Coming across Jon McNaught’s work and his creative approach inspired me to look closer into the field of ‘silent comics’. It is impressive what you can achieve in terms of mood and intimacy without a dialogue or even a plot.
Encouraged to apply this to my chosen keyword I picked a daily routine (making tea) and structured the activity as a silent comic by breaking down the different steps.
There is still room for experimenting, not only with the theme but also with form and style. The idea that is growing slowly in the back of my mind is to combine the aspects from Taarika John’s approach with artists portrayed in Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. Possible outcomes could be book illustrations or a series of posters. Work in progress!
I learned that even with the absence of words or a preset storyline in comics there are different ways of suggesting subtle narratives. By providing just enough visual information through colour and composition I can evoke potential narrative layers and have the viewer fill in the (visual) gaps. To my own surprise I discovered that I don’t have to have a meaningful meassage as a starting point. This was and still is a bit of a learning curve for me to trust the ongoing process enough that some way or the other an idea will develop.
I benefited from researching other artists and their works and by doing so I began developing an interest for silent comics; something that was not on my horizon before and something that I would like to explore further in the future.