The Instagram machine

As I'm gradually getting the hang of a smartphone, I now have an Instragram account! And my profile picture there is a sneak peek at the eponymous heroine of my upcoming webcomic, Paper Doll Veronika!

It looks to be a fun place to share both artwork and photos of nature round here and such. Feel free to follow me, and if you're thereon let me know!

Black and white training

I recently took over photo preparation at the newspaper where I work my day job. I use Photoshop to make the photos the right size and resolution, and adjust the contrast, color and sharpness so they look good in print. Every photo needs to be prepared in both color and black and white, so it can go on either type of page. The fun part is turning color photos black and white and adjusting the contrast. I’ve learned a lot more about light and value and what makes images clear and dynamic in black and white just from doing this.

This should serve me well as I embark on something I’ve been trying to do ever since I started my art career seven years ago — drawing comics. There are awesome people revolutionizing the independent comics scene right now, and I want to be a part of it. (My first offering will be Clockwork Dancer by Jon Del Arroz; a steampunk spectacular — please look forward to it!) It’s clear that I will generally not be wanted as a colorist, since I do not color digitally. So, I need to up my black and white game. 

I’ve been doing a lot of black and white since I started the Liturgical Calendar Coloring Book, and most of my work for Sophia Institute Press is black and white. But that’s coloring book style — just outlines. For American-style comics, I need to have black shapes and shadows.

So as training, I've taken some pages of the Liturgical Calendar Coloring Book and applying some black. Here's the St. John of the Cross page. More to come!

Prayer request for a mentally ill heretical art thief

A woman who calls herself Brother Andrew Blair as well as Brother Francis Clare has been taking my artwork without permission to use on posts attacking the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. First, she made this post, citing my statements on the evil of Eucharistic sacrilege as an example of "stigma." Later, apparently under the impression I was unaware of this, she made the following comment on my post "The Eagle Doctor's Little Daughter":

Absolutely beautiful,
I am capturing some of this for my blog with the due credits harvard

To which I replied:

That is funny, since your earlier use of my work was to portray as “stigma” my statement that sacrilege against the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is wrong, and you did not see fit to inform me then.

After which, she edited her comment so that it changed to being anonymous. Then, she used my work again, without credit, on this post, which, though it is quite incoherent, seems to be attacking the idea of the Blessed Sacrament as the Source and Summit of the Christian life.

I have left a comment demanding the removal of my artwork due to copyright violation, and if she does not comply I will submit a DMCA notice to her web host. UPDATE: The artwork has been removed as requested. I have also made a request for a Mass to be offered for her. Alongside her attacks on the Eucharist, she is severely mentally ill, both unadmittedly, in that she claims to be a man, and admittedly, having "bipolar affective disorder with some psychotic episodes." So please pray for her.

To her, if she is reading, I say, Jesus loves you in the Blessed Sacrament, but He can only live in you if you stop lying, about Him and about yourself.