Life is Food.

Miss me? Of course you didn't! Otherwise you would comment on the entries.

But enough about you. Here's me. Or what I did this afternoon anyway. . .

That "Life is Good" thing popped in my head for no damn reason today. And I thought it would be funny if instead it was "Life is food." But who thinks life is food? Vampires do! Voila! Then instead of giving the peace sign, I figured the middle finger would be best. Double Voila!

That's really all I got.

Matchstick Bot

Remember last time I was talking about how I was drawing with matchsticks? Sure you do! Well here's another one that I did
Again, it's a combination of ink-pen and match-stick. All of the shading is done with burnt matches. I think that I like the treatment of this image better than the previous image, but I like the previous image better than this one overall, this being more of a doodle.

I have been thinking about the white border more lately, though. I hadn't given it much thought in the past, but I'm starting to think it has significance beyond "I like how it looks". For one thing, it gives the image a bit more definition, a space if you will. Something I'm generally searching for is a definition or space. But on another level, that definition is also a sort of a surrounding feeling thingy. Sort of like it's captured in that defined space, unable to move outside of it, where there is (often) color, or shading, or depth, or something more abstract. As such, I've added another tag "border" so I, or you, can look at all those things together and maybe get a better idea as to what's going on with it.

Or maybe it just looks good and it's easy to do.

The future . . .?

Well, recently my girlfriend in Iraq broke up with me. She said it was too hard being that far apart, especially with such a time difference. See the time difference made it hard to find a time for us to talk that wasn't cutting into the other's work or sleep or something. She started working more to occupy her mind and it just sort of pushed me out. Now I can at least kind of understand what she's talking about. And believe me, there's more to it than I just said, but I'm not going to go into her personal life with perfect strangers who don't even bother to post comments (yes, you!).

That all went down 'round the New Year. But lately, she wants to talk more. She's lonely and homesick and she's having a hard time finding a sympathetic ear. I can't stand to see someone reaching out and not finding anything. That just sucks. So I want to help her. I want to listen and be her friend and keep her spirits up, especially since she's serving our country in a desert combat zone. Regardless of feelings about the war, or war in general, our troops deserve to be supported.

But the tricky thing is, if I open back up like this, I'm likely to get hurt again. I tend to fall easily and she is easy to fall for. So I drew this in DS Colors!:

[click for to make bigger]

And then the next day I drew this:

[click for to make much bigger]

You may notice that both guys are looking up into the sky. I kind of wanted to draw a UFO or something, but it would have been to close to them to reflect the idea that whatever it is that has their astounded attention is still a ways off. And I wanted to use the words "Not again", but I didn't want it to be that obvious. But the point of both of these drawings is along the lines of "I can see it coming, and I'm just standing here, watching it get closer. I'm not running. I'm not trying to get out of its way or get closer. It'll probably hit me, though, if I just keep standing here. . ." And that's about how I feel. Paralyzed with fear: Help her and hurt me and then hurt her? Hurt her and help me and hurt me? Hurt me, her and then help us both? Help her, me and then hurt all around? Some other combination of hurt and help? I just don't know. . . You may note that both are bald and have a "soul patch", even though they're "self-portraits". I still have some hair (and while my usual self-portraits are fairly bald, they still have some hair) and a full goat-tee. I have been focused on the chin area of the facial hair of late, but I doubt that has any real-world significance. It could explain the drawings a bit, though.

Now for a few words on media. The bottom drawing ("Shit") is a combination of ink pen and match sticks. The hard lines are all Bic pen, the shading is all matchsticks. I recently had a conversation with someone about the merits of charcoal and the merits of graphite. I generally prefer graphite, probably because I've all-my-life drawn with pencil. But charcoal is fun too. Partly because it's messy. You get done with a charcoal drawing and you know you've been drawing! Graphite is a bit messy, too, but not as bad. Graphite gives you a sheen that charcoal doesn't. Charcoal gives you a darkness that graphite doesn't. So it's whatever works for you that matters in the end. At any rate, I've been using stick-matches to light my cigarettes and I decided to draw with them. After a couple of silly little drawings all in burnt wood, I decided it would be cool to mix it with something that gave a more stark and definitive line: ink. I like the results, though I'm clearly out of practice with charcoal.

Bubble-Bot

I doodled this guy while nursing an incredibly sore back:

[click for to make bigger]

I was lying in bed, watching some Flintstones episodes I had taped off of Cartoon Network several years ago. They were using a lot of circles in their promo stuff and it made me want to work with some circles. Now, I'm not that great drawing circles that are round. They're always pretty oblong and mis-shapen. But what can you do? (Practice? Ha!) This drawing is no exception. But I actually like how the "circles" look in this. I can't explain it, maybe it was the pain pills? But were that the case, I wouldn't still like them, and I do still like them. They just work well with this. The shading turned out pretty nice, too. I keep swearing that I'm going to get my pencils out and start working with them again, but then I go and do something like this with a Bic. I like the shading alot. It's very simple, no gradients or anything, but there are at least 3 distinct levels of shading. The lines are simple, the shapes are very simple, why shouldn't the shading be simple, too?

Maybe that's why I like it so much. Simplicity. Things get complicated sometimes and I just dont' want to deal with all that. Classes started up again so work is busy as hell. Equipment failures, annoyed faculty, annoyed staff, annoyed students. Preparing for upcoming terms while putting out the fires of this one. House is a mess. Sub-freezing temperatures and inadequate heat. My girlfriend in Iraq dumped me. Did I mention the house is a mess? Don't get me wrong. Life is not bad. It's just complicated. I don't like complications. I like simplicity. So that's probably why all the simple shapes and lines and coloring. And the robot's there no doubt because, in my mind, robots have it easy. Do what you're programmed to do, that's it. No deviations. Ah, the life of a robot for me!

Billy n Me

Flipping through the sketchbook the other day I found this one:

[click for to make bigger]

Before you strain yourself trying to read my terrible handwriting, here is what the text says:

Billy stabbed me on the bus when
I was 8. I bled from my leg & I
cried. I got embarassed that I cried
so I didn't tell my mom & it got infected.
My mom yelled at me.

When I was in Middle School I punched
Billy in the mouth and he bled. I laughed
about it because of the irony. I got
sent to the principal's office.
My mom yelled at me.

Four years later Billy and I shot
a BB gun at the old man across
the street. I hit him in the foot
and Billy hit him in the shoulder.
The old man screamed and fell over.
He bled from his hip.
My mom laughed at him.

This never happened. I never got stabbed. I never punched a kid. I never shot anyone (old or otherwise) with a BB gun. My mom would never laugh at an old man who had gotten shot, fell over, and started bleeding. In fact, she wouldn't have laughed if even only one of those things happened to an old man. Also, I never hung around with anyone named Billy. It's just one of those names.

But I decided to put this here because after going back and re-reading it and re-seeing it, I really like it. The original part of the drawing (the left side) was no doubt a drawing about tension, pressure, stress, depression, etc. all fucking with my brain, keeping me from thinking straight and feeling good. The words came next. I have no idea what it's about, truly. Again, it never happened. Not remotely. But that sort of thing could help to explain why a person was a bit muddled and confused. Trying to hide fear and pain from "Mom" which leads to worse pain and then getting in trouble for it could make one confused about what to do when something happens that you don't want "mom" to know about. Trying to fight back and winning, only to get in trouble with authority all around makes you wonder if it's worth it. Being reckless and mean causes "mom" to laugh could completely distort your sense of right and wrong. Which is probably already fairly distorted to begin with. Especially if your best friend stabbed you in the leg on the bus when you were 8. So anyway, the "poem" maybe "explains" the trauma our hero is going through on the left side of the page. The drawings above the words are illustrations of what happened at the different ages in our hero's life. I wanted the drawings to be simplified, like they were done by someone who hasn't much talent. (Fortunately that's about on par for me!) That goes well with the way I drew our hero in the first place.

Toasty

I drew the image for this a couple weeks ago and then, since I don't have Photoshop anymore, I threw it into Photostudio 5.5 (which came free with my scanner!) and tweaked it, added the text:

I think that this would make for a pretty cool sticker, wot? Myself, I would assume it's a beverage of an adult nature and therefore quite tasty. One day, when I'm more motivated and less lazy, I'll get this made into a sticker. For now, I'll just pretend.

Dots-N-Lines

The drawing bug bit me again recently. Finally. So I drew this:

[click for to make bigger]

I really wanted to do a drawing with the dots n lines (like this one) that had the robot in the middle of all the lines and dots. So I did that part first. Then I drew the box around it to give it a "completed" look. Then I thought that there should be more boxes with more stuff. So I drew the rest of the boxes and then filled them in. First was the one on the bottom right. The original idea was to do some of my columns, but I screwed up in ink so I wound up with what I have there. It's not bad. Next was the self-portrait. Usually I fill in the area around the head, but decided that I was too lazy/impatient so I went with dots. That seems to stick with the theme of the first two boxes (in the order they were drawn). The area up top remained blank for a couple of days, unsure of what should be in there. I knew I wanted a "scene" of some sort. . . but what? Then out of nowhere I decided I wanted to draw a mushroom cloud. They're easy and they look like they mean something whenever you draw them into anything. After the ground and the cloud were done, I thought it would be fun to put a sun in there. It was originally going to be a happy smiling sun, but I messed up the eyes (in ink, of course) and it looked a bit sinister. I figured it must be happy that the earth was finally feeling what it feels ALL THE TIME! I added the flying stickman (always a fun image to me) and the dialogue.

I want to do more with the dots-n-lines with the robot. I like how it turned out. I need to get the pencil set back out and spend some real time on it, make it look really nice.

You Thought It'd Be Easy?

Drew this in Colors! while whittling time away at work tonight:

(click for to make bigger)

I've been doodling those lines/circle things for a little while. They seem to fit well with the robots.

I've been missing my girlfriend, who is stationed in Iraq. It's not easy. We both have our difficulties with it and sometimes they collide. Recently they collided pretty hard and it looked kind of bleak for a little bit there. I think it's going to be okay, but it will continue to be hard. I can't wait until she gets back. Anyway, that's what the words are all about. I wanted to draw the 'bot and to draw the dots and lines, that's why they're there. I like that it's rough, too. Times are rough, to an extent, so the 'bot and etc. should look rough, right?

Nothing else really to say about it right now. Watch for more dot-n-line stuff, though. I'm sure it's coming!

As the French say, "Happy Thanksgiving!"

The 5 Turtles/HI-5

I've been meaning to draw more so I am. I drew this today in Colors!

(click for to make bigger)

For some reason, I've been wanting to draw hands. So I drew a hand. And it was boring. I liked it okay, but it needed more. So I added the lighter lines but it was still lacking. Then, for no apparent reason, I thought there needed to be faces on the fingers. But the faces alone didn't finish the drawing so I added the (poorly drawn) arms and hands on the faces on the fingers of the hand. Cosmic, huh? Then, as is my wont, I needed to add background and text. "The 5" something kept popping into my head. But the five what? Well, turtles of course. I have no idea why the 5 "turtles". But it fit and it didn't make me angry so I kept it. Right after that I drew this picture:

(click for to make bigger)

Yet another hand. I drew an automatic hand waver some time ago that I really liked. I'll have to find it and add it to the blog when I do. But I must have really liked it since I made an automatic high-fiver this time. I like the tag line "Who needs friends?" With an automatic high-fiver, you could get accolades whenever you wanted! You wouldn't need anyone around to make you feel like you accomplished something worth sharing. Kind of defeats the purpose of the high five, I suppose. I mean, the point is to share in your joy, right? Well, whatever. I'm drawing again!

Thing From July

I have no idea what this is all about:

[click for to make bigger]

Pretty cool though, huh? I've been doodling more of those line things that appear above the robots hand in the "fresh fish sticks" panel. I like them. Maybe they're my new thing? I'll have to do some more elaborate ones and see what happens.

I gotta draw more. . .

Two Months?

Two months? Really? It's been that long. . . dammit. I really wanted to keep up with this. It helps me to keep drawing. But I lost my computer. It went to the crapper. So while I have a computer, it won't run Photoshop so I have no real editing software. I may have to resort to using The Gimp until I can upgrade. . .

But more importantly, something distracted me. Distracted me from a lot of things. I'm still distracted, but I'm getting used to it. Here, maybe this will explain it in a way:


Yes. I'm in love. And I couldn't be happier about it. She's wonderful and amazing and special and she gets me. Really gets me. I get to be myself with her. Which may explain a bit about why I haven't been drawing so much recently, too. Part of why I draw is to understand myself better, to sort of explain me. But she gets me without all the explanations. . . My art is suffering. Well, a lot of things 'round here are suffering. But I'm getting better. Part of the problem: she's in Iraq now. That really sucks. I'm not depressed but I have some of the symptoms. Especially the lethargy. But I'm getting better! And all this is still way better than the Three Years of Hell I just got out of, so I'm still up!

I'll post more soon, I promise.

C'est ne pas une cigarette

I've been slowly getting back to the swing of things. I'm doodling a bit more and I'm Colors!ing it a bit more. Witness this following example:


I had been thinking about my cigarette holder and thinking about how it had been a little while since I drew it. I also wanted to play around in Colors! some so this seemed like a nice union. I wound up liking the text a lot. The settings on Colors! let you control the width of the brush by the amount of pressure you use with the stylus so I fired that up and played with the lettering. I think it's a lot more interesting to look at than the more uniform text I usually do (see this?). I've done a couple other things using that lettering technique, but I didn't like the results as much. But I think that I'll try using this same technique to draw the outlines of characters or what-have-you. C'est la arte!

Am I Green?

Hola, Gang! I haven't been doodling much lately. Or drawing. Or sketching for that matter. But I have been playing with Colors! some more. Here's one from the other day:

It's a self portrait again. The eyes are upside down and everything is green for some reason. I can't explain either of those things. Well, alright, I just wanted to see what the eyes would look like upside down. But I couldn't tell you why. And I like the color green. But I couldn't tell you why. The eyes don't really seem upside down, though. They're just there, seeming normal. I suppose sometimes our perspectives shift to something completely unexpected, but nothing really changes. Whether we don't learn anything from it, or we learn that "the other viewpoint" isn't really that different than our own. . . Something to think about I suppose.

From the Archives

I've been distracted of late. I haven't been drawing -or even doodling- much so there's not really anything new to post. So here is an old one; I did this in October of last year:



I wanted to play around with weird perspectives and some distortions, as I recall. I really like the tall guy in this, I think that the weirdness works quite well. I don't know how well the "thought-bubble-as-cloud" works, however. (Could you tell that was supposed to be an empty thought bubble that was actually a cloud in the scene?) The little "me" in lower right seems fairly confused. And who wouldn't be, to walk over a hill and see this weird segmented pillar thing as well as an even weirder giant mutant smoking and imagining clouds into existence? I really like this drawing.

The thing about going back to the archives is that I realize my drawing has been suffering for some time. I've lost sight of my goal to make something new every day. Going through the old sketch book I see a lot of stuff that I remember just scribbling out very quickly, but it looks way better than the stuff I'm scribbling out now. . . when I bother. Plus it has been nearly a month since I posted here. That makes me feel guilty because I noticed that I'm getting more hits, presumably, due to my interview in Infolepsy #2, given that I don't really promote this page otherwise. So to those of you who have been checking back, hoping for some new stuff from me, I apologize and I will do better, I promise! I'm re-instating my goal of a new creation daily and starting a new goal of at least 2 posts a month. I'll do more posts as my drawings get better and more frequent, so for now there'll probably be quite a bit of older stuff.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!

Fuck Off

No, not you. Please don't go. This is a recent doodle from my sketch book.


I haven't the foggiest what this is all about. I just like it. I don't think it's a self-portrait since it has none of the usual trappings (bald head, cigarette, goat-tee). I think that I like this one because of the weird perspective. I've been toying with that a bit lately, trying to find a way to draw stuff with perspectives that make the viewer (read: me) a bit uncomfortable. Here the guy is looking down on the viewer, literally. Perhaps figuratively as well. Here's a guy looking down on [me] with a shirt that says "fuck off". I get to feeling like this sometimes, like everyone is looking down on me, telling me to fuck off. And his bubbles are relatively ordered, compared to what I normally do, especially in self-portraits.

I also like the unfinished look, especially around the feet. I tried putting this into Photoshop to add color to the background, but it just doesn't work too well with the way the lines don't really close. I tried a couple things to make it work, but it always looked so much better without the backgrounds I was attempting to manufacture.

I Have Returned.

Sorry for the long lapse 'twixt posts. I was preparing to go to Alaska, then I went to Alaska, then I got back and was kept occupied until last night, when I needed some time to rest. But now I have more time to myself again. I haven't drawn much lately, though. I had a very difficult time drawing while I was in Alaska. It was just so beautiful and incredible that anything I could even think of to draw made me realize just how limited my abilities are. But here's a couple of doodles from my all-too-short trip anyway.


So that first one says "My smile is too big for my face, it's so cool here!" The 2nd says "If I could make love to and marry something that isn't a woman, it would be Alaska." And the third says "It's so beautiful here. . . I have to cry. . . I can feel myself disappearing into Alaska!" I highly recommend Alaska to anyone who, for example, breathes. I took over 1100 pictures. I'll be tweaking some of those in the ol' Photoshop so expect to see some here soon. I got some motivation while there to get busy and do some bigger, better works, so hopefully there'll be more of those soon, too. Stay tuned!

Untitled Pen Drawing

I love to work with Bic pens. My favorite are the clicky kind. I don't race them or anything, I just like to use them. The Bic is a very good pen for drawing for two big reasons: The ink flows every time, and you have a tremendous amount of control over the amount of ink flowing. So armed with a clicky Bic I drew this guy.

It was loosely inspired by something I saw on The Meth Minute 39, a very weird, but incredibly funny cartoon show on the interwebs. I wanted to draw a much more distorted face than I usually draw. It sort of worked. I was actually going for a view as though the viewer was looking up at the guy, so in that respect it failed. But the face is still weird looking. Initially I left off the goat-tee, but then wondered what it would look like with one so I added it. I think that was a mistake, but that's the danger of working with pen, rather than pencil. You may notice that there are more shapes surrounding the head. I still don't really know what they mean. A friend once told me about how he used to meditate: he would imagine himself swimming towards the bottom of a very deep (but clear) body of water. On his way he would see fish swim by and he realized that each fish represented some thought. He didn't know what the thoughts were, but he did recognize that as long as he was still seeing fish, his mind was not clear. Perhaps that's what happening here. They don't mean anything specific, just "there is crap in your brain."

I'm going to run this one through Photoshop and try to clean it up a bit and make it shiny. I like the image, it's pretty funny looking. But it is a sketch so there are a lot of rough lines. I don't want to completely take the rough lines out, that's part of what I like about this image, but I would like to make it look a little more completed.

Robot-Head-Thing

Just this past Saturday I was interviewed for a local 'zine called "Infolepsy". As a result, I now feel motivated to draw more frequently and to at least maintain status quo on posting to this blog. So I drew this last night.


Whenever I'm stuck for ideas, I draw heads. Human heads, robot heads, dog heads, cat heads. But no shower heads. I don't know that I have ever drawn a shower head, interestingly enough. I may have to change that. Anywho, I was pretty pleased with the doodle, I'd taken some time to do some shading on the 'bot-head and I like the cross-hatching, too. But the background was a bit dull. Now, it was just a doodle, it was never intended to be a Finished Piece Of Art or anything like that, but still I wanted something to make the image pop a little more. So into Photoshop it went, I selected the background and tweaked the Levels and voila! (Which, if I'm not mistaken, is the French word for "viola".) Now there is this.

Interestingly enough -to me anyway- I have done images similar to this one before, with the shapes around the head that don't really define a border to the space, but I have no idea what it's all about. Oh I'm sure there's something about balance in there. There's always something about balance. But I don't know what the rectangles are or the circles are. These circles aren't the "bubbles" I so commonly use, so I don't know what they're trying to tell me. I guess this gives me a little direction for new works: what the hell are the circles and the boxes all about? It can't simply be to make the picture appear more elaborate and meaningful than it really is. Or can it?

Big Head (in ink)

I started trying to keep a daily sketch book last year. It hasn't worked. I just can't put something in there every day. But it's starting to form a habit. I find that when I draw daily I draw better. I have better ideas and better technique and some cool ideas. I realize, too, that a great deal of the things that I've been drawing are, in some form or another, self-portraits. I realize, too, that a self-portrait doesn't have to look anything like Self. The following is an example of a mental self-portrait, a sort of drawing of my mental state at the time.


At the time, I was on medication for depression. And the medication was waaaay too strong. My brain wasn't firing on all cylinders, nor were they firing in time. I felt completely spaced, on top of the crippling depression. The huge head, looking a bit like a depressed balloon with vacant eyes, floating up and away towards the uknown, atop a pretty drab background. Sickly skin wrapped in dark colors. That was my mind in mid-May, 2007 (and for a little while after, too). It doesn't really look like me. (see?) The drawing is certainly missing all the characteristics that I generally incorporate into self-portraits: beard, bald-cap, cigarette (though that's not a constant anyway, but a cigarette in a holder is a dead give-a-way for a self portrait). But that is clearly me. If I completely forget about this piece and see it again in 15 years, I'll still see me in it. I have no idea what the big hands are about. I was probably looking at some work by Sam Flores at that time.

This went just past a sketch into a "finished image" because I wanted to try out some new pen nibs and brushes that I got for working with ink and this was the excuse to do it. I'm really pleased with this image. I think it's a pretty solid image, one I'll still be proud of in the future. I can see this being a sort of inspiration, a "Look what I'm capable of" kind of thing. Even though it's all about that horrible depression and the hell of a time I had getting through it, this image makes me feel good.

Mind of a Man, Heart of a Robot (In Color!)

Well, here it is all in color. I rather like it in color, don't you?

And there you have it. My first hybrid in a long long time. I like to draw something with pencil or pen and then color it on the compooter. Partially because I suck with color. I can't work with paints or pastels or anything like that and get the results that I'm looking for. But with Photoshop, I can tweak the colors until they are just right, plus do some other cool stuff that helps to "complete" an image. Take, for example, the cherry on the cigarette. What I did originally looked just awful. It was a bright red. Had I painted that, there would wind up being huge gobs of paint in that area and I would have ended up destroying the thing. But this way I could tweak it down to orange and mess with some other stuff that I barely understand, but still appreciate, and make it look good. I was also able to make the background (which is super easy and I love the way it looks!) and the frame.

Now that I have the scanner, I suspect that I'll be doing more pieces in this fashion. I'll spend more time shading the original pencil or pen drawing and then just color it after the fact. I know that can work really well because I've done it before with favorable results.