Trying to Go with the Flow

Tanga Komix!!

I might not be posting weekly for July and August. We will be traveling and enjoying summer.

This week I watched this lovely comic workshop - TANGA KOMIX!! Filipino Form Poetry in Comics with Trinidad Escobar. They emphasized settling into your body and staying comfortable the whole time. Remember to breathe Trinidad would say regularly, “If you want to build a sustainable comic practice, you have to be aware of your body’s comfort.”

I also love how they said. “You are lucky to be sitting and doodling.” And even the reassuring, “We can be here and draw together for five more minutes.”

Tanga is a 4 line poem, a quatrain. Tanga, just one form of Filipino poetry, has an important cultural history, Trinidad explained, that reflects both indigenous and Catholic practices. Different rhyme schemes can lend to horror / suspense, folklore, or picturing a scene. Tanga poems can sound like a recitation or a chant.

Trinidad asked us to make a four-panel grid, underline imagery from a free write we did based on a poem, find seven syllable lines, not worry about a rhyme scheme, and finally, illustrate each panel with a meadow, a tree, a mountain, a river, or a bird. One image only for each of the four panels.

First are the images with color which I added in Procreate, and second you’ll see the original sepia version which I did on paper with brush pens.

& a song to get us all into the flow, or to add to a summer mix

Love all a ya’ll
through time
& space
XO
Cassie