Last Friday there was a Drink and Draw event in lieu of WonderCon at the 111 Minna Art Gallery in downtown San Francisco, of which me and my fellow artist friend from college Jenn Tong attended. I thought it was a casual event but it turned out there were actually some pretty well-known comic artists there doing their thing. Also, the pieces were to be auctioned to help support the recovery of Underground Comix legend S. Clay Wilson so whatever I made was going to have a price tag.
So there I was, probably the only artist no one's heard of drawing in the spotlights in the middle of the room. I was nervous and shaking a little, I hate drawing in front of people and it took until well after the ice cubes melted in my Jameson! I did what came most natural to me, my recent love for freestyle line melodies. Two guys there were nice enough to compliment me as I drew alongside brilliant comic artists drawing Hulk, men in retro detective outfits and sexy girl superheroes. They put a $25 price tag on mine, but they displayed it upside down. C'mon people, isn't it obvious which way is up?! :P
So I'm eating some pizza at a friend's house in Kirkland, WA and I start doodling this pattern on the pizza box. This was right at the start of the big Seattle blizzard in December that's just recently melted away. I didn't think much of it at the time, but when our car tires got stuck in the snow and we had to shove cardboard under them to get out, I couldn't let this little guy go.
Even though you see this style of line a lot on t-shirt prints and Urban Outfitter-esque decor, to drop some history on ya you'll see variations of it in Baroque, Celtic and Islamic art as well as in pinstriping which started in the 50's with Von Dutch (how many people who wear his name know that?). I started really getting the hang of it when I visited the Mucha Museum in Prague back in September last year. I pulled out my sketchbook and sketched, getting a feel for the "melody of line" as Alfons Mucha puts it, from the frames of his beautiful graphic prints. I like to freestyle with it.
I did this one about a month ago for my creative director, Renato Castilho at NickJr.com since he hooked me up w/ my last two jobs, and is generally an awesome person. Rumor had it he used to be in a Prince cover band where he played Prince, thus the memoir here that I made for him as a thank you gift. The third of my 3.5" x 3.5" acrylic on wood paintings like Blue Moon and Little Devil.
A few months ago I did this Tshirt design to benefit Iraqi children who were orphaned as their parents were victims of bombing. It was through an organization who contacted me about it called TakePride.com
This is based on an 8 year old orphan from Baghdad named Basam who's into boxing. I got the idea from this commercial where a bunch of kids were talking about how they wanted to "beat up" cancer, as they made angry faces and swung their fists.
