FRANCO’S FREE-FOR-ALL FRIDAYS…
By FRANCO
One of the things about being in the creative business is figuring out how to be creative. How to do business. How to do marketing. People don’t realize how many other things you need to do to keep being that creative force you want to be. Above all we’re in this business because we’re artists.
Many make the assumption that being an artist is a solo pursuit, and sometimes it can be. Time in the studio is often spent alone with little interaction with others as you create. But as an artist, I have found that having a network of other artists around you can give you insight into your own artwork and helps you be a better creator.
I’ve got some pretty talented friends and from time to time I’ll reach out to them and ask them questions that I think will have different answers depending on the person but give insight to the creative process.
Here, I’ve reached out to friend, writer, artist, and all around badass, Sara Richard, who has created comic-book covers, book illustrations and other work for DC Comics, Marvel, IDW, Oni Press, Dynamite, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, British Vogue, Vanity Fair, and others.
The Ghost, the Owl, Action Lab Entertainment
FRANCO: What’s a creative day like for you?
SARA: I’m really not much of a morning person. I wish I was. Every time I need to get up for an early flight, the quiet morning sunrise is really magical. But! That’s not how my body works, I’m a bit of a night owl. So I usually get a good breakfast and coffee in and tucked into working about 11 a.m. Depending on what the project is and how intense my brain wants to hyperfocus for the day, I’ll work until I’m bleary-eyed and the sun has long since set.
Deadpool #43, Women of Marvel variant cover, Marvel
F: What is the biggest challenge of being creative?
S: Honestly, trying not to get sidetracked or fall down any rabbit holes. I’m really detail-oriented and I’ve gone down “side-quests” (as I like to think of them) that have probably eaten into a lot of real work time. But! Who knows, maybe that knowledge will save me in my darkest hour, right? Or at least kill at trivia. I’d also say, trying to separate your passion of creating from the business side of artistic freelancing. It really is a fine line. Burnout is a bastard and it’s such a dagger to the creative’s heart. Trying to find that balance in keeping your sacred creative endeavors as far away from becoming a side hustle really is the hardest thing.
GI Joe #7, IDW
F: Who do you talk to when you’re going through something creatively rough or trying to work something out?
S: My closest friends, both creatives and not, can offer their fresh eyes and key advice to a block that just won’t give. Finding a creative community is such a valuable resource to a creative’s longevity.
F: How do you know when something is finished?
S: It’s cliche but, you just feel it. When you start picking at minutiae you start running into the “overworking” stage, and that can take a finished piece into a battleground. I find when I start zooming into a digital illustration to a microscopic, undetectable-when-printed level, that’s a good sign for me to stop (or at least put the piece down for a bit and walk away). For traditional art, it’s when the materials just stop working well for you and you start fighting against them. When I can step back from a piece and feel a sense of calm and accomplishment, then I know it’s become the piece it’s supposed to be.
Godzilla in Hell #1, Comics Dungeon Variant, IDW
F: How do you balance your time in the studio versus family and other things you have going on outside of art?
S: Honestly, I don’t do a great job at this. I get so focused on trying to finish a project that it’s all I can really think about. (Hooray for ADHD hyperfocus.) When a project is done, I can mentally move on and breathe again with the self allowance to switch gears, or (gasp!) allow myself a break. I’ve recently started a Thursday shift at my friend’s comic shop and took up welding classes to really force myself to get out of solitary studio time and interact with other people. Also I found that karaoke is great therapy.
F: What artist do you connect with or are a big fan of?
S: I have always been inspired by Surrealism, Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Tamara de Lempicka, Remedios Varo, Alphonse Mucha, Erte, Margaret MacDonald and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and Klimt have always been huge influences in my creative life. I’m also a fan of scary stories and horror so the illustrations of Edward Gorey and Stephen Gammell have always fascinated me.
Justice League Tarot card set, DC Collectibles
F: What’s your latest project you would like to promote and where can people find out more about what you do?
S: Currently, I’m working on writing and illustrating a haunted house book for Union Square Publishing that has been a lot of fun to research. I’m going to be featuring 100 haunted “houses” (“house” is a bit of a loose term that I’m going with) with illustrations of locations with haunted histories and their ghosts collaged together. Also working on a few trading card projects coming up for Kayou and Parkside. I’ve also been getting into Magic the Gathering card altering for fun and color matching acrylic paint practice.
Outside of illustration and writing, I’ve started a bit of an entomological “art”project involving rainbow stag beetles with the goal of creating a solid line of white-eyed stag beetles for the US (since there really isn’t one! And they look really cool). I’ve always been fascinated with artistically designed shadowboxes and dioramas with pinned insects and plants, so I thought, “How cool would it be to raise the insect from
egg to shell?” They’re also really fun to keep as tiny pets, sort of like little living jewels actually!
Still striving for a breakthrough on this, but it’s a pretty low key, back-burner project that’s still in the early stages. Maybe someday I’ll publish my “bug-notes” into an illustrated journal.
I’m trying to post more regularly, but I would say Instagram @sararichardart is where I update the most. I’m often screaming about politics on BlueSky, and Facebook (The Art of Sara Richard) but I’ll post art tidbits in between bouts of liberal rage.
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Want more FRANCO’S FREE-FOR-ALL FRIDAYS? Come back next week!
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MORE
— USING THOSE SPIDEY SENSES: Experimenting Can Unlock Your Art. Click here.
— NINJA KAIJU and MOTHMAN: Two Projects With Very Different Roads to Publication. Click here.
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Franco and his forehead have traveled the world and he writes and draws stuff. Franco is the creator, artist and writer of Patrick the Wolf Boy and Aw Yeah Comics! Franco has worked on books/comics, including Tiny Titans and Superman Family Adventures. Franco was also a high-school teacher and is one of the principal owners of Aw Yeah Comics retail stores. Dan made Franco add that he has won three Eisners.
His new books, Action Cat & Adventure Bug: Let’s Do This!, with Art Baltazar, and Ninja Kaiju: Unleashed, with Scoot McMahon, both from Papercutz, are out now.
