My Favorites for August & Wrap-up!

Can you believe we are already in the month of September? Time has gone by so fast! But that means it’s time to do my favorites for August and wrap-up!

Favorite reads of the month

Didn’t finish any major novels this month but as usual, I did read a number of graphic novels. This is one of my favorite mediums for storytelling and I can read them fast, which is great when you have a busy schedule! So the novels that get an honorable mention this month are….

Winter Woods by Cosmos + Van Ji

This one is a little bit out of the box since it is actually a webcomic, which you can read through Webtoon. I’m a huge fan of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, so this comic was prefect for me because it has a very similar idea. Overall this story was so touching and human (no pun intended), and I easily binged it in a few days.

If you would like to give it a read, please click HERE.

Giant Days by Allison + Treiman + Cogar (Volume 1)

Love the style of this comic and the story was just fun! It follows 3 young ladies through their misadventures in friendship, college, and life. It was such a funny and easy read. I’m definitely hooked and looking forward to reading more!

If you are interested in learning more, please click on this LINK.

Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez

For all the fans of the animated movie The Secret of Kells, this is the book for you! The style of the art is similar in feeling to that movie, which means it’s completely adorable and detailed. The story was simple but sweet, and as someone who grew up with a pretty active imagination—I can relate to the daydream aspects. Definitely a great book for kids who aren’t easily scared, since some moments can be a little on the creepy side.

If you would like to know more about the author, please go HERE.

About Betty’s Boob by Vero Cazot and Julie Rocheleau

I have to say…I think I saved best for last. This book is by far my favorite out of all of these, both for the story and the art. About 99% of this book has no writing in it, so the whole thing is told through the pictures alone. It was such a powerful story and one I highly recommend everyone to read. Silent sequential stories like this are some of my favorites, and I admire them a lot because it’s not an easy way to tell a story, let alone a great one like this.

If you would like to learn more, please go HERE.

Art Wrap-up

I didn’t get many finished pieces done in August, mainly because I have been working on my summer sketchbook for this year. That being said, there were some really cool projects I did this month, and I recently hit 1000 followers on my art Instagram account. So I will be putting together a little event to celebrate that millstone!

Collaboration with Richard McConochie

In august I was approached by a fellow artist who has been following me and I him for a little while now, to do a collaboration! This was very exciting since I hadn’t yet done a collaboration like this. So after going back and forth discussing some ideas, we decided to choose a common theme and then create a piece for the other to complete in some way. I created a colored piece for him ink and he created some very cool line art for me to color. The theme we decided on was steampunk animals which was something I had never done before.

Here is my colored portion, which is a little hyena character I ended up naming Blue Jack.

And here is his cool raccoon lady line art which I then colored!

This was overall a very fun collaboration, and I definitely look forward to working on more like this in the future. If you would like to see his original line art and how he completed my piece, please go check out his Instagram HERE!

Oil and Water

This small watercolor mix media piece was one of the few that I finished in the month of August. It’s an idea I’ve had floating around in the back of my mind for a while now, and I’m so happy I’ve finally put it to paper. These two are new characters that I’m working on creating a story around. I love coming up with stories for the illustrations I make, so don’t be surprised if you see more of them in the future.

Leo

My finally piece for August was of course the first in my relaunch of a much older series on the 12 Zodiac signs. I purposefully completed Leo first since much of August belongs to this sign. You can read more about the process and this zodiac in this blog post HERE. 

Photo-shoots

If you have been following this blog for a while or any of our other social medias, then you may know about our sister blog, Amy Stebbins Couture. There you can find out all about what we are doing on the fashion side of things!

Two new blog series that have started over there are our Vintage Photo Challenge and $100 dollar outfit challenge!

Both of these were a lot of fun to work on, and I’m certainly looking forward to what we will be doing this September for these challenges.

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Overall, August was a pretty good month. In the last week of the month, my fall semester started and it is already shaping up to be a whirlwind of activity. Lots of interesting projects and new artwork to create. I will of course update you guys on that throughout the coming months!

How was your August? What are you looking forward to in September?

Let us know in the comments below!

Thank you for reading!