(2B pencil on a 87mm x 139mm postcard) The idea of owning an exotic pet was always used in comic book adverts. The most well known one being the sea monkeys. People thought they were getting something really special, until it was pointed out to them that they were just brine shrimp. But imagine if something like a pet demon was available!
(2B pencil on a 141mm x 103mm postcard) An image I used on Christmas cards that I sent out to people in 2015 that also included a short story to go along with it about the ruthless nature of bargain shopping.
(HB pencil on a 89mm x 139mm postcard) The strangest things can sometimes trigger lucidity in dreams. Forget the fact that she was naked, or that she was sat next to an invisible man and that there was a monster trying to grope her. The dragon-headed man was smoking in a no smoking area. How fucking dare he?!
(2B pencil on a 176mm x 102mm book title page) Book burning can be one of the ultimate acts of blasphemy. I chose this book because it tells the story of two people bouncing around the galaxy, relying on a guide book that's completely useless to them.
Professor Abb Sunkin. Chief experimentalist, faithful servant to the president. Known as the final-lab executioner for my cell-mates, or « that asshole » – as I overheard – for the experimentalists under his command.
These were drawn on different days, in different places.
A salt shaker and sugar rack at Beans & Barley on Milwaukee’s East Side—a place that is gone now. A chair at Starbucks, which is still there.
When I go places, I wait.
Waiting is filled with observation.
Observation is recorded with marks.
Marks spark memory.
I can look at a few pencil lines years later and remember where I was.
Maybe that’s what a sketchbook really keeps. Not drawings of things, but evidence of moments.
For Doodle Addicts, I would use this rather than making Beans & Barley the whole story. The loss of Beans & Barley gives one sketch poignancy, but your larger idea is better: drawing converts otherwise disposable waiting into memory.
Two pens resting on the table, drawn quickly before they were put back to work. The lines wander and double back, but that is part of looking: an ordinary object becomes particular when we give it our full attention.
Ink sketch from observation.
Ruskin believed that ornament was never decoration for its own sake — it was evidence of attention, a record of the hand and eye slowing down enough to truly see. These kaleidoscope name designs are built the same way: a name broken into line, repeated outward with discipline, until pattern becomes a kind of patience made visible.mandala, kaleidoscope, radial symmetry, pattern art, geometric art, name art, marker art, hand drawn, meditative art
Tried drawing a mermaid yesterday because why not, as I always say… unfortunately my first few attempts looked like someone punished a toilet, so I nixed that idea until now. Third (I think) time lucky?
A fun collage of all the things that were on my mind at the time of drawing. Made this as a banner for my website and Soundcloud and Spotify and stuff.
It’s the stoner’s holiday today (4/20) so while I don’t partake in that kind of thing personally, am I going to make use of a pun for a drawing title regardless? Yes, yes I am… xD
New sketchbook time already? Seems like it!
Kicking off the new volume “Digital Analog Native” with some Tails fan art, because that’s how we do it :-)
Jury Duty, June 2013
Fifty of us sat in that room, each one staring at a phone or scribbling in a notebook, killing time. The lawyers asked their questions, picking us off one by one like a slow game of dodgeball. I wasn’t chosen, so I drew instead—earbuds, slouched shoulders, the hum of waiting caught in a few quick lines.
