Red Light #1 (pic & sketch)

Rick Ross (Pic and Sketch)

Inspiration.

It goes without saying that i've been a little down. Someone posed one thing that made me question myself. Am i truly living my dream? I'm not sure if i am or not? Perhaps i'm in the place that i am because i'm trying suppose to learn a lesson? That however isn't the point of this post.

I want to talk about my current inspirations that surrounds me. I'm constantly surrounded by people doing creative things and pushing themselves artistically.

This week, i got an invite for my friends and novels' Craig and Michelle Simmons. Together they wrote a ethnic romantic novel that was geared to and spoke specify about the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Their book was released on Lulu.com this week. Together we did a collaboration of their writes and my artwork. I'm very proud of them getting their novel published. The great part about something like that is, that's something no one can ever take from you. It's out there for the world to see and appreciate the great piece of lecture that it is. On a sad note and i'm not just belittling my own artwork. But that wasn't the best cover design. In my eyes the vision that i had and the final results were something totally different. It was so bad i'm gong to gesso over it as soon as i can. Perhaps if very soon i can create a better vision.

Outside of that, some people that i was equally impressed with were some guys i went to high school with. I knew that some of them were heavy into rap music back then. However now they are following their dream. I'm not sure if it will land them mainstream and into the life of the fame, still i found their youtube video inspiring. In their recording studio they boasted about editing music at 8am on a weekday morning. Perhaps they spend all night in the studio recording but i couldn't help but wonder what am i doing with myself. I should be drawing. Very soon perhaps i will have something positive to show everyone.

Uncle Fester (pic& sketch)

my mom raised me on old black and white tv shows that she watched. The Addams Family being among them. I was drawn to the show i believe now because the simple fact that all the members were comfortable with being a little weird or crazy. Them embraced the oddities that weren't the standard norm. As an artist, you learn to believe you're the same way. You're odd and weird and have different view points that everyone else around you most of the time. Well that is unless you bump into another artist. As i stated in my last post, i wanted to create more pen and ink master pieces. I don't create enough of them even though i love the contrast of the black against the white paper. This is just the beginning of a sketch that is done in just that style with a little bit of white chalk highlights. I know have the urge to go back and fine tune it all and put away the markers i use to darken certain areas and using pencil instead.

Sash Grey (pic and sketch)

I'm not exactly sure why i began looking up Sasha Grey. But initially it began with the concept of me trying to find a picture of her that wasn't adult related. It's no mystery that she's an adult actress or in some eye's an porn star. I wanted to find something that would show her beauty without going to the obvious. I'm 100% all for pushing the boundaries or what is acceptable for public viewing but this isn't the moment nor place.

I wanted to do something that i haven't done really in a while. i wanted to do a pen and ink drawing. My girlfriend, Cara had mentioned while she was here that her son liked my pen drawings. I actually have 2 of them hanging up in my living room. With it being so long since i did one and the perfect image coming along it was only fitting this was the moment.

I only have 2 small regrets about this piece: 1) i went to dark to quickly and had to cheat a little by using an eraser to lighting certain areas up and 2) i missed up royally on the bottom of the headphone. It's a given no one would know unless i told them or they saw the picture but i know.