Our September, 2020 Drawing Together session was hosted by doctor and comic artist Ian Williams. Ian is the creator of The Bad Doctor, The Lady Doctor. Ian recently received an Arts Council grant to complete his trilogy with the book, The Sick Doctor. Ian also is the founder of this website and coined the term ‘graphic medicine’.
Ian said:
“Sometimes, particularly now as most news seems like bad news, it is good to focus on the Small Pleasures of Life. This session is inspired by Philippe Delerme’s book of that name, which I bought in the ’90s and which has often inspired me. Delerme writes about such pleasures as The First Sip of Beer, Helping Shell Peas, BlackBerry Picking, The Motorway at Night and An Old Train.
Kurt Vonnegut reported that his uncle would advise that when you are enjoying something, be it as simple as a cool glass of lemonade, it is important to say out loud ‘If this isn’t nice, what is’? (This comes from ‘If This Isn’t Nice What Is? Advice For the Young’)
For our warmup exercise, divide a page into 9 panels and quickly fill them with drawings depicting small pleasures that you enjoy, particularly ones that perhaps have been important to you during the pandemic.
Now consider those nine.
For our main exercise, choose one of those nine simple pleasures and turn it into a four panel comic.”
Joined in on Drawing Together this morning, a monthly drawing group hosted by Graphic Medicine. The session today focused on simple joys. Besides coffee and comics, craft has really helped me pull through during this pandemic. #DrawingTogetherGM pic.twitter.com/uA9ioXkUMF
— Jay Olinger (@jay_olinger) September 27, 2020
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