Alyssa Bermudez
@bermudezbahama.bsky.social
Illustrator, Author & Artistic Direction | NYC to Tasmania | 🇵🇷🇺🇸🇦🇺 Big Apple Diaries & Run Home are my graphic novel memoirs! Live events artist, craft lover, toddler mom. www.alyssabermudezart.com/social
With just a few more weeks of my daughter being two, I’m thinking about all of the cute, funny, unhinged things she’s said. Pelicopter was one of those ones where I almost didn’t want her to ever learn how to say it properly. What’s a cute word that your kid said?
When I became a mother, it’s like my brain shifted into focus on the small person alone, and left literally all of my other needs behind. Sometimes this was useful, but most of the time not so much. 🫠 Anyone relate? 😆
Exciting news! Run Home is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selected book! 🌟
I recently created an eight-page comic for Island Magazine, Issue 174. For now, the full comic is only available in print, but you can read about the moment that inspired it and some of what sits underneath the surface in my latest Substack post: bermudezbahama.substack.com
I am truly honoured to be a part of @islandmagtas beautifully curated editorial selection of stories, poems, and graphic narratives. Creating this work and publishing it publicly is confronting for me, yet the importance of sharing true experiences is part of why I feel called to do what I do.
Introducing Juliette! She’s based on the very real friends I had in high school that were NOT on the track team. I’ve changed the names, blended and consolidated for the purpose of this story.
Marie and A meet the first day of high school in home room and Marie eventually joins the TMLA track team too. Marie has a sixth sense though, and never arrives to a sleepover without her tarot cards from Colombia! She’s a driving force forward on and off the track. 🏃♀️
Introducing Celia! Celia and A are both starting a new school where they don’t know anyone else. They meet at cross country tryouts and find themselves on an unfamiliar and exhausting team. They manage to keep each other moving forward on and off the track. #graphicnovels
This cover went through quite a few phases and ideas. Close friends and family were polled including some younger family members in my target reading audience. In the end the two final ideas even stumped the Macmillan marketing and publicity team. I got to choose in the end.
Excited to share some new things! Book covers and a new comic for grown ups!
Big News: A Book Cover Reveal + A New Comic!
You've been with me on this journey and I wanted you to see it first.
open.substack.com
There’s something special about observing people to capture them in a sketch. I feel like I’ve grown to learn so much about feeling, gesture and what’s most important. Teenage me would think it was cool but crazy. It’s different every time, and that’s what gets me pumped.
Comic book recommendations for the ladies over 30 and/or the ladies with small humans. Not just the ladies, it’s for everyone. Absolute perfection. You will laugh, you will cry. They are the best. 🏆 Everything Eventually Connects by Sarah Firth Cry When The Baby Cries by Becky Barnicoat
The finished ceremony piece for Ella and Jack. I love to create something that the photos capture differently. In my illustrations I pick and choose who’s included and what to highlight. I can exaggerate scale or emphasise the wind. Beautiful photo by Jonathan Wherrett @jonathanwherrett 📷
As a former art teacher with over a decade of experience teaching workshops to all ages, these opportunities are always the most fun. Comics kids are the absolute best and you cannot change my mind.
Sometimes a bigger wedding means finishing off the rest of the portraits later. How fun is it to get one of these in the mail as a thank you memento?
A day in the life of live wedding illustration! I still can’t believe this is a part of my job sometimes! So grateful to witness and capture these stories while learning about different people and places along the way in Tasmania and beyond. #liveeventillustrator
A cute follow up to a recent wedding where guests wanted some extras after! It’s tricky when there’s a group portrait of 3 or more! Who gets to keep it?! This group decided they needed one each.
Here’s a little illustration I made for women’s history month.
I need to know, are there ANY neurotypical graphic novelists out there?
I’m so used to writing comics about myself from a child’s perspective, but I’m going to open up the realms of writing about my scattered life from the grown up perspective. It’s a lot more jarring bechase the 20 years ago me is a completely different human.
I have been having a blast driving around Tasmania and drawing weddings.
What is everyone doing about their Tesla’s they already have if they love the car but hate the guy. Asking for a friend…
I’ve somehow found myself as one of Tassie’s only live event illustrators and damn it’s been fun!
I realised there are so many illustrations I’ve made over the past year that never got shared. Here are some of my favourites from educational projects to personal commissions and everything in between. What does everyone do with their “random” work?
Working on my middle grade graphic novel cover today, and it’s narrowed down to two ideas. Usually the marketing team decides, but my two ideas split the room! Should I just create BOTH in full colour and vote again?!
open.substack.com/pub/bermudez... Hoping to post more meaningfully online going forward, and sharing short things worth reading.
Paper, Pattern, Portrait | Alyssa Bermudez | Substack
A peek into my life as an artist—illustrations, stories, designs, and the creative adventures in between. Click to read Paper, Pattern, Portrait, by Alyssa Bermudez, a Substack publication with hundre...
open.substack.com
Since I’m new here I’ll tell you all in the abyss about the different types of illustration I am doing lately. First is live events/reportage drawing— mostly at weddings in Tasmania! Why is it good? It’s FAST, different every time, and people always love it.
What makes a good middle grade graphic novel cover? Asking for a friend…
