I introduced Sylvie Sunshine in my guest post for Romancing the Genres, and after getting some positive feedback from fellow grievers I started publishing the comic strip on Instagram.

The Birth of Sylvie Sunshine

Drawing and watercolour has helped me through the grief process. It quietens my mind, and gets me into a zone that’s not plagued by grief.

One morning at 3am I began to doodle. I didn’t start with an intent to create a character, I was just messing about in my sketchbook. I don’t know where the ideas came from, but by the end of my sketching session I’d created a Sylvie Sunshine.

<<double page book spread>>

By the end of the week, I’d developed the character into a comic strip idea called “Life’s a Beach (until it’s a Bitch)“, and dubbed my character Sylvie Sunshine. Suddenly the bikini made sense, and Sylvia became part of my family. She was here to navigate me out of that black hole, and lead be back into the sunshine.

Sylvie on Instagram

Here’s a selection of some of the comic cells I’ve posted on Instagram:

They aren’t all consistently laid out, and some don’t have borders or the title of the cartoon strip underneath. A previous me wouldn’t have published these. I would have wanted to redo them to get them perfect. But life isn’t perfect and never will be. If I waited for perfection I’d never publish anything I drew. So I’m just going with the flow and feel that Sylvie’s life will evolve and grow, and there’s enough consistency between each cell to create the familiarity I’m aiming for.

Follow Sylvie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sylvielifesabeach/ Sylvie Sunshine is dealing with grief in this comic strip called Life’s a Beach (until it’s a bitch)