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Kaija Rudkiewicz

Writing your dreams down

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White notebook for a dream journal. For some reason it seems fitting.

White notebook for a dream journal. For some reason it seems fitting.

When I told Silver a weird dream I had, he made a connection to some weird short stories I’ve been writing from time to time. They have a very similar vibe.

This made me pause for a second to think it through. If my brain works similarly during the day as during the night, I’m letting a big chunk of possibly interesting stories slip through my fingers.

Couple of days later, armed with a new notebook and determination to remember all my dreams, I start a new obsession: a dream journal.

I actually tend not to remember my dreams. For some reason this fact didn’t enter my mind when I started. I’m guessing that the prospect of catching my brain during it’s most vulnerable time of making up stories on it’s own, was too exciting to remember the possibility of failing and hearing crickets for weeks on end before I remember a single dream.

Compulsory doodling on the first page.

Compulsory doodling on the first page.

The goal of writing the dreams down helped retain many bits and pieces. I’ve noticed that in the morning during the hypnogogic state, the state of being half awake while the dream is still going on, I’m already making an effort to memorize as much as possible. The result is, that I’ve only missed one night out of nine. Sure, sometimes it’s only couple of sentences, but other times it’s a full page of surreal stories.

I’m thinking, if ever a really good one comes along I can make a short comic out of it. Maybe in ten years I’ll have a bookful of them piled up. Other than that, they’re there for my own amusement.

Our dreams tend not to mean anything to other people. It can actually be annoying having to sit through somebody else’s story that has no significance in the real world and most probably makes no sense to the dreamer either. But I find it fascinating having my own dreams permanently attached to a notebook.

Some text from day 2 and short entries on days 3-6.

Some text from day 2 and short entries on days 3-6.

 

Smiles,

Kaija

 

Efficiency and imagination

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I had a conversation with Ramon yesterday, during which he quoted Marina Abramovic, a great performance artist, explaining the downfalls of a fixed workspace. A professional studio is essentially a very unnatural environment for creative thinking. Most of the time it is setup to enable an efficient output of work, nothing more. Except, creative work is always more than just a manual task. I imagine, that for most people the ideation part, the message, requires a very different environment. One where efficient output of quality work shouldn’t be the most important goal to reach at all times. Having that pressure from the setup of your workspace, while most of the progress is happening inside your own head, can be crippling.

Best thing would be to get out of the “producing work”- mode and let your thoughts wander making new discoveries that grab your interest. These ideas are the ones that have the potential to grow into something that you will obsessively work toward getting on your worktable, not the other way round.

This thought put into words something that I think most people instinctively gravitate towards. The way I work at home, as opposed to the office is a good example of this statement in action. Me and Silver are two self-absorbed people with an attention span that caters only to interesting thoughts, stories and conversations, and that has led to our apartment being solely organised to enable the creation of our own projects, most of which are still in a dormant state in our skull sized kingdoms. This otherwise mess of an apartment has all we need to transition between all the different stages of a project.

Inking comic pages does require a certain efficiency. That is where the workstation comes in. It’s perfect for polishing ideas, drawing final illustrations and making your work presentable. I love spending hours in there, drawing. But I feel like staying in that space would trap me into producing the same repetitive work and only let me hone the technical side of the process.

I never do ideation on my inking board. I have been instinctively avoiding it whenever I am coming up with new ideas. The inking table is for inking. A creative act in it’s own right, of course, but also a highly manual task. Whenever I am coming up with fresh ideas, writing, fleshing out thoughts and stories, I tend to retreat to a comfortable spot, most often the bed or a small bookshelf next to a window, covered in pillows for comfort. Anything that might serve as inspiration gets dragged in too.

Everyone probably has their own version of that spot, maybe it’s not even that far removed from the worktable. Maybe it’s only about switching from the computer to a notebook. Maybe it’s about switching off your phone and finding a quiet place to immerse yourself in your thoughts, knowing you are safe from interruptions. I feel like it is the physical change in my surroundings that lets me change gears from production to imagination.

_DSC0089 smallSilver took this picture couple of months ago. It’s one of my favourite spots for writing.

This weird picture illustrates my point perfectly: Salvador Dali in bed in 1964, projecting pieces of dirty paper “to stimulate his inspiration”.

 

Smiles,

Kaija

Gig posters flip-through

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For a while now I’ve been making a poster design at the end of each chapter of RFR. It’s been something I always look forward to. Trying to condense the vibe of the chapters into one image feels like a neat final touch for each of them, before I move on to the next story. I have no graphic design background though, so I thought I’ll invest into some more research on the subject. We have our shelves full of illustration and concept art books, now is the perfect time to expand into new territories. I ended up buying Gig Posters Vol.1 and Gig Posters Vol.2. They’ve been a fun source of inspiration for me ever since. I took some pictures and made a flip-through video of both of them so you can get a better overview of the content.

 

 

 

_DSC0129 copy

_DSC0119 copy

_DSC0133 copy

_DSC0149 copy

_DSC0156 copy

Smiles,

Kaija

Thumbnails, artists and blackout poems

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These scribbled thumbnails are my first step towards a finished RFR chapter six. They are a mess, I know, but in Friedrich Nietzsche’s words: You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star ;)

I finished these last week, working painfully and tiredly during the workday evenings, trashing three thumbnails for every good one. Then re-did everything on Saturday in two hours after a well needed rest. Not a single one in the bin. That’s what half a day of blissful leisure can do to your brain. I’ll try to remember that in the future.

 

Yesterday I stumbled upon Eliza Frye through Tumblr. By now I’ve already read most of her comics and I highly recommend everyone to read them. They are in the form of short stories that will leave you staring vacantly and smiling for a moment after reading them. Beautiful stories, beautifully drawn.
Read them.

 

 

Also check out Jake Wyatt’s work. He is planning on launching his new, weekly webcomic “Necropolis” at the end of august. You can already find some test pages of the comic on his blog as well as his other work. It’s all eye candy!

 

I wanted to end this post with the latest blackout poem I did. Both me and Silver have been doing these once in a while for the past year. I thought maybe I should start posting them here, instead of just having them hanging on the walls.

Smiles,
Kaija

End of chapter four

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We have reached the end of chapter four! As you can see, some of the speculation about Two gaining a pet by the end of the fight came true. It’s been fun watching some of you guys getting to the same conclusions we did, but at the same time not being able to confirm or deny your guesses. We’ve felt like two little school girls, snickering somewhere round the corner, whispering about secret plots nobody knows about.

Next Monday we’re starting a new chapter. This one is going to be one of the longer ones, and we’ll be introducing a new character that we have been dropping hits about in previous chapters :P

Can you guess which one?

I’ll leave you with a poster design I did as a celebration of the end of “The one with all the wolves”.

Smiles,
Kaija

On growing older and other fun

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Couple of weeks ago I found Silver’s first gray hair. Right on the edge of his mohawk. He didn’t seem fazed by it. He took the news with mild surprise and that was the end of that. I’m proud of him.

It also made me think: I’ve always thought that I will wear my grey hair with calm approval. Maybe even elegantly. But most importantly, as a fact that I won’t ever hide.

I want the development, experience and insight that pours in every year, and I will welcome the outward manifestation of those years as proof of something gained.

As a teenager my capabilities to digest my observations were so limited. I believe in five years I’ll look at the current me in similar fashion. At that point the teenager me would seem like a whole different person. Why would I want that person representing myself at age 30?

That is not to say I will grow old and “act my age”. I swear to grow wiser, not older. I’ll just take in what I learn along the way and continue adding that to my life, so it can constantly take new shapes.

The picture below is how I imagine me and Silver in 50 years to appear to people walking down the street ;)

I other news: we put all of “The one with all the birds”-chapter’s original pages on our Etsy-shop. Check them out!

Also, you can have a look at couple of new inking videos if you haven’t already seen them:


Smiles,
Kaija