Research & Reference Fails

Clumsily researching trees for a mini comic and learning about poison ivy the hard way.

Over the past couple weeks, little white tufts have been swirling around outside. It inspired me to make a short poetry comic about cottonwood trees (also called poplar trees) and noticing your surroundings.

I took to my wild yard to take reference pictures. I wanted to understand where the seeds were coming from!

Fail #1: I managed to get poison ivy on my ankle while I was traipsing around my yard snapping photos. I’ve never gotten poison ivy before! I didn’t really know what to watch out for! As an example, I took the reference photo below because I thought these bright green leaves were such a pretty contrast against the seeds and foresty floor... Well, now know what poison ivy looks like! Exhibit A:

Fail #2: I also managed to take a reference photo of basswood leaves instead of cottonwood leaves. They are similarly toothy, but basswood is heart shaped, like these:

Cottonwood leaves look like this:

I’m borrowing this reference book from a friend and it’s been super helpful!

Now I’m trying to incorporate my lessons learned and slowly drawing (and redrawing) some panels! I’m also contemplating a comic on how to identify poison ivy, because I could use the reference!

Here’s the sketchbook page where I planned out the panels and words:

This was before I realized the difference between basswood and cottonwood leaves!

Here’s the first in-progress panel:

I’m in the process of fixing my leaf shapes and dialing in the colors. Next week I’ll share the finished full color comic! Paid subscribers, I was planning to share some black and white panels with you as today’s download, but due to the leaf shape debacle, I’m not ready yet. Next week I’ll share two downloads with you!

Thanks for reading

Thanks for being here! Time and attention are among our most precious resources, and I truly appreciate you making space for my work. In case you missed it, last week I shared a comic about what it’s like to live in a body. Check it out in my post New Poetry Comic: Vessel.