This is it, sound the trumpets, fire the canons: the big final-thoughts post on book one of Disney's upcoming graphic novel series ARDEN HIGH, Twelfth Grade Night. If you've been around for a bit you know that I graduated college in 2020, then jumped pretty quickly into freelance book illustration, thanks to my agent. I have never done a graphic novel or eve...
2021-12-22 20:56:24 +0000 UTC View PostHello, are you staying warm? Maybe it is warm where you are. Do I have any southern hemisphere folks out there?
Consider this post the pre-party to a day of big posts. I'm celebrating with you because I've just finished my big work until the new year! I'm not traveling at all, so I've got lots of time to spend catching up with you. Today you can expect...
-a blog-style post all about Arden High with lots of little sneak peeks into the finishing process of AR...
2021-12-22 17:16:55 +0000 UTC View PostIf you listened to my recent podcast (which by the way, reading your comments in response to that made my week...I love comments🧍) you'll know that I was considering taking a break from patreon in December. It is my birth month, my final month to finish book one of Arden High, and then time for a much needed holiday break. No action is required--you simply won't be charged for next month! 2021-11-29 20:37:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello hello, welcome to another rambling podcast where we catch up on work, life, talk about giving my first tattoo on another human being, figure modeling and sweating in the nude, and some sick-brain scrambled thoughts.
Here's a few visuals from topics discussed in this podcast:
Austin's "bone shaker" tattoo that I gave him:
2021-11-21 22:25:52 +0000 UTC
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A very happy halloween eve to all folks in similar timezones...perhaps it is already Halloween where you are! I took today off of work just to draw for pleasure and absolutely am falling behind on work as a result (admittedly I have taken a few half-days off here and there too). But halloween demands to be celebrated, and I wanted to do a fun monster-sona drawing--the one I posted to instagram and twitter today. I've included a couple outtakes from t...
2021-10-30 22:41:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Boy howdy I sure do hope you are craving a peek at some Arden High in progress! Because it is literally my whole life right now and will continue to be until January when I wrap up illustrating Twelfth Grade Night (Book 1) and start on Book 2...
These crops, you'll notice, do not have individual captions as you scroll through. This was--despite my scatterbrained nature lately--on purpose. I do not want to give too much context to anything that I show b...
2021-10-18 14:32:10 +0000 UTC View Post
If this patreon community had a shared POWER MONTH I would assume it's probably October. I hope we all thrive together this month, because we've certainly got the dark autumn vibes going for us. I am sad that my energy has to be focused on my currently projects because I'd love to be creating exclusive October printables and decor all month. I'm staying diligent and somewhat on track until December with my current books, and it's taking all my time and energy. :')&nb...
2021-10-01 13:34:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey and happy Mabon everybody. I don't know much about Mabon myself but if I had the time, I would have a huge celebration all week! What's funny is I think I was unintentionally celebrating Mabon the last week, eating pumpkin, apples, lighting warm scanted candles, writing gratitude lists, etc. I'm admittedly feeling a little overwhelmed this morning and had a tough time sleeping last night because I had work on my mind. I hope to find some time to decompress and celebrate the autumn equinox...
2021-09-22 12:28:35 +0000 UTC View Post
The other day stickerapp reached out to me to design some stickers and told me I could make 3-4 designs...I am still designing and brimming with ideas for little guys, but who is your favorites from this batch of sketches? I am trying to narrow it down, but I still end up adding more hahaha--these guys are too fun to design!
Or...is there something else you would like to see? Let me know what you think/want!!
2021-09-13 12:55:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Half secret sketches, half journal entry. Please flip through each image for short descriptions!
Hi you, I have been very occupied lately with moving (this Friday!), trying to stay on top of work, researching to begin tattooing, and taking time off when I can. Technically, I really do not have the capacity to take any time off at all right now, but I know that would be...inhumane. So even if I fall "behind" on work by a couple days, I still try to take a little bit of t...
2021-09-08 12:04:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Sometimes you do the sketch, think “this is totally it! I am a genius!”
….and then you render it and feel all of that big brain energy leave your body. Such is the case with the original cover idea for Mushroom Rain which I have officially abandoned. I knew something wasn’t feeling quite right and popping how I wanted it to.
At first, I wondered if I was just putting too much pressure on myself because it was the cover of a book tha...
2021-09-01 13:21:26 +0000 UTC View Post
As I said earlier, I wanted to talk your ear off about my silly little life and how work is actually going. The first "half" of this talk was a post from earlier today (here) which gives some context to this podcast.
Got lots of thoughts in my head, please enjoy and I hope it keeps you company. :-)
2021-08-24 23:02:58 +0000 UTC View PostIt's been a hell of a month for work in August--satisfying, stressful, exciting, hopeful, panicked, all those things at the same time, mostly. I'll actually be putting up a podcast later today in which I go into detail about all of this stuff (and if you are at all interested in illustrating for books I highly recommend it!) but I thought I would prepare you with some preliminary information and visuals.
Hellooo it's me again, imagine me sliding these under your door and running away. Not much I can say about these other than here are two FULL random pages from ARDEN HIGH: Twelfth Grade Night featuring characters Vi, Maria, Toby, Andrew, Melvin (you might know him as Melvolio) and of course the introduction of Olivia.
I'll be deep in this project nearly every day for the next few months to finish all 160 pages! :')
What do you think?
-JG...
2021-08-18 16:50:13 +0000 UTC View Post
Since I'm all cooped up inside with the sickness (I am okay! I am fully vaccinated so if this is the Delta Variant it feels just like a cold), I thought I would take this time to have a short catch-up.
Life has felt a little dreamy lately with fun nights, early morning sunrises after the gym, hot summer day walks, plenty of fungi, and actually FINISHING long-term projects (soon!) and f...
2021-08-18 00:18:23 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey folks, I've got some spicy summertime secrets to share with you in this round of exclusive art for your eyes only!
I've been really excited about how everything has been coming together for Brothers In Arms (Wojtek the Bear's book) and although I'm cutting the deadline very very close, I think I can do it! I've decided to change my workflow lately to where I only focus on one project at a time, so I haven't touched Arden High: Twelfth Grade Night in some time...
2021-08-09 14:55:00 +0000 UTC View Post
30 seconds in and I talk about sucking my own toes!
Hey, welcome to my first patron-exclusive youtube video preview. The full video is going to be about 20-25 minutes long and I'm still editing (very slowly, in between work...sometimes I wonder why I do this to myself). In this video I filmed and tracked myself for a week, starting a timer whenever I did work, to figure out what my weekly hours typically are. It's casual, in kind of a vlog-style and halfway throug...
2021-08-01 17:53:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello my hot summer sausages, I'm here with a patron request: a procreate video timelapse of two out of the four editorial illustrations I did for TOWN Carolina magazine. Thank you to those of you who asked how I used the Tip Top Riso brushes--I always like to know what you're curious about and that helps me to put out relevant content. :-)
A couple things to note here: I don't start using the riso brushes up until the middle of the first illustration around 1:20 in the video 2021-07-20 21:45:39 +0000 UTC View Post
And these are JUICY these ones. I'm so excited to begin to share some full color stuff from Arden High, as well as the now newly announced WOJTEK story I'm illustrating: Brothers In Arms! Now you guys know 3 of the 4 projects I am currently working on (all at once haha! 💀)
Click through the gallery for short descriptions of each image, but I'll elaborate on a few things here.
The first 5 images are snippets (and even one full page) from ARDEN HIGH: Tw...
2021-07-10 14:26:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey there wild blackberry, what's going on with you lately? Have you been feeling renewed and excited now that the world is opening up a bit? Or are you feeling apprehensive, unpracticed, maybe a little out of sorts? I'm right there with you, on both of those extremes. The ordinary has become a little unordinary, and I'm sure it will take some adjusting for all of us in order for it to feel o...
2021-07-07 20:49:40 +0000 UTC View Post
This is part two of my deep dive into what it's been like to work on my first ever graphic novel: Disney-Hyperion's ARDEN HIGH! Here is part one, which was a casual Q and A podcast. Like I mentioned in the podcast, this part will be covering the more visual aspects of the creation process including charact...
2021-07-01 21:24:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Wahoo! (imagine me jumping like mario except I look way cooler)
Here is what we'll call "Part One" of Two on "Let's Talk Comics", the second half being a visual/text based post that I cannot release quite yet (gotta straighten out some stuff with the client first).
Super chatty, very casual, just answered them as I went on without "preparing" answers. Please enjoy, and thanks for asking questions :') Love you guys.
Additionally, 2021-06-26 22:15:28 +0000 UTC View Post
Tiny batch this go around, but mostly because in June I have been working on things that aren't announced yet, as well as FINALS (!!) for Mushroom Rain. I did include a couple crops from that, but I'd like to keep most of it a secret until it's available in stores! It's been such a dream to work on that project in particular. Sometimes I kind of groan when I sit down to draw, whether it's because I have other things I feel I should be doing, or I'm just not fully into the subject mat...
2021-06-26 19:42:54 +0000 UTC View PostAlright, big question. Heavy question. And one that people hate to talk about, but in the art industry, it's important that we do absolutely talk about it. And in fact, I have already answered this question! The reason I'm bringing it back up is because I saw the appreciation shown when I shared how much I actually made doing some small local editorial work. I saw that in my 2021-06-17 14:19:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey there, as I promised earlier I am planning to write up an in-depth post on what it's been like working on a graphic novel (as someone who never really wanted to do graphic novels nor had any experience), and now that the whole first book of ARDEN HIGH is completely sketched out (I am awaiting revisions at the moment), I thought ...
2021-06-15 15:42:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Ooooh papa has been cooking up a storm, and by papa, I mean me. And by cooking, I mean illustrating, and by storm...I mean four finished illustrations in a matter of 52 hours. I wanted to share some previews with you, as well as the original sketches!
In case you didn't see my previous secret sketches post, I was contacted by a local publication called TOWN Carolina, because apparently their usual illustrator wasn't able to do the job in the time frame (or something lik...
2021-06-11 19:25:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Hellooo! I'm writing from you feeling excited, nervous, relieved and a little dumbfounded because today I just finished sketching all 158 pages of Disney-Hyperion's ARDEN HIGH: TWELFTH GRADE NIGHT !! You guys know how I have been crunching for this deadline and never thought I'd see the end. It's surreal that I just sketches my first ever graphic novel all the way through. We'll talk a lot more about all that later this month, though. Here we have some select secret sketches includin...
2021-06-07 19:42:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey there! Coming at you with some of my handmade watercolor textures that I am using in the picture book I'm currently working on (Mushroom Rain). Here's crops of some of the textures in action:
I've included a .zip of 7 scans of watercolor textures that I made on cold press pap...
2021-06-02 14:14:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey, hello. I'm writing from you today tucked into a bench-seat at a local cafeteria-style venue that has multiple different restaurants in one space. I usually get an Americano (today it was iced) with oat milk and honey, from the coffee shop in this venue. The baristas know my order at this point--I'm always here.
A lot has changed huh? Welcome back. I know it's been a month since we ha...
2021-06-01 15:35:00 +0000 UTC View PostHello Seeds, Saplings and Harvesters. Next month, we set up camp as one big singular tier family: EVERGREEN! This is a tree that has foliage all year round--something I have been comforted by lately.
Just like the original inspiration for the tier mascots/names, today's announcement involves evolution and growth. If you haven't already watched 2021-05-25 14:13:06 +0000 UTC View Post