The sad thing about making comix is that I can spend a year doing a 22-page story, yet I feel the most I can charge for it is about five bucks.

Meanwhile, I’ll see a teeny watercolour painting of a field and barn, and it costs $50, $75, $150…

Needless to say, I wanted to try my hand at painting. In fact, one of my goals for this year was to make five little paintings. And this year is running out.

My in-laws bought me a nice set of gouache paints for my birthday, so I finally opened them up this afternoon and determined that I would paint something. A few weeks ago I’d gessoed a couple of the left over cedar planks from the painter’s repair job on our house this summer, figuring a nigh-disposable medium would set the bar of entry for painting pretty low. It also makes for a kind fun, rough, toothy surface to paint on.

Since this is a completely new medium, I started with a familiar subject I like and am comfortable with: the protagonist of my comic, Gus.

This was fun! It nice, for once, to make something just to play around, not because I was trying to create a product.

I’d like to do a bunch more of these, with Island scenes, animals, people…