In 2022, I gifted myself a new iPad for my birthday. I also got myself an Apple Pencil. I had never used an Apple Pencil before, nor had I ever drawn directly on a computer screen with a stylus. All of my cartooning for the past 20 years had been done either in Adobe Illustrator—using a keyboard and mouse inside an iMac—or hand drawn on paper and scanned into the computer. Drawing directly on the screen with a stylus is an astonishingly different way to interact with a digital drawing.

It took a while before I began using it for actual drawing. At the time, I was fully immersed in my index card and ballpoint pen phase. I was satisfied with those parameters and the simplicity of the process. The Apple Pencil remained unused for months.

I didn’t begin using it until I was on an airplane, trapped in a seat. That constraint—nowhere to go, nothing else to do—pushed me into trying it. I began my first series of digital illustrations in 2023. They were weird drawings of the Emily character. It felt strange to draw her by freehand again.

I was driven to draw her again in the thought I could create new designs. As well, both Rob and Buzz continue to draw her, why not me?

Oddly enough, I found myself incapable of drawing the character “straight.” My versions of her seemed to come from somewhere else—like they belonged to a different her, in a different world, one more driven by complete imagination, blending art and the act of creation with the character herself. I’m not sure if they belong in the world, or side by side with the “official version.”

I keep certain parameters that help prevent the digital drawings from appearing too digital—like maintaining one pencil width, only using black, and not zooming in too far.

I’m drawn to what comes out naturally, following wherever the Apple Pencil takes me. I’m still figuring it out. I’m calling this experiment Strange Cat Art School.

Strange Cat Art School 

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