out of town and out of touch

Hey gang, I wanted to let you know that I think about the site almost every day, but I’ve been so busy with work and preparing for the vacation that I’m currently on, that I haven’t had the time to do new pieces! all of my free time has been spent either cleaning or sleeping or making music, as that’s my next venture that I’m trying to work on. Not to mention I have a few other websites that are in development.

Currently I’m on vacation in Austin TX, and with any vacation where I’m not slammed with work and finally get to relax, I manage to think about what I want to do with my life and things I want to get done. It’s so easy to think up ideas and things that I want to do, but it’s so hard to execute them fully.. I’ve stopped drinking for the year, and that’s helped me tremendously in getting back in touch with mental harmony, but all of these projects that I’m doing – it’s too much!

When I get back in town, I think I’m going to write down some serious goals, and figure out how I’m going to achieve them all.. most importantly, I’m going to try and get back on track with the artwork! I can’t believe how this past month has slipped away from me. I also want to redesign the site.. I think the monthly situation isn’t working for me anymore, and I need to incorporate tags and alts for all my images…

So give me some time, I’ll try to get this back up and running, I am busy!!!

damage

So I was about 3/4 through my drawing for the challenge that I’ve been on for a while now, and I friggin spilled a half a glass of cola on it. VERY UPSETTING. looks like I’m going to start over from scratch for the 4th time on this one. the first round through, I was a little too overzealous and ran out of space. The second time, I just screwed up and it looked rushed, and scrapped it. The 3rd time was looking alright, and boom – cola. This stuff happens. . Thank god I don’t charge for these, or my clients would be getting furious with amount of time I have been taking as of recent. Mind you – I’m working on 3 websites right now, and a 4th is popping up. I gotta square them all away by early summer, or I’m in trouble!

Layout changeup?

Hey gang, almost done with the next drawing. I started in one style, but didn’t like the way it was turning out, so I’m moving into another style which is going to require a degree of detail that marker doesn’t get. I am in the middle of a larger debacle though..

I’m thinking about changing up my layout.. and having the drawings listed just in order.. not having the january/february/march pages, and just having a massive list, and putting like 10 on a page.. with the date and what have you. I don’t know.. does that make sense? does that sound like good idea? March has been slow for requests, and I’m slacking! damn, life has been busy! I’m going to try and schedule my time better. I have a lot of other projects I’m working on too.. plus work is picking up.

at anyrate, any suggestions on the changeup concept would be appreciated

new sketchbook

Ok, so my sketchbook actually is a sketchbook I had when I was 14 years old – heheh.. There’s some really interesting stuff in there. The sketchbook is also larger than my scanner, so I’ve been dealing with that issue on the past 2 drawings. I am thinking about this next challenge I have ahead of me, and that is the “banana suit party at Liar’s bar in Downtown Buffalo” challenge. I have an idea of how I’m going to do it, but the only problem is that I have no clue what the bar looks like (from memory – I’ve been there once, been past it a couple times.. saw a decent fight outside of it between a bouncer and a drunkard.. ) I scoured the internets for a picture to help me remember, and I couldn’t seem to find anything worth while… does anyone have a picture I can use? or do I have to take a drive by it and snap a couple shots… ?

Challenges – Literal v. Figurative

I have been trying my best to keep up with the artwork, but some of these are taking quite a bit out of me.
that last one was a mind bender! The same requester made another request of “sleep is the cousin of death” I don’t mind the ones that don’t have much straight-forward direction, but they do take a bit for me to fully wrap my head around in order to represent it two-dimensionally. I enjoy this aspect of the challenge, and I think that it adds to the interest of the site. But I am behind! I have to hit the paper! Course, it doesn’t help that my new housemate has an Xbox360, and I am hooked on trying to beat 1-player story mode of the new Resident Evil – Hard! I just realized you have to SELL your treasure, I thought the value was automatically included in the bank. I also was unaware that you could upgrade your guns! As a result, I have had a very tough time with this game! ahhhhh! I am on the last chapter though- I’ve found/rescued Jill. I can’t wait until I beat it so I can get back on track with the things I have to do in my life! – like maintain this website!

root of evil – official symbolic breakdown.

—-The requester asked for my interpretation of the piece I generated for him, this is what I wrote back – Please comment! —

Well, Love of Money is the Root of all Evil.

Love of money is signified in the piece by the Chest. One might think the chest shown is a pirates chest, which is usually filled with gold and other valuables -very suitable for the interpretation because pirates were known for loving money quite a bit, their existence was based on loving money, therefore, the pirates’ chest itself – regardless of its contents, could be viewed as a symbol of evil. It’s shown closed or locked up, because usually we want to keep our money safe and out of site, the pirates chest reigning as a supreme symbol again because of a pirates desire to horde and even hide money by burying it, so as to not get it stolen by other pirates. Also, we don’t really know if it’s filled with gold, $100 bills, $20 bills.. diamonds.. Money takes on so many shapes, that what is ‘money’ to one person might not be ‘money’ to another person. This concept should serve as a pathway towards the discussion of why we have a money system to begin with. Gold and Silver started the money system, our entire civilization is based on rocks that a few chosen people saw as ‘valuables’. The evolution of the money system sure raises some curiosities when thought about deep enough.

Money being the root is depicted by the chest being intertwined with the root structure below the cross section of earth above. The money and the root system have become one and the root system leads to evil. Roots are the devices that are used to transport nutrients and water from the soil below the surface up to the vegetation above the surface. Aside from PH, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and a little Pot ash, there are many other factors that correlate to how the plant will grow. This root system is getting its nutrients from money – and as a result, it’s growing evil – yikes.

Evil is represented as a demon head surrounded by abstracted razor wire. I use abstraction on occasion to keep the focus on the more pertinent data in the piece, which is why the razor wire was simplified. Razor wire I believe, is a great symbol of evil in itself because number one – I don’t want to get tangled up in it. Number two – It surrounds almost every prison facility in the United States, a prison being, technically speaking, a ‘house of evil’. I say ‘technically speaking’ because that’s what a prison was initially created for – to house evil people. But there are many people currently serving time that I personally believe don’t deserve to be serving time, (ie small time marijuana dealers.) The demon head is self explanatory, demons are fuckin’ evil. Satan is a demon, and everything evil is under his control. (minimal religious symbolism). So, if you get tangled in the evil razor wire, you’re getting tangled up with the devil.

The last little bit of this piece is the choice to show a cross section of the earth. The grass is green like the grass near a playground. This gives a feel, especially with the recreational ‘jungle gym’ appeal of the razor wire’s almost ‘rollercoaster-like’ contours, that we’re looking at Satan’s playground perched atop of this cross section. Then to think that we’re just looking at one cross section, the concept of 100’s of 1000’s of other cross sections existing comes to mind which reminds us that Evil is lurking everywhere.

Root!

The root of all evil. Money is the root of all evil. Actually, it’s the Love of money that is the root of all evil, according to the bible. That’s why there’s a treasure chest there. When we love something we lock it up, and keep it safe. What is in the chest? Who knows, what is money to me might not be money to someone else. and then an evil face with horns depicts the concept of evil.. a monster that resembles satan, but has a blue-grey undead quality to it. Loosely based on some of the work by Josh Keyes. Comments? Questions? Suggestions?

What is the grey stuff? I don’t know, but I bet if I got near it, I would get tangled up in it.. with evil. I don’t want to get tangled up in evil.. It’s a poor attempt at symbolic razor wire… an symbol of evil as it is found all around prisons… Comment here!

After a long awaited wait…

Finally. I managed to get my hands on a new sketchpad! It only took me two friggin weeks! I guess I could have gotten any ol’ pad from any ol’ place. But I need a very specific feel to a pad, in order to feel right while I’m drawing. They have to be a spiral bound, actual sketch pad, with 80 or more pages in it. There’s a certain weight to an 80+ page sketch pad of heavier stock. It stays in place. I don’t need a book to put my book on.. you know?

So many drawings people that requested them probably forgot about ‘em!
I finally did the controversial ‘JC and the Devil with guns drawn on Lady Liberty” drawing. I colored it digitally.. which i guess means I could have drawn it digitally this whole time.. but I don’t think the wacom tablet has the same freedom as my trusty pen and paper. I drew the drawing straight with no pencil to begin, using felt tip marker (well, a high end luminescent permanent marker.. forget the brand) and there’s no room for making mistakes with permanent markers. I didn’t make too many mistakes, aside from hastily coloring the drawing in (I was never really all that good at coloring in my drawings) as well as making lady liberty’s hands look kind of masculine, and the devil’s head too big, and both the devil and Jesus’s bodies a little stout. I guess the concept is that they are leaning in towards lady liberty, which is why their heads were a little larger.. but I guess I might be a little over critical. I am very happy with the overall composition, a creepy face almost forms when you look at the two guns as nostrils… gotta search for it… at any rate, feel free to comment, I would like to see if there could be a debate on whether this is image is an attack on religion, or our nation.. I’ll start it off by saying – our nation I guess…. ? ? ?

What’s the Holdup!?

If anyone is a regular to my blog, or a regular surfer of the site (do I even HAVE any regulars? seriously? my best friends haven’t even asked me to draw them anything, why would I have regulars at this point in the game? ) Well, if you’re someone who has requested something in the past, I bet you’re wondering, “where the heck is my drawing?” The answer currently is very simple – I am out of supplies! I’ve been marinating for a while on this Jesus/devil/lady liberty piece, and trying to work things out with the fishing lure guy, that I overlooked that I was at the end of my sketchpad! Today I was planning to rip out the J/D/LL piece, and I sat down, flipped the page, and realized I had already used the next page to write down directions on it.. and the page after that was used for a piece I did when I first got the sketch book.. The next page was non-existent, and therefor my book was finished! That’ll teach me! So bear with me, I just have to run out and buy a new sketchbook!

Forward Progress

Well, I have a handful of new requests I have to get up on the site, but I was a little busy today.
I’ve also created a piece for the fishing lure request. but I am finalizing it with the person who requested it before posting it, as it will be a graphic on a website, so it’s gotta be right! see the preview: http://www.whatcanidrawforyou.com/2009/FEB/SlimeLure.jpg

So, I went ahead and got some permanent artwork on my body finally. I already have 1 tattoo, but it was an “I’m 18, I need one because I can” tattoo, which I don’t really regret, but it’s like a time stamp tattoo in that everyone around my age at the time was getting the same kind of tattoo. It did mean something to me, and they still hold true and most likely will for the rest of my life, but I wish I had found a better way to portray it permanently on my flesh.

This time around, I got the 3 dot pattern of the Predator’s plasma/laser cannon on my shoulder. If you’ve seen the film Predator, you might recollect a part where the beloved Carl Weathers (Happy Gilmore- it’s all in the hips, Rocky 1,2 and 3 an much much more..) sees the predator in the trees, and sees it go into camouflage mode. This startles Carl Weather’s character, and prompts him to open fire in the direction of where he last saw the alien. This only angers the Predator, and using the wonderful vision controlled plasma/laser cannon, lines up a clear shot that takes Carl Weather’s arm right off of his body, and there is a delightful shot of Carl’s arm falling to the ground in slow motion with his automatic weapon still firing rounds because the finger is still on the trigger. Carl lets out a cry as the Predator lines up another shot which finishes him off.

The concept behind getting this tattoo, is that a majority of everything I do for a living, is done with my right hand. I am right handed, and that’s the hand I use to draw, the hand I use to click a mouse or use a wacom tablet, the hand I use to wipe my bottom, the hand I use to throw a baseball or a piece of trash into the garbage.. and so on.. Most importantly, every way I make money or could make money in this world, is through the use of my right hand. I am ambidextrous, and I have drawn entire pieces of art with my left hand.. I actually have developed an interesting theory on that concept, but that’s for another blog entry.. but I draw with my right hand.. if I lose my right arm as Carl did.. Well.. I’m pretty much useless, and would have to entirely restart my life as something else. The law of Modus Tollens guys – one can’t exist without the other.