COMICS AND ART

Welcome to Poetry Friday! I’m writing on the twenty third day of National Poetry Month. This week we are hosted by the amazing poet and author, Irene Latham. Thank you for hosting! I am in the midst of reading her romantic new novel SOME STARRY NIGHT, and have also just read FOR THE WIN, a must read for teens who love sports.

The Progressive Poem has been fabulous and I’ve read every line even if I haven’t had the chance to comment on every one. I’ve been in California visiting my Grandson and it’s been busy. This week several of us have been sharing a virus baby Tommy acquired in daycare. Fortunately it’s been mild.

I have been doing some creative work, much of it just thinking.

Thanks to Mary Lee Hahn, on one of her recent posts, I discovered Grant Snider’s Poetry Comics.

What a wonderful book! In it he has written three different poems about How to Write a Poem and titles #1, #2, #3. I hope interested readers will find a copy and check it out. The cover gives you a taste of it. Below is #1, without the art.

HOW TO WRITE A POEM #!
By Grant Snider

Find a quiet place.
A sharp pencil.
A blank page.
Sit Still.
Keep quiet.
Wait.
A poem will rush in to fill the space.

I used it as a mentor text. Poets are always looking for poems.

I LOOKED FOR A POEM
by Janice Scully

searched the sky, 
found the sun.

poems about the sun
have already been done,

and poems about mountains,
creatures that roar,

ravens, 
daisies,
I see at the shore.

But does that matter?

whenever I search
I always find more. 

Could I make this a comic? Well, I quickly realized that it would take some time. I needed to create a unique character, and several scenes and to draw even a stick figure I’d have to practice. The characters have to move, as you see on the cover of his book. Snider’s characters, run, tumble, spin and make snow angels. Still it might be fun and I might work at it this week.

I did paint a picture I liked this week. I put some colors on a small sheet of watercolor paper, just to experiment with some color washes. What I ended up with looked a lot like the colors I saw in an Arizona desert a few years ago. Blues, browns, yellows.

Below is a photo from Wupatki National Monument in Arizona.

A view from inside the Wupatki National Monument

In the distance, through an opening in the monument are pinks, blues, but also a lot of shrubs trailing off into the distance. So added some shrubs to my picture and this is what I came up with. What I like about watercolor is that I often feel as if I’ve painted something horrible, but with a brush, some water and tissue, I can often make better, something I actually like. You may or many not.

THE DESERT AT THE WAPATKI NATIONAL MONUMENT.

I hope you have a great week. I have been following the news and find that Poetry Friday and all the wonderful and creative people here give me some hope.