Project Description

INKTOBER 52 2023 Day #1: BUILD.

I basically grew up at a beach during the summers, Briggs Beach, to be specific. It is such an idyllic, almost magical location that I am forever grateful to have access to. It has played a critical role in the lives of my family for generations. It is our “happy place”. Growing up, we would spend every weekend from Memorial Day to Columbus Day, as well as a full week at the start and end of school vacation, there in a little cabana, with no electricity or running water. It was slightly glorified camping, and I got to spend the vast majority of my time outdoors, either on the beach in the sand and surf, or just sitting on the porch reading books and comics, or drawing. I’m sure it’s where my love of the outdoors comes from, it highlighted the importance of family, and it gave my Brain creative energy.

One thing that had a significant impact on me while growing up there was building “drizzle castles” on the shore line. There was something so mesmerizing to me about scooping up a handful of salt-water-saturated sand, applying just the right amount of squeeze, and watching the liquid sand pile up into these beautifully textured organic buildings. They were cities to my eyes, a place for my imagination to run wild. All these years later, they are the inspiration for the structures the Cobblies build in my graphic novel Revery. As beautiful as I think they are, they are really quite intricate and tough to draw. I don’t know that I captured their free-flowing shapes and texture, or if it’s even obvious that PMD is at the beach, but I sure had a lot of fun drawing this scene.