The Answer Is Always In Your Sketchbook

Lightly sketched, so it's worth making this one bigger.

This one even more so.

Couple of sketchbook pages from last year that we're really just therapeutic exercises. Looking at them now, they really layed the groundwork for so much that I'm doing now.

It's a nice reminder to never throw anything away. 

Burt

No Foolin?

Sketchbook drawing from last year I did while waiting for a Job Interview.

Skillz Fo Skrillz

Drawing in my sketchbook I did while waiting for some art to get approved about waiting for some art to get approved. 

It's sort of a companion to this thing I did over at the Rust Belt Monster Collective.  Second in what's sure to be the "skillz series"

Strut

Warm up sketch before teaching.  Knocking out the bad influences before sharing the good ones I suppose.

Pimpin Aint Easy

It's President's Day Bitches

This is my favorite drawing in my sketchbook right now.  Maybe any of my sketchbooks.

Fuck You, Pay Me

Found my watercolors from High School.  Never lost the juvenile sensibility.

February Pole Jam

The folks at Cleveland Exotic Dance were nice enough to let me hang out  and play in my sketchbook during their monthly pole dance workshop.  The plan is to produce some prints in the very near future, so keep an eye out for that. 

Leveling Up In My Sketchbook

He come to town, come to save the princess Zelda.

Textures, Shadings, Nonsense

I firmly believe that the answer is always in your sketchbook.  While thinking about what I wanted to do for the upcoming Winter Soiree at Cleveland Exotic Dance, I found these. and I think I found where I want to go.  

Drawing from life and adding complete and udder ridiculousness.  Should be fun!  

Drawing @ Murray Hill With Thor

Thor is going to pose at Murray Hill next week so we headed up to check it out, eat fig bars, and talk about which Lou Reed songs are about heroin (most of them).

For some reason I felt the need to draw everything on two pages, as well as announce that I was drawing everything on two pages.

If you didn't know, anything on two pages is much cooler than stuff on one page.  It's automatically too awesome to be contained on just one page.

Unless of course, you're Thor and you're throwing down with crayons.  Then it's awesome outta the box.

Focus On The Parts That Make You Feel Good

If someone pays you to dig a ditch, they believe you can do it, and if you dig that ditch often enough it makes you a ditch digger.

That's the theory now a days. 

The Power Cosmic

I've been talking a lot about the answer always being in your sketchbook lately, so I thought I'd post a couple of pages from when I was living in San Francisco because they're indicitive of where I'd like to move artistically. 

People frequently ask me what it was like living on the west coast, and what mattered most to me was the amount of time I had to explore my visual voice.  It was the first time in my life that there was a true marriage between observing from life and unbridled creative embellishes.  I only wish I had more time to develop unique iconography instead of regurgitating what I was already familiar with, the same symbolism born out of the San Francisco underground comix movement. 

Obviously, I wish i had more time for a lot more reasons than that.

Either way,  I spent last year in San Francisco exploring the inner workings of my mind, and I'm decoding what that means for my work today in Cleveland.

"You're going to be obessive and impulsive because of your last name"

I've never been able to steadily keep a journal, but I've been keeping a regular sketchbook for more than fifteen years.  More often than not they give me a sense of whats going on in my life better than me stumbling for words ever could.  Also, there's something to be said for the secret coding powers of stream of conciousness cartooning.  A casual viewer isn't looking for clues into my thought process, and in all honesty I typically don't notice them until months after they're drawn.

Art therapy?  Maybe.  At the end of the day its a better life record than a notebook or facebook page.  Anyway, here's a couple of pages from the past few weeks I did instead of being responsible.

Never Stopped Me From Gettin Busy

As it stands, I don't have a drafting table, so I'm spending more time in my sketchbook.

Sometimes Digital Underground is playing when that happens.

Which almost makes up for the lack of desk.

Hers And Hers And His

School trip to the San Francisco Zoo. More of an excuse to meet people, eat veggie burgers, and listen to reggae.

Everyone LOVES reggae in this town for some goddawful reason.

Also a good reason to get homesick, since Catie and I used to hit the zoo up and draw back in Cleveland. The benefit, aside from having your pal with you, is that everyone that walked by was amazed you could draw at all.

That was not the case here, and the only reason I'm posting a lot of this work is to track my progress as I go through school.

Also to make Threes Company references.

(which was at the LA zoo, not the SF zoo)

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana

Sketchbook drawing of Roxanne (who I've decided needs to change the spelling to ROCKSanne, thus increasing her rock output by at least 16 percent) outside of a cafe by the park.

I bought the orange marker the day after I moved to San Francisco. Orange is more California-ie.

I think.

Then again by that logic I should have used more gray in Cleveland.

Girls, Girls, Girls

Late night listening to radio-lab, seeing how far I can play with forms.

Where I Lay My Head, That's Where I Call Home

I've been obsessed with the idea of sketch journals for years after reading Carnet De Voyage by Craig Thompson. When I think back it's certainly one of the reasons for renewed(new?) interest in drawing from life that happened a couple of years ago.

So when I moved to San Francisco, I wanted to do something similar, at least to the best of my abilities. Not that I've been able to focus on much besides my new surroundings anyways.



It took four days for my bike to arrive on the train, and this is the first day after that. I had no idea to do this for a week at the time, I just didn't want to be sitting alone with a three dollar glass of wine and matted helmet hair not doing anything but staring.

A few days later it happened again for the same reason, except it was coffee instead of wine.

At this point I'd decided to run with the concept of doing a line drawing a day for the week. This is a theme (the concept, not the schedule) I plan to continue for as long as I can. I'm also keeping a smaller sketchbook for bars, and restaurants, or when I cant bring a bag with me. I'm interested in doing more portraits, and I'm hoping with school I can begin doing that. In a way I think it validates the experience past what I can do just by living it.

The use of ink signifies me being more comfortable in my surroundings, or I forgot my art kit and the pen was all I had. I'll let you decide. The best part of doing these, is that they really allow me to draw like a child again. I'm only reacting to what I see, rather than laying down construction lines. Good a reason as any to keep using the pen.

That, and it makes me feel like Robert Crumb...

(who incidentally migrated from Cleveland to San Francisco)

I had my gall (this gets bigger when you click on it, actually they all do). I had a tourist take a photo of me while I drew this, which took two hours.

The temperature changed twenty-six times in that period.

(BTW, this is the Bay, and not the Golden Gate bridge. I'm holding out, because I'm convinced that I'll have to draw that for a class.)

(and bridges are hard.)

In the castro waiting to get my haircut. Like the day before, I had people commenting on this, which honestly means a heck of a lot. Especially because it was from high school kids walking home, and they hate everything. At almost thirty years old I still don't know how to properly take a compliment, but they're the only things that keep me going sometimes.

Living in Tremont I never took advantage of drawing all the great churches there. Looking back, I wish I would have drawn more from the time I lived there. I certainly lived an interesting life full of much more interesting people. I suppose I never had the confidence to pull it off.

It's funny what a cross-country move will do for you.