Who are you?
I am Louise Crosby and most of the comics I draw are to illustrate poetry. I also work as a part-time Geography teacher and do some illustration/ graphic design work and comics workshops. I run the Laydeez do Comics Leeds meetings, where we listen to talks from people who draw comics mainly about their own lives.
What have you done / what are you doing?
I started drawing comics by accident. I was a printmaker and I started to illustrate the poems of Clare Shaw (Bloodaxe Books). This began by making just one etching for each poem. But when I started to illustrate the whole poem as a series of pictures with text, I realised I had actually drawn a comic.From then I was hooked into comics and wanted to find out more and more about them. I continued illustrating Clare's poems as comics and we call the project Seeing Poetry. We hope to have an illustrated poetry book out soon.
What excites you about comics?
I find the appearance of comics exciting as I love the appearance of words and images together. They are fun to create, as you have to work out how much of the information can be told in just the pictures and what is needed in the text. All the different methods artists used to make marks and draw comics is also fascinating. Some use pen and ink, others pencils or markers, whereas I draw all mine digitally. I also like the huge range of comics and the ways that they can engage readers of all ages, whether it be a story, poem or science.
What excites you about science?
I have always been interested in science. My first science teacher thought I was really brilliant at chemistry as I could always predict what would happen - but I had just done all the experiments before with my chemistry set!
Science is great because it helps you understand how things work, then it's easier to know what to do when they don't. So understanding our bodies helps us stay healthy and understanding about nature and ecology helps us to know how our own actions can help to protect our planet.
Contact/Links
www.facebook.com/SeeingPoetry
www.lindenartstudio.org/artists/louise-crosby/
www.laydeezdocomics.com
