memories of pencil

     Another tidbit from the Summer of '89.  I guess I should try working with pencil again.  It's been a while.

under the surface

     Here's a moldy oldie from the Summer of '89.  I find this one interesting because seems to show the content that I fully embrace today just barely starting to emerge in my early drawings and doodles.  It's just under the surface and it's poking its head up to say 'Hi', trying to disturb the serene scene above.

     Heh.  Maybe this guy'll show up on the 4th, bringing his flamey flames with him and I can drunkenly order him to light all my fireworks for me.  Have a good holiday, folks!

hollow head

     Okay, now that I've gotten planking out of my system, we can get back to bidness.  Here's some pencil from my late teens.  The original is noticeably lighter than what you see here.  When I was fiddling around with this post-scan I hit ye olde auto-adjust on the colors and everything just popped.  It really brought out all the original detail from this old drawing so I ran with it.

     As for content, methinks this has something to do with an artwork I often stared at as a kid in California.  It was in this book called The Mind my parents had in the living room.  The artwork in question was a painting done by a schizophrenic depicting their skull split open lying in a grassy field and you could see different compartments inside.  Each compartment showed scenes, memories, abuse, insecurities and the like from their life experiences.  I remember being obsessed with that book and that painting in particular.  As for my drawing, the head seems hollow with all the interesting stuff on the outside.  Perhaps the inside was gutted by fire, as there are some small flames still burning.

tunnel vision

     Here's goofy little drawing from my past.  Not sure what the eye tunnels are about but the electrical sparks in the hair seem to show the beginnings (or at least hints) of features prevalent in the Sharpie craze and, more recently, with nose bleed.  Weird how you can make sense of some of your past by examining your present state.

     Oh yeah, speaking of the Summer of '89.  I've already been posting shit from this period and just didn't bother noting it.  Check out the tag if you're curious.

dandelions and the summer of '89

     Ah, the summer of '89.  Judging from the date I was either 19 or about to turn.  I drew a lot that summer.  I should perhaps do a series or some shit.  Eh, I'll just tag this and see what develops.

     Three day weekend comin' up for me! : D

looooving me is easy 'cause I'm beautiful!

     This is the only honest to goodness, actually attempting a photographic likeness, self-portrait I have ever done.  This was completed when I was 19 years old.  Early college, when I was all ambitious, arrogant and very serious about myself.  At the time I was all like, "I'm gonna draw myself using two mirrors, man!  That way what I draw will be an actual likeness of myself and not just a mirror image!"  And so I did.  I used two mirrors, concentrated very hard, narcissistically paid special attention to my eyes and pursed lips and, in the end, screwed the whole thing up by making the distance from the tip of my nose to my chin noticeably shorter than it actually is.  Eh, whatcha gonna do.  I was young, dumb and fulla cum.  The odds of me not screwing this up were pretty slim to begin with.

     Have a good new year.  I plan to get drunk and burn shit.

teen scream

     Here's a moldy-oldy for all ya'lls.  This is the oldest drawing that I still have lying around.  It's been creased, torn and abused by time.  It expresses my teenage angst very well and I drew this when I was 17 years old.

     That was 23 fucking years ago.  My wife and I started having the hot, naked, sexors 21 years ago and if fate had taken a different turn we could have a child right now who'd be just about ready to graduate college.  And then we'd have to kill them.  Considering how college turned out less than successful for us without kids, it would have been an even bigger quagmire of despair, failure and disappointment if we had been raising a child.

     Anyway, that's enough about that.  Thanks for your time, folks.  I appreciate it.

manimal cyborg dad

     Here's some more of my drawing backstory from high school.  Strong dad influences in this one (and, for some reason, a dash of Marlon Brando).  Also some beastman type stuff going on in there, probably from watching too many episodes of Manimal.

     Anyway, my dad got one of his eyes shot out with a bee-bee gun as a kid.  He apparently had a glass eye for a while when he was younger but by the time I knew him he was sporting an eye patch.  That combined with his dark, curly hair gave him a decidedly pirate look.  Thinking about it now, he would've looked much more awesome if he'd had a semi-translucent plate riveted over his bad eye, as pictured above.  Would've given him a much cooler, cyborg, road warrior look.

weapon hand

     A little futuristic, sci-fi action type stuff from my late teens.  Thanks for taking a look.

talons and audioslave

     This post was inspired by fellow artist and blogger Aquilus Domini.  After seeing his exasperated dragon I was reminded of a couple of things: (1) talons and horns rule and (2) so does Audioslave.

     While the above drawing pales in comparison to Aquilus' latest, it is nonetheless one of my favorites from high school.  After taking a closer look at it while uploading it, I also just realized it was one of the drawings I digitally fiddled with in my 30's.  Also, no thumb.  Eh, whatcha gonna do?

happy dragon

     Not much in the way of memories about Mr. Happy Dragon here.  I just thought I'd post him for your amusement and for another entry into my quick sketches category.  Thanks and enjoy.

don't wanna be around when he sneezes

     Got myself in the digital mood and futzed around with a pencil drawing from my teens.  I reduced the colors and edited the palette to achieve this effect.  This drawing always gave me sort of a bland feeling so sprucing it up a bit with some color has hopefully added some interest.

viking bananas

     I drew this in high school and it still perplexes me.  It mocks me like some sort of viking helmet, hover-jellyfish of confusion.  I'll get my revenge by drawing its nemesis.  I'll draw some sort of pumpkin, steam shovel, rocket-powered banana of clarity.  Yeah!  So take that you... you THING!

full speed ahead

     This is one of my favorite quick sketches from my late teens.  Fast lines, nothing too fussy.  Lotso good, raw content in this one I think.

falling down

     Another entry from my digital experimentation.  This one is easily my favorite so far.  As I mentioned before, I may end up doing more of these.  I think the bold science fair colors I settled on and the sickly pale yellow for the face work well together.  I also find it interesting how the mouth ended up looking like an ink splatter; total happy accident there.

     Seriously, I should really do a few more of these.

skully

     This one always makes me pause.  I remember first getting into drawing skulls and skeletons in high school.  I once asked a guest psychology teacher in my English class what they meant and he said it was generally considered to be a fear of the future.  At the time, what he said didn't mean much to me.  Over the years I've come to realize that there's a lot of truth to that answer.

     Honestly, though, it is a bit more complicated than that.  I've always loved books about the human body, skulls and skeletons have always been symbols of hardcore coolness and rebellion to me and the best test score I ever got in Advanced Biology in high school was the human skeleton test.  Feh, it's never simple, is it?

sickness

     Ack!  I'm sick.  I must've caught the cold my wife had all last week.  Here's an image appropriate to my current state of health.

     Originally drawn in pencil in my teens and digitally fiddled with in my 30's, this is one of a small group of images that represents my first attempts at computer editing/modification.  At the time I first attempted this project my patience ran out, as it was taking more time than I wanted to put into it.  I was going for quantity not quality.  Now that I'm revisiting my past works I may end up doing more of these.  I like the vivid effects you can get by messing with the number of colors and editing the image palette.  I'm no expert at it but I do love fiddling with images on the computer.

dad, KISS and childhood

     More high school stuff.  I'm not sure if this one is a self-portrait.  It's definitely not all me.  My dad is in there (note the one good eye) along with some KISS makeup.  I was a really into KISS as a child.  Ran around with the makeup on and two belts crisscrossed on my bare chest.  Even had the KISS colorforms set!  Man, those were the days.

awkward flower

     Here's a self-portrait from my high school years that I keep coming back to.  I'd say it captures my awkward teenage years pretty well.  The half-closed eye and bared teeth are interesting to me.  I think they show both the depression and hostility I was grappling with at the time.

     I know this may seem self-indulgent but I've always found I can never know what I'm going to end up drawing until it is done.  Furthermore, the actual meaning of my artwork often eludes me since it undoubtedly dwells in my subconscious somewhere.  Nevertheless, I like to attempt to examine where I've been in keeping with the whole "know thyself" thing.