picture book in the works

I’m delighted to share some exciting project news–I’ll be working with Dana Chidiac and her team at Dial BFYR on my first picture book, Nana, Nenek, and Nina!

👵 🌳 🤸‍♀️ 🌴 👵

Thanks, ta, and terimah kasih to my agent, Kurestin Armada at Root Literary, for finding Nina a great home!

From Publishers Weekly:
“Dana Chidiac at Dial has acquired world rights to Nana, Nenek, and Nina, written and illustrated by debut author Liza Ferneyhough. Nina is off to visit her grandmothers, who live in Malaysia and England respectively; while their food, clothes, and neighborhoods look quite different, they both love her exactly the same. Publication is slated for spring 2022; Kurestin Armada at Root Literary represented the author-illustrator.”

immigrant parents, american lunch 1-4

My malaysian mom and british dad moved us over the ocean to america in 1983. The next challenge: lunch. They did their best, bless their hearts.

favorite things

on being ambiguously brown

5 panel comic! Click thumbnails below:

(somewhat) hourly comics

For Hourly Comics Day 2019.

on being a 4th culture kid

I grew up a biracial, tricultural kid in America, with one grandmother living across the Pacific in Malaysia and one across the Atlantic in England.

notes from france: orangina

In first year French, Madame Gabet taught us how to order an Orangina. But what was an Orangina? Was it better than Fanta? It was so French and mysterious. On a layover in Calgary the summer after freshman year, my family stopped at the resort in Banff and had lunch on the expansive terrace overlooking the Canadian wilderness. And oh mon dieu, there it was on the menu, Orangina!! The moment I had been trained for arrived. With rapture, I said to the English-speaking Canadian waiter, “Un Orangina, s’il vous plaît.” It was delightful. Ever since then, even though I don’t like soda anymore, I can’t help but ask for an Orangina s.v.p. in Francophone countries. And it is still delightful.

san francisco, 2è

Collected scenes from around town, deuxième edition.

The annual Bay to Breakers run/drunken slog from downtown to Ocean Beach (with tortilla toss and requisite naked dude and Waldo), the Russian honey cake at 20th Century Café, Church of 8 Wheels roller disco Thursdays, Nightgarden Piano at the Botanical Garden in  Golden Gate Park, Kabuki Springs japanese baths, brunch:  the citywide weekend sport (waiting in line until you are nothing but desiccated, benedictless bones), Café Jacqueline for a romantic soufflé, frozen yogurt with olive oil at Souvla, gin at Whitechapel, Victorian arcade amusements at the Musée Mécanique.

san francisco

Collected scenes from around town.

The big rainbow flag at Harvey Milk Plaza, Castro Theatre sign, Pirate Store at 826 Valencia, dahlias (the city flower), Inclines & wires, Boba Guys tea, Dia de los Muertos in Garfield Park, Karl the fog pummeling the neighborhood in Fogust, the Wiggle (the only way to get from Market Street to the Panhandle without dying), purple chandeliers at the Fillmore, Baker Beach (with nude area, setting for the first Burning Man), giant Mission burritos, steam buns, Trouble Coffee’s Build Your Own Damn House breakfast (a coffee, cinnamon toast, and a coconut).

the secret show

A comic about a secret show we went to last year. It was so magical!

bigger panels:

in progress:

march for our lives

Hitting the streets with the students today & thinking of two high school friends who died because of easy access to guns. It’s way past time for gun reform!

in my studio

At my art table, on a sweaty and somewhat frantic day.

Fun fact: I still use the art table my dad bought me for christmas in high school.

enchanted forest birthdays

Sketching out my friends’ Enchanted Forest birthdays party to remember it by.

The magical birthday girls…

…and me, their friend the nasturtium sprite.

darkroom

From my sketchbook. When I was in high school, my family was numerous, loud, and chaotic. The darkroom was the only place in the house (besides the toilet!) I didn’t have to let the little kids into. I’d put on music and feel sly and enjoy being by myself.

sometimes all honey, and sometimes all turd

A Valentine’s Day card for my Sweetie Poo. I think many of you in longterm relationships can relate, even if you’re not familiar with the Diary of Samuel Pepys.

plainsong

A sketch about listening to the Cure’s Plainsong when I was 16. Sometimes you hear a song and it overcomes you and you have to hang on while the earth spins.

personal effects and other quotidian things

day-to-day objects that remind me most of myself.

l-r, top to bottom: purple & amber glasses, 1972 olympus OM-2n film camera, travel watercolors, hair clip, satchel, sketchbook, hawk quill speedball nib pen, mechanical pencil, pentel brush pen, pentel water brush, winsor newton series 7 size 5 brush (bought on first day of art school in 1996!), enamel tray palette, most wonderful boots ever–lucky buffalo exchange find, burt’s bees plum lip color, rumply frye oxfords on their last legs, winsor newton inks, chinese black ink in a higgins bottle, dr. Ph Martin watercolor, painting board, marks & spencer coat, levi’s black jeans, fantastic watch with italic numbers, amber necklace with bugs in the beads, rings (one made by a very talented jeweler friend), winsor newton white gouache, lactaid (of course!), green tea in a 25-year-old cup (made by my oldest friend’s mother), arches hot pressed watercolor paper in a block (fantastic!!).

my camera

my film camera, a 1972 olympus OM-2n. i will never ever ever give it up!

my 90s frocks

i attended high school with great sartorial exuberance. i’ve been working on this here and there for the past few months when i got stuck on other things (fantastic wacom tablet practice! i’m not afraid of it anymore). now what will i do to procrastinate?

mother’s day

today i present all the dresses my mother sewed for me in high school. thanks mama!