Becky Hawkins
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Book Illustrations
🕑 Added 2021-08-28 22:02:21 +0000 UTCHello! I'm back. As promised, here are the illustrations I did for Emotional Labor: Why a Woman's Work is Never Done and What To Do About It. And here's photographic evidence of me being relaxed last week:
The book illustrations were a fun drawing challenge because I wanted them to look expressive and energetic, like someone had vented their feelings directly into a sketchbook. But they also needed to be clear, especially when there were lots of small icons or specific locations in one drawing. Part of my process was doing as messy a sketch as I wanted, and then digitally fixing things like anatomy. (If I'm not thinking about it, everyone I draw has extra-short legs and asymmetrical arms). I also did about four different versions of "Noticing is a Skill," moving around the characters, trash can, table, and cabinets until it looked like a real room, but nothing was being blocked from sight.
The author and I also wanted to depict characters with diverse races and body sizes throughout the book. The cartoony style I was working in presented a challenge, since people tend to read extra-simplified cartoon faces as white. And I'd originally tried drawing using only outlines, with no areas filled in with textures or black ink. But when I showed my early drawings to people, they interpreted anyone whose hair wasn't textured or filled in with black, as blonde. I didn't want to draw "simple cartoon faces plus occasional OTHERRR eyes and OTHERRR hair," so I worked at finding a balance of providing just enough detail. I also wanted to be mindful of what could be read as a negative stereotype. For example, I didn't want any illustrations of men to be read as "lazy/inept fat person" or "disengaged POC father." So, those are all things I thought super-hard about in the middle stages of drawing this.
I had a ton of fun amalgamating old anti-suffragette cartoons for "Men Suffer Under Suffrage." It also felt good to switch gears and embrace an extra-detailed, extra cross-hatched old timey style. The angry exploding heads were my other favorite thing to draw. Drawing has always been a way for me to vent, so I tried to channel that. I hope you enjoyed looking at these!
In local news, I reprinted SuperButch Issues 1-5 this week--thank you, day job, for having a big printer--and restocked our local comic shop, Books with Pictures. Barry redesigned the back covers for the earlier print issues of SuperButch so that they all match now. They look great!
As always, thank you for supporting me on Patreon. It really means a lot!
Comments
Becky Hawkins
Thanks, that's great to hear!
Barry Deutsch
OMG these cartoons are great! I think the flow chart one is my favorite, but there are so many good ones here. (Applauds)
Tropiflutist
I love these feminist cartoons! Thanks for sharing them.
