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4/19/2020 week 10: This week has been really stressful. between family things, the pandemic and the work load of online classes I feel like I have not been able to catch a break. And when I think about all the due dates in the future I begin to feel even more stressed out. Because of this i have barely been able to work on my Capstone. I did play around with the site but that is really it. I fould a gallery thing that allows people to move from page to page pretty easily.

As for feedback from second look, I got some good adivce. I wasn't sure about how to go about the subject of people whom often have good intentions but end up saying upsetting things. I was told that it would be important to being this up so that people can know when they are being harmful even when they arent attempting to be.

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4/12/2020 week 9:

This week ive been trying to balance finishing up the drawings and editing what ive already done. I’ve cut out quite a bot but hopefully it will keep things from getting too repetitive.

The advise I got this week was to play around with the layouts on Wix in order to figure out how I want the pages to flow. Next week I plan to start uploading and organizing the pages I have so far in order to get a sense for things.

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4/5/2020: Week 8

I kept trying to draw out what I had planned but i really wasnt feeling it. I think I will have to rethink a couple things so the focus can be more on internalized homophobia and less on me. I’m not going to start all over but I will have to cut some things and re work what I have.

When sketching out ideas for how to display thing on the site, the first two ideas were pretty standard. However, with my knew idea I want to sprinkle in other peoples stories at the side of mine. I am worried that it might be a bit cluttered or break the flow of the comic however.

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3/25/20: week 6/7

I realized that the weeks arent lining up with the entrys today. And I don’t know what happened to my entry for week 6? Ill put the answer to that here as well but its been about a month so its a bit hazy.

My biggest take away from the alumni session was that its ok to change and edit you ideas. Many of the people who shared that day talk about how at first they had a grand idea for waht they wanted to achieve but then it became clear that realistically, they would have to scale it back a bit. Thats really comforting to know since I am currently having to considering changing up my project do to this art block I’m facing.

Because of how hectic everything was 3 weeks ago, I didnt get the chance to write this as it slipped my mind, but I can still talk about what I did manage to do back then.

I continued to plot out my ideas in order to keep from slowing down in momentum but it was becoming clear that i wanted to change things. The closer i get to talking about my own coming out the more I feel unmotivated. At least with how I am currently structuring everything. I do genuinely want to tell my experience but at the same time the circling back and forth that i lived through doesnt really make an interesting read. At least not for me. While its true to what it was like (going back and forth between two labels that don’t fit because you dont want to let go of the thread of “normalcy” you still have) the back and forth ping ping kinda just feels boring and repetitive.

Because of this, I tried the creativity exercise of “sleeping on it”. I thought that since i often have vivid dreams and remember them pretty easily it would help! However, no matter how hard I thought about the problem, my dream were a bit all over the place. No real solution came up but I did have a nice dream about going urban exploring.

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3/4/2020: week 5

I was having the same issue this week that I had last week. Trying to express the confusion I feel during this time while still making it interesting and easy to follow has kept me stuck in place with progress. I decided in order to combat this i had to stop looking at my more detailed sketches and go back to the very bare bone doodles i started out with. This way, I could quickly get out the ideas i wh]anted to epress as they were flowing with out coming to a halt to fret over the quality of the drawing. This proved to be incredibly helpful, as I jotted out more pages than I had even done before in one sitting.

I might keep going with simple sketched until I feel more motivated or I may start trasfering these pages to the more detailed sketches in procreate.

Last week I was able to present! I was really nervous at first since talking about being gay and sharing my art are both things that make me anxious, so doing both at the same time felt overwhelming. However, the positive feedback from my peers really put me at ease and made me feel a lot better! I’m glad the style of the comic was well received, as its something I put a lot of thought into. One note I got was that maybe mentioning how this effects people who identify as cisgender and heterosexual would be beneficial. I’ve been thinking about how to tackle this because it is definitely something I want to mention, however I’m not sure the term “internalized homophobia” can apply to those who are straight. In theory, we all interlize homophobia to some degree or another, due to the nature or society, but terms like interlized homophobia or the more commonly known, internalize misogyny are usually only applied in cases where it effects the group who directly is being oppressed. I do want to make sure cishet people who read this coming away with the lesson of unlearning homophobia just as much as LGBT+ people.

Alumi Q’s:

- How much do you focus on having a finished product for Arts Fest and how much do you focus on taking your time and exporing your project?

- How did you go about planning how to present the project itself at Arts Fest?

- Which part of the whole process was the most fun?

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2/26/2020: week 4

This chapter has begun to feel like a bit of a drag. For some reason I can’t seem to draw it out the way I want to. This might have to do with how the content makes me feel (as reliving being in the closet isn’t fun) but also it might be because im trying to fit so much in so little space. There is so much I want to talk about in this section but at the same time I’m not sure what is needed and what isn’t so it feel jumbled and confusing.

I did get some more pages done, but like last week, I’m not sure how much I like them.

I didn’t get to present last week, but from observing everyone else go, I have found that I am not as behind as I thought I was, as everyone is still figuring out thier capstones just as much as I am. I also really liked how the presentations allow for feedback both driving by the presenter and from the audience as well.

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2/19/2020: Week 3

This week was a bit of a mess. I began the week stressing over an essay I had due and completely skipped out on the workshop time I had planned. Friday was Valentines day and so I spent the day with my friends and again, didn’t get work done. I did manage to sketch on some pages:

However, even at the sketchy stage, I’m not sure if i like them and might end up redoing them. From then on I had a food crisis at home (we ran out of food for a few days) which added some stress and made sitting down to work difficult. However, now that’s all sorted out and hopefully won’t happen again!

I also had my advisor conference with Heather which was super helpful! We ended up running out of time because I had class, but the things we did talk about put me at ease. I was worried about whether this project would be representative, as even though it is about my experience I want it to be something many people can relate too. Heather gave me a lot of good ideas for things to search for and look into, especially the idea of doing a literature review in order to find more research on experiences surrounding homophobia and coming out. Additonally, my mind set was very focused on the end goal, which wasn’t helpful for what I wanted to do so being told to take a step back and give myself room to breathe was really helpful.

On the Capstone Proposal some of the feedback I got was over how I would incorporate the interviews I had with friends into the final project. The more I think it over the more I think that I will just include them in the final chapter (the aftermath) as that will be about finding closure in LGBT spaces and by sharing thier stories (which i will sum up into key points) it will not only add on to my own experiences but show that in talking about internalized homophobia together we all became closer and felt comfort in knowing that it isnt something “wrong with us”, a lot of other people have similar feelings and thoughts.

Going forward I really need to get more work done and stop procrastinating as much because if another busy week like this comes up, I can’t be behind on the workload.

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2/12/20: Week 2

I’ve made alot of progress since the last post, even if it might not be keeping pace with the schedule I originally planned. I’ve finished sketching out the first chapter and begun the second.

Here are some of my favorite pages (without the panels for now):

I’ve had a hard time motivating myself to get work done most days but once I get started the pages really flow out pretty easily. I thought i would have a hard time talking about the more uncomfortable parts of internalized homophobia but instead it seems I really wanted to talk about them. I’m still a little unsure about future parts i have to draw, like my coming out, since it might paint people who I care about deeply in a negative light.

From the critical response exercise, I got a lot of good feedback, on things even I didnt consider. For example, I never really thought about pacing, but when receiving feeback it was noted that the pacing flowed well throughout the comic. I originally, asked about whether the panels were too monotonous, so the thought of pacing wasn’t really there. But by connecting the panel layouts with the pacing of the comic itself i was able to conspectualize the problem I thought I had better. Panels at the end of the day are what bulid the pacing of a comic. Even with the very simple panel layouts I’m working with, as long as the pacing is kept engaging, the readers don’t notice that.

Additionally, when I asked about coloring, I asked if keeping things in a simple, monotone pallete would be too boring. In response, the feeback I got was that, while it would be a be less visually stimulating, it would be neater and more unified. They in turn asked “do you want to color it differently?”. I was so focused on this idea of having a similar feel to My Lesbian Experiences With Loneliness I never really considered how I wanted it to be colored. Eariler, a comment was made about how having the boys mentioned be lacking in detail and dull added to the since of disinterest that i was trying to get across, where as the girls i had drawn were full of detial, which highlighted the attention I was giving to them without out right stating it. Because of these two feedbacks, I decided that maybe the coloring should also try and reflect that. Most of the comic will be monotone, but in instants were I feel strongly, like the moments with Marie, the coloring should be more intense and lively to emphasize that effect.

This process on having the artist be more in control (aka asking the questions and deciding on what feedback to get) has really changed the way I see feedback. I get really anxious with how I’ll take feedback as I am already shy when it comes to sharing art, but this way I felt like I had a sense of control that put me at ease. On the flip side, knowing exactly what the artist whats feedback on helps in mediating the stress around giving feedback that might just be pointless or not very helpful.

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2/5/2020: The Start!

The semester just started but I am already feeling overwhelmed!

Fortunately, I got the first assignments done on time, Including the Research Practicum!

I was locked out the my house early this week which gave me time to work on my project. The original sketches I were quick and mostly about planning out what i wanted to say so I had to take the ideas from those drawings and add much more detail.

For example:

I am a little worried about whether I’ll be able to get everything I want to do done but hopefully I will!