in 2009. It was strange for me. She came over to Steven all excited and asked him if she remembered who she was. He couldn’t quite place her. I knew who she was and said so. That only seemed to disappoint her. It was like I somehow ruined her surprise. She barely acknowledged me the rest of the night.

Joyce Dunn – She was Dottie’s daughter in law and a few years older than me. I think she was 21 when I was 18. We got along well and I liked hanging out with her. We occasionally used to go to the mall together.

Diane Something – I can picture her brown hair and smiling face but I don’t remember much more about her. I remember her being nice but we didn’t have a ton in common.

Blond Girl and Brunette Girl – I cannot remember either of their names and they were there my last summer or two. They actually started there because they had to serve community service. There was some incident where a group of girls beat up a lone girl. It was pretty bad, cops showed up, and it made the papers. They were probably about 16 when I was 18. They both were pleasant, did their work, and seemed like normal 16 year olds to me.

Christine Something – Another one of the later waitresses she was Rose’s grand daughter. I liked her. She was very nice. I think she also had a crush on me but she seemed so young. She was probably 16 when I was 18 or 19 and that seemed like an impossible age gap to me at the time. So I never got interested in her back.

Eileen Skae (I think) – Not a waitress but she worked in the office. I think she went to high school with my friend Steven and he had a crush on her. It went unreciprocated but she was fun and we used to hang out with her.

One last person to mention was Father Bosio. He was the boss of the Shrine and watched over us all the time. That’s who ultimately gave us our orders.

I went off to college in the Fall of 1984 and left my Saturday job. I came back in the summer of 1985 and they hired me back for one more summer. I think I may have stopped by in the summer of 1986 and they had nothing for me. Or I didn’t stop by. I can’t really remember. I don’t think I found a job at all in the summer of 1986 and didn’t work again until the summer of 1987 and 1988 at Prentice Hall.

Except where mentioned I don’t think I ran into any of my fellow Don Bosco people again.

I’ve decided that tonight I’g going to write about what is right in front of me. And that is “Dreams of Things” number three hundred and twenty. It’s right in front of me because it’s on my easel at the moment as I showed in off in this week’s (4/8/2026) Pull List Comic Book Haul video over on Youtube. I usually have whatever is my latest stuff on my easel but this one is from March 3, 2026. I’m a month behind in showing off my stuff on video so when I record I take this week’s piece down and put a month ago’s piece up.

As I look at this one I barely remember making it. Some I remember well and some I don’t. Being that it’s only a month old you’d think I could remember it but no. Maybe it’s because it has four faces on it. Somehow I find that less memorable than if it had one large face with maybe another smaller one. This one has two large faces and two small ones. I don’t know why that would make a difference in my memory but it’s all I can think of at the moment.

This looks like one that I colored with my new Pantone ink markers. In looking at the area in the middle of box of dull yellow, blue, and red I remember making those first in all grey and then not liking the greys. So I put color over them to give them more vibrancy. That’s it. That’s the one thought I remember. Plus I remember doing it with the Pantone markers.

Usually I color these background first and then I work my way into the main figures. I’m guessing that I started with that blue/green in the background up top. That color anchors a lot of the piece and was probably decided on at the beginning. Everything else has to revolve around it. That color makes it look like both water and sky.

Speaking of sky I bet the next thing I did was the blue sky and green grass down the bottom in the background. They give a little obviousness to the piece and ground it. I probably waited on coloring those yellow circles until near the end but had the color in mind the whole time. I use a lot of small yellow circles.

The neutrals were probably the next step. First those boxes of brown on top and then the ones on the bottom. Or maybe the other way around. I may have been hesitant to put them on top for fear of the pyramid being brown too and thus having too much brown. But I think the contrast of browns on the rectangles took care of that problem. They make the brown rectangles their own thing.

The yellow flame haired figure on the left must have been the next thing to be colored. His hair is his main color feature but there is a lot of line textures in him too. He has weird color combinations with a shirt of pink and olive green and a cloak of blue and violet. Not of the colors are particularly bright so that helps him sit back in space a bit.

The small yellow haired guy down the bottom is the simplest figure on the cover and I kept him that way with the coloring. He has some texture lines in his clothes but they are simple ones. They are some more blue/green plus some purple.

I think I left the big figure on top for last but I’m not quite sure. I know I had a vague idea to put him in a purple outfit so I may have taken care of that first. He has some orange hair to bring some bright color up to the top among all the neutrals and my classic split face colors. I just get bored making a face all one color so I like to split it down the middle and make it two colors. I especially do this in these dream like drawings. I find it makes them more fun to do and to look at. I added some pinks to the purples into the outfit to give it less of a monochrome look. Those two spots of light blue were decided last. I can tell.

For the stripes on the bottom guys shirt I went with shades of grey. The color in this one was already a little bit odd so I wanted some more neutrals. That freed me up to make half the face a bright green. But I wanted some texture on the face so I made spirals in a darker green on the right side. This added the strangeness I was looking for and made it different than the top face. Some neutral orange/brown hair frames the colors of the face.

I think I added the yellow into those small circles as the finishing touch.

This one is more crowded than my usual Dreams of Things covers. It has four figures and two horizon lines. With the sky of the top half also working as a wall of water it really flattens the piece out in a modernist way. Then that little hint of sky at the bottom opens up the piece to deep space.

The tree towns of rectangles on top, bottom, and the middle also twist the space a bit. The bottom row moves forward but then identical the top row is behind the hair of the figure so it moves back in space. It bends the sense of space as I look at it. Plus the color in the middle row of rectangles, which is in front of the figure, moves forward too. It’s tough to figure out the dream like space.

It also reminds me of a lesson I learned from one of my teachers. His name was Gary Bauer (or maybe Bower). He taught drawing at SUNY Purchase in 1986. He said something like “Overlap creates space. Forget cool colors recede and warm colors come forward it’s all about overlap.” Overlap really helped me play with space in this one. He was using hyperbole and you really don’t have to forget about warm and cool colors but overlap is step one in creating space. I thought I’d pass that on to you.