Welcoming New Artwork to the Keater Gallery

Soon, conversations were flowing and the process of creating the weekly cartoon began. Sloan described the rapid process: “The script went through an editorial process at The New York Times before I received it, usually on a Monday morning, and the final art for the comic was due on Thursdays. Then I emailed the completed sketch to the editors and Jake by Wednesday morning. Finally I emailed the art to the Times by the end of the day Thursday. I think the digital version came out on Friday (the print version came out on Sunday).” Despite the rapid process, it was rewarding for Sloan - “It was always a thrill to see the episodes published in the Times’ Sunday Review section, and to share it with my family.” While Sloan drew the cartoons, the illustrations still involved a level of collaboration. Sloan created the cartoons by first “drawing a pencil sketch, placing Jake’s text into speech balloons in each panel so I’d know how much room there would be left over to sketch the visuals.” After discussions about the accuracy of his sketch, he “traced it onto a sheet of Bristol board paper and begin inking. Then I scanned the finished inked drawing into Photoshop, added color, and formatted the art for both the print and digital versions of the newspaper.”

The drawing process would involve lots of dialogue and feedback between Sloan, Halpern, and the Alnemar family to make sure that the pictures, like the dialogue, painted an accurate picture of their life in Syria and their journey since then. Sloan described, “it was a collaboration between me, Jake, and the refugee family, requiring face-to-face meetings and time spent together getting to know one another, exchanging ideas, and developing trust.”

The dialogue was a similarly collaborative process. Halpern described the process for writing the dialogue in the cartoon: “I would go out there every week and get the update, asking questions, taking notes. This family made it easier. Looking at my notes, now I had to turn it into a scene. Outlines, blanks. When I had my dialogue, I’d go back a third time.” The third time focused on making sure the dialogue was true to what actually happened; Halpern recalled the discussions the Alnemars had when going over the dialogue: “I didn’t say it just like that. How did you say it? I said it a bit more like this.” Halpern also drew information from outside the family, “calling people who I know in Jordan, fact checking to get as close to the truth.”

Since then, Alnemar has continued drawing in charcoal. She chose charcoal because it “describes both sadness and hope at the same time.” She explained her process, saying, “I like to start drawing when it’s all quiet and when I can sit down and think. Sometimes, I’m in so much pain that I can’t hold the pencil of draw, but sometimes I feel the pain and emotion and I draw anyway.” In her drawings she tries to “send a message of how I lived, how I had a hard time. I bring in real events, and when I add them into art, I can explain real things happening.”