Autumn still life study with antique lace, tea cup, pressed leaves and flowers, bird salt and pepper shakers.
Category: Visual Storytelling
Kill your darlings: a sampling of pieces that didn’t make it into my graphic novel
My graphic novel, Salt Green Death (Conundrum Press), is a work of creative nonfiction born out of historical research – a Vancouver-based family saga spanning mainly 1924 to 1968. Salt Green Death, Katarina Thorsen, Conundrum Press 2025 (Video and music by Julian Bowers) Salt Green Death contains 165 hand-drawn pages. Of course, there is a…
Nature Moves Through Carcasses Embroidered Drawing
Nature Moves Through Carcasses (Embroidered Drawing) (Video and Music by Julian Bowers) Nature Moves Through Carcasses pays tribute to Molly O’Dwyer—a young woman whose life and memory became the emotional and narrative catalyst for my graphic novel Salt Green Death (Conundrum Press, 2025). The embroidered drawing process is one of my most personal approaches to…
Conveying information through different drawing techniques
The main character in my graphic novel, Salt Green Death (Conundrum Press, 2025), is Joseph O’Dwyer. My book is a true story centred on a Joseph’s patient records of his treatments for schizophrenia between 1948 – 1963. Joseph’s story and family saga is based on 21 years of research. — TODAY’S SAMPLE PAGE: — On…
With not being able. No. Never. A dream…
I am friends with my neighbourhood crows. They visit my window. They say hello when I go for a walk. Once they met me at the False Creek Ferry at the Aquatic Centre and followed me home, west along the seawall, to my apartment close to Stanley Park. The other day I came across a…
Today – June 12 – holds personal significance for me
Today holds personal significance for me. June 12th marks the birthday of Joseph O’Dwyer, the main character in my graphic novel, Salt Green Death (Conundrum Press, 2025). His patient file is the main source for the project. Joseph was born on June 12, 1926 (99 years ago) in Cashel, Ireland. The journey of bringing this…
Creative process: Girl in a Wetsuit Study
Girl in a Wetsuit (1972) is a life-size bronze sculpture by Elek Imredy of a woman in a wetsuit, located on a rock in the water along the north side of Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada This study is part of the development phase for my second book, Full Bleed, a graphic novel…
Evolving portrait of my Norwegian grandfather.
A larger project is in development: arts-based inquiry as a deeper approach to ethnographic methodology. As I process and develop a proof of concept for one component of the larger project – a graphic novel about my stoic Norwegian grandfather, Gunnar Thorsen and the generational effects of his POW experiences in WWII – I need…
HOW MAPPING THE GENOME OF A FRUIT FLY CHANGED MY LIFE – aka how I learned to love mind mapping
HOW MAPPING THE GENOME OF A FRUIT FLY CHANGED MY LIFE aka how I learned to love mind mapping School always made me anxious. I was doubled over with stomach aches, headaches, mouth ulcers, anxiety. From kindergarten to university, I fretted about tests and grades. Even though I had been drawing and painting all my life,…
Process: the Afterword page
© KATARINA THORSEN Graphic Novel Project
June 16, 1904. The eyes of Joyce…
June 16, 1904. Lá Bloom (Bloom’s Day, in Irish). 120 years! Reading Ulysses for the past couple of years (in English and in Swedish) while working on my current book is both magical and integral to my creative process. I am in the final month of completing my graphic novel. It’s a glorious, terrifying and…
Following the thread…
JOSEPH (working title) is an experimental graphic novel series (in process). It is an Irish immigrant, Vancouver-based, family saga spanning 1924 – 1963. I use primary sources and creativity to build the true story. This is a work of creative nonfiction born out of historical research. I attempt to stick to the facts and avoid…
Restless Discipline
Staying in creative process allows me to stay in creative process… It’s a way of life. I am grateful for this “restless discipline.” Some glimpses in the studio this evening: You don’t get into the mood to create – it’s discipline. – Twyla Tharp October 14, 2023 Pulling a card (upright) from my favorite deck,…
Fear and doubt cracks me open.
Today I feel the old companions of fear and doubt. THEY CRACK ME OPEN. Can I do this? Am I good enough? Is it all shit? Hello inner critic. Hello fear. I hear you… I take the notes. And I keep going. There’s nothing wrong with fear; the only mistake is to let it…
How it starts… How it ends. Visualizing archival research.
Exposed old wallpaper, interior wall, bottom of the stairs, at the side entrance of my 92 year old building. (Sketch in progress)
4 hours of “freedom” on June 18, 1951
I have imagined this scene for a few years. Here the main character experiences 4 hours of “freedom” on June 18, 1951. Events leading up to this moment will be explored in the book. My creative non-fiction graphic novel leans heavily on Erving Goffman’s concept of “the total institution” and explores themes such as historical…
Disclaimer for “Joseph,” current graphic novel project
Disclaimer for “Joseph,” current graphic novel project (Chinamarker, turmeric, white acrylic ink on newsprint) My target date for completing the drawing process is June 2024. I am delighted to share that I will be publishing my completed graphic novel with Conundrum Press in 2025. Huge thank you to Patti Henderson for allowing me to use…
A mock up to “see the book”
JOSEPH is my experimental graphic novel (in process). It is a Vancouver-based family saga spanning 1924 – 1963. For more info, go to: ABOUT Transforming my 280 page research manuscript (just words) into a 200 page graphic novel (mainly visuals) is a brain exercise, to say the least. I am currently writing the script…
Using labanotation as constraints to create a 9-panel page
I created a 9-panel page for my “Joseph” project based on a rudimentary intro to labanotation and based on a famous photo from a 1946 reportage, “a man constrained in a straight jacket stands alone.” Labanotation is a system of recording human movement, originated by the Hungarian-born dance theorist Rudolf Laban. The Laban system…
Store window, Gamla Stan, Stockholm. A study
I came across a wonderful little shop in June 2019. Slow Fox Förlag Antikvariatet. Själagårdsgatan 9c, Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden. And I think about the store window ALOT. A study using Chinamarker, white acrylic ink, watercolour wash added using Caitlin ffrench’s wildcrafted pigments © KATARINA THORSEN
Decompose on forest floor study (embroidered drawing)
January 31, 2023 Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds, and old steak bones out of our minds come nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at…
“The Guardians.” A study
For Emma.
Painting in progress: Of The Forest, Värmland (self-portrait)
My niece, Vivienne, age 8, works on the piece with me. Bliss! The piece continues to evolve… With no attachment to outcome. Only to the process, which I find enormously healing. This is the forest in Värmland in which my soul most often resides… where I spent my childhood summers:
I lie face up. Journal entry.
I walk east along the seawall. I look down at the ocean water. It laps gently against the rock wall. It is a hot day. I think about how long it has been since I went swimming. In the ocean, in a lake, in a pool. I imagine myself undressing, walking down the stone steps…