I draw pictures

OK general livejournal audience, I am hoping that you can help me clear up some confusion related to putting images in my entries. Basically whenever I upload an image it appears much smaller than I'd like. You can then click on this image so that it gets to be the size I want it to appear on the actual journal page, but I would like to skip that clicking step. For example, on this entry I wanted the comic to appear in the journal entry at the size it appears on once you click on it (about 600x550 or so pixels), but I can't figure out how to not have livejournal turn it into a thumbnail. I tried altering the number of pixels in the little upload window but then it just made for a slightly larger, blurry thumbnail. It would be neat if, for example, I could have had that comic (and future drawings) appear as large as this comic in nervousystem 's recent entry. Should I scan my images in larger? Smaller? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

On the topic of my general internet ineptitude, my friend Jenevive has been helping me get my website up and yesterday she gave me my first lesson in HTML, thumbnail-making, and uploading pictures and text. This is all totally new to me and thus it's a bit overwelming, but the art section now displays the first fruits of my newly (mostly) aquired knowledge. For all my love of the 90s, I never really got into the whole website-making thing when it was new and exciting...but that's all gonna change!

Today was one of the worst days I've ever had at my middle school job. As I drove home from work, feeling myself start to cry for the third time in twelve hours, I contemplated talking things over with someone. Usually that's a good remedy for me but the idea seemed exhausting. Plus I had already called my mom earlier (first cry), and discussed my frustrations with my supervisor (second, less intense cry) at the high school program where I work in the afternoon. Still, I felt a need to process the events of the day, and writing here seemed like a good way to do so.

The middle school where I am an assistant math teacher introduced a freshman cohort this year. It's an alternative school, full of kids who struggle, and in general there is a greater level of resistance and behavior issues with our kids than with the students at a mainstream school. These freshmen have been especially though. I was having a hard time with them for a few weeks now and today, with the head teacher out, they were really disrespectful towards me. It's not worth going into all the details. I sent one kid home, sent another to the school counselor. But that's not even the difficult part; what's difficult is knowing that one reason they treat me this way is that I don't send them home enough, I don't respond strictly enough to their behaviors which, if they keep them up, are going to work against them in their lives. When I left I felt like a totally ineffective part of the school staff, not to mention hurt by the assorted comments of a bunch of angry, insecure fourteen year olds.

When I arrived at the high school it was just my supervisor and I in the office.

"How's it going?" she asked.

"Terrible," I said, and proceeded to tell her about the events of the morning. She knows this middle school; it's run by the same association of alternative schools that runs our high school program. She consoled me, told me that she knows how much the whole middle school faculty has been frustrated with the freshmen.

"When I have a day as bad as this," I told her, "I think to myself that I'm not actually any good at working with kids, that I don't really know how to do this."

"No, no," she said, "just think of how far you've come since your first year!"

My supervisor is great and she's watched me grow in my job and I totally appreciate her support, but all I could think in response to this comment was how in high school my friend Lisa and I used to make jokes to each other about the "most improved" award at our annual academic assembly. "It's the 'you don't suck as bad as you used to' award," we would say.

Later on we were discussing how another staff member is applying to masters programs for education, and I told her that I decided I don't want to get a teaching degree anymore. After making sure that I wasn't just saying that because of my crummy morning, she said to me that even though I'd mentioned wanting to be a teacher in the past, she thought I'd make a really good school counselor.

"Just the way you talk to kids, the way you work with them, is much more like a counselor," she said.

All I could hear was "you aren't really a natural teacher."

So then I think--ok, I want to be doing some work in education, but I don't want to be a teacher or a school counselor...what does his leave? And then I think, what is it that made me want to get into education in the first place?

Well, in high school I started to develop the idea, based on what I was learning in my classes as well as my own positive experiences in the classroom, that education had the potential to empower people. Anyone can get an education, I thought--anyone can learn ideas and skills that will put them on fulfilling life paths. I also thought that I related to people well, that I would be good at working with kids and young adults. But it wasn't as much about wanting to teach as it was thinking that the education system would be the best place for me to effect change. So in college I spent a semester studying at a progressive graduate school of education, doing student teaching at a public school in New York City. And about a year after I graduated from college I got a job with this alternative school, supporting kids who haven't always received adequate support. I love my job, I love what I have learned there, and I love working with the students there--I am extremely lucky to be able to do so.

But then, I think of the week-long summer camp that my high school program runs every year. It's intense for kids and staff alike. In the main room where we hold activities and discussions we put up these posters with a whole host of motivational phrases. One of them says, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" And this summer when I looked at that poster I immediately thought, "I would be a professional cartoonist." Because I love telling stories with words and pictures, and I know that I need to make art to be happy. I also know I don't want comics to be something I do on the side...I want to be able to spend a lot of my time on comics, I want people to see the comics I make. I want comics and writing and illustration to be part of my livelihood.

I have always loved to draw but it's only recently that I've realized how much I want art to be a part of my life and career. That's a part of why I don't want to be a classroom teacher or a school counselor. I often feel I don't have enough time for comics as it is with my cobbling together of part time jobs--with a full time education job I worry about how much comics would be relegated to the extreme background.

Still, I want to keep serving kids who have not had their needs met by the school system. And though I have my doubts about teaching, and don't necessarily see myself as an art teacher, I think I need to figure out some way that I can blend these two things I care about so much. Because sometimes I think that the main thing you need to be a good teacher is something you are passionate about and want to share with others. And I have spent some time tonight thinking in more detail about a vision I have for a comics curriculum. I would love to teach teenagers how to make autobio comics, starting from this idea we have in my high school program that everyone needs to tell their own story. I imagine showing them all these different examples of autobiographical comics and graphic novels, having the kids talk about the different styles, and sharing their own life experiences in comic form. And I know that I would want this kind of teaching to exist alongside my own comics work.

This education/comics conundrum is something I often think about, but today's struggles really brought my thoughts out with greater force and clarity. I just hope that I can find the stable success in comics that I want, and figure out some way to keep education solidly in my life too.

The past few months have been eventful ones for me, in the realm of comics and in general. With the rain and grayness moving in on Portland, it seems like a nice time to hearken back to those golden days of late July and re-cap all that has transpired since my last entry. Would it have made more sense to announce these events as they came up? Probably.



Now here we are in the midst of November. I'm working on a few comics projects right now. The one that's been taking up most of time lately is "I Cut My Hair #3" which is all about my trip to China. It's still in the planning stages but it looks like it'll be about 40 pages when it's done. I'm also planning and drawing daily journal pieces for "I Cut My Hair #4," and with this issue I'm trying out a few different formats apart from the 9-panel/one page one that I've mostly stuck to thus far. I'm also still working on getting my website completely up...choosing and scanning images and actually, um, learning how a website works. Of course in addition to all this the school year has begun and I'm adjusting to having more hours and responsibilities at both the middle and high schools where I work.

Also, I turned 26 a week ago. I'm not going to say that this makes me feel old, because truthfully that's ridiculous, but I'm still struck by there being some significance to entering the second half of my 20s. A lot of the time I feel that I have so far to go before I get where I want to be as a cartoonist. It can be overwhelming. Regardless, I'm happy with what I've accomplished at 26. It makes me optimistic for the rest of my 20s (and afterward).

This is my first entry in almost a year!  There are three main reasons for this...

First of all, I now have the beginnings of a website up:  lisarosalieeisenberg.com.  Much of it is still under construction, but art samples, comics pages, and a store will be coming soon.  

Secondly, if you are in or around Portland, Oregon this weekend you can come check out my table at the Portland Zine Symposum.  The event will be held at Portland State University on July 24, 25, and 26 (though I will only be tabling on the 24th and 26th).  

My last reason for posting is simply to announce that I plan to update this thing more regularly.  For real this time!  It's linked from my website so I totally have to.  Stay tuned for news, sketchbook drawings, and general livejournal good times.  

Clearly I have been neglecting this journal. From time to time I have the urge to show off some things I've done, but then it peters out and I don't re-post for another few months.

Rather than manage having a space for my drawings online right now, I'm going to concentrate on printing and selling comics made out of paper. Those paper comics can be found at Powell's or Reading Frenzy.

If you found this blog by reading any of my comics, thanks for visiting, and keep checking for updates. They will start to re-appear in the hopefully not-too-distant future.

This week, one Ms. Audrey Dilling turned 24. Here is the card I made her to commemorate the occasion:




And, in the spirit of (generally) festive occasions such as birthdays, here's a young woman happily go-go dancing:




I thought it might be funny to end this post by saying "happy birthday, everyone!" but I'm not sure if that's actually amusing or completely nonsensical. All of a sudden it's 90+ degrees in Portland and I can't think straight at all. Still, it's better than days and days of rain.

Here she is, walking around barefoot:





And again, in a messy collegiate-style living room (based on a friend's old apartment in Poughkeepsie, NY):

Portraits of two authors. Click for full size.





Joyce Carol Oates






Sylvia Plath

Here's a smattering of small drawings of animals/creatures, gathered from the pages of my previous sketchbook:




Bear and Dino





buckteeth










...and one more:







I realized that my icon no longer reflects my current haircut. Better do something about that.

...I've just stopped posting. Till now! I admit, it's hard for me to be faithful to livejournals, but I'll give it a better go this time around. Anyway, here's this thing I made in the past few days...it's a family portrait for one of my co-workers (she's second from right). I've yet to give it to her, so I hope it's to her liking. *I* like it, anyway.





More to come...

So I'm still working my way up to drawings from the present...this is from a page I drew in April.

A spring tree:





and a girl in high school:

a little story starring the monster from a few posts before: 



(reminder: click the pictures to enlarge)


and one of my intermittent journal comics: 

I drew a whole bunch of babies and monsters one day in February.  First, the monsters...or rather, one monster doing a few different things:











And now, the babies, which are kind of like little monsters anyway: 






And I might turn this series of babies into a small zine, one baby picture per page, titled, appropriately, "Babies": 




I think my rudimentary scanning/photoshop skills are improving a little bit

Some drawings from February.  I work at a chocolate shop, so with Valentine's Day and all it was a busy month.  I picked up every shift I possibly could. 








...it was exhausting. 


Oh, and here's a dinosaur: 




If you click on these pictures they'll appear at full size.  I find livejournal surprisingly difficult to figure out at times; hopefully I can find out a way to eliminate the clicking process. 

      

Here's the beginning of my sketchblog.  I've never done any self-publishing or been published (not counting the high school newspaper, I guess), and  I'm thinking of this as a non-committal way to put my drawings somewhere for other people besides me to see.  It feels like a pretty good starting point.  I'm not quite sure whether I'm going to stay on livejournal, or move on to another site...In any case, these drawings are from January, when I began my current sketchbook.  

The cat up there is Claudette.  She belongs to my old roommate Cassie, and used to fall asleep like that in front of my space heater all the time.  


Here are some drawings from a plane ride to New York.  I'm particularly proud of the baby...I'm pretty sure he was inspired by some loud child sitting near me:





More to come...