BELLY PUNKER IN SHADOW

UPDATE:
I'm late for Illustration Friday this week, but I feel a need to make a last minute contribution. So I'll make one slight alteration to make it applicable:

The Belly Punker dances. Not for money, but for the SNAPs of beatniks.

OK, weak, I know. I'll be better next time.

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As you can tell, I'm enjoying working with the India Ink and Bamboo Brush. So much so I had to visit an old friend, The Belly Punker. Note, too, how I composed this piece with an "X" shape theme. The aceo is divided into four triangles, giving the viewer a sense of order, juxtaposing the chaotic Id that is The Belly Punker. Upon closer inspection, of course, the "X" is askew, surely a comment on the whimsy of the artist (that is I). Continuing on the Balance vs Chaos theme, the shadow that makes up the lower right hand corner combines with the light in the upper right to create a sort of Yin Yang symbol.

Also note the subtle Pencil Moustache, itself in compete shadow. Does the artist wish to convey a sense of absence? A void of the familiar, some dark matter that has swallowed up humankind's meager attempts at creating a substance to style like a black hole does entire stars only to spit it out on the "other side" (wherever that is)?

Or did the artist use too thick of a brush stroke?

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SEEING ME THROUGH THE EYES OF ANOTHER

This aceo was created by my friend Ben.

You never know what your friends think of you until they draw you. Then the truth comes out.

Apparently, when my friend Ben sees me, he sees a naked Woody Allen/Egon from The Ghostbusters hybrid holding a Canjo* in front of yellow flames. I'm not quite sure how to take that. It's a great image, just a little disturbing.

* a Canjo is a one-stringed instrument that uses an aluminum can as a resonator. The Canjo can also be defined as an instrument upon which I ROCK. In the nude.

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CAT AND SNAKE

The wife and I were on a walk Sunday morning through the park. We saw a cat playing with something, so naturally being overwhelmed with the cuteness of it all Iris started taking pictures. We get home and, as has become our habit of late, hook up the camera and look through the pics on our TV. The "toy" was actually a snake.

"That's an aceo!" I said.

And so it is.

Here's the work in progress:

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SUMO

Another try with the India Ink and Bamboo Reed Pen. Meet Sumo.

The wife and I love a good Basho. If we ever get around to it, we would love to visit Japan and see these guys duke it out.

Who-oh do you knows
Likes to watch Sumos
They eat-ohs
And fight-ohs
And eat-oh some more-ohs
Tra la la, do-dohs,
Do wop she bop dwee-ohs
The Sumo are some-ohs
Of my favorite fellows.

Here's SUMO in progress:

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ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: I SPY

Uh oh, look who's discovered India Ink and the Bamboo Reed Pen.

Me. Stop looking.

Here's my first go at it - a bird of prey finding it's next meal. See that little dot in the upper left corner? Dinner.

The fast bird flies by
To find it's next meal
No matter how high
Good eyes, great deal.

Poor little rabbit
Oblivious below
The fast bird shall nab it
Bunny blood will flow.

Nature is vicious
Don't think I am cruel
The rabbit, delicous!
The fast bird needs fuel.

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REFLECTING SPARROW

I suppose you could say this sparrow is"reflecting" in the mossy water. You could. But if you look close, this little dude has a distant look in his eye. Permit me a little anthropomorphization (one of my favorite words. Look it up): he's reflecting on his life thus far, wondering where the time went. Life is short, especially for a little bird. And harsh if you're not rare. Why couldn't I have been an ivory-billed woodpecker, or better yet, a resplendent quetzal? If you cut me, do I not bleed? asks the sparrow. Alas, he's experiencing life as what some would call a Junk Bird. Harsh indeed.

Or perhaps I'm projecting. The sparrow is probably looking at a bug, saying "mmm. Food."

And just to show I do sometimes paint before ink, here's a Work In Progress pic:

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JOE THE LUNCH LADY

I think there are more New Yorkers in the South than Southerners, and they're all living in my apartment community. One neighbor (who moved from Jersey, but is from the Bronx) is Joe. Couldn't possibly be a nicer guy; as we chatted while I was jumping in the trash compactor (not for fun - it's part of my job. But, it is fun...) I learn he's a retired super and was hoping to get a little extra income working at a school cafeteria.

"You're gonna be a lunch lady?" I asked.

"Yeah," he laughed, "but I'm not gonna wear a dress."

"I don't know..." I reply, "there might be a dress code. Things are formal down here."

Don't worry, Joe. I didn't put you in a dress. But you are wearing a hairnet.

Here's how I did it:

The preliminary sketches


Then I lightly draw the image on the card


Add more ink detail


And then the final picture, as you see above.

Sometimes I go the other way - I paint first, then ink it. I'm unpredictable - just ask my parole officer.

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BOXER #4

I don't have much luck selling ACEOs of boxers. And yet I persist. Like this guy. He's been beaten up pretty badly, but won't stay down. Will he beat the odds?

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LEFTY IN A BOX

I have a friend, let's call him ErroneousSquash, who took ballet classes growing up. ES would always regale me with ballet horror stories as I was doing manly things, like crushing cans on my head. Apparently, ballet instructors have no patience for bad dancers and would devise sadistic means of punishing offending students. One time ES failed to execute a passable Pas de Bourrée (italics look French to me) and was put in the Box Of Torment.

It was really unfair, I must say. ES has two left feet. No, really. Look:



Is this a sad tale of youthful hardship, or a bizarre justification for a drawing error that went unnoticed until the paint started to dry?

You be the judge.

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RUN, PERCY, RUN!

Please note my support for Percy Walker's run for Congress on my sidebar. Normally I don't do the voting thing, as I find the majority to be wrong about everything. But, he said he'll get the Weatherspoon Art Museum to have a show featuring ME if I add his banner to my site.

So click on his picture to learn his political blah blah blah. I want trendy people sipping boxed wine as they mill about my tiny art, commenting approvingly.

Well, Percy Hater, what do you have to say about that? The ball is in your court. You know that a PW HJ alliance will pave a smooth road to Congress. No amount of ACEO defacing can stop us now.

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BAD CHAIRS

Here are the chair doodles I was talking about. Not sure why they turned out so, I dunno, so blech. But I show them to you anyway, dear reader, to keep my humble. When you're as good looking, talented, charming, intelligent, physically fit, and good looking as I am, humility is the perfect icing on the cake.

Here they are:









I know, that last one doesn't have any chairs. They're just doodles that were doodled when I was supposed to be doodling chairs.

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ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: TOTAL (FREAK)

I was in art class. The assignment: draw a curvy rocking chair on display. I was failing miserably. So when the teacher wasn't looking, I doodled whatever came to mind. This is what came out.

I will accept psychological evaluations in the comments section.

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ROCKING TOWHEE

Because Rockin Robin would have been too easy.

And, the picture that inspired the image is of a towhee, not a robin.

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LEAN GREEN SEWING MACHINE

Hello, Vintage Sewing Enthusiasts. Let me introduce to you the LEAN GREEN SEWING MACHINE, or at least an artistic representation of it. Here's the story:

Back in the early 1900's, a crazy mad scientist named Wolfgang Von Thimble was ahead of his time in the field of biotechnology. He thought regular industrial machines were brutish and dead. He was positive that machines cross-bred with animals was surely the way of the future.

The LEAN GREEN SEWING MACHINE is the natural offspring of a sewing machine and an alligator.

Oddly, his inventions never took. I blame the Feds.

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PERCY DEFACED!!!

Percy Walker, my BILLIONAIRE patron (can I still call him my patron if he lets himself get outbid on my art by his nemesis?), alerted me to this tragedy. I am humiliated. Percy Hater must be behind this somehow.

I don't understand why my patron is targeted by so many people. Why am I being dragged into this? Forget me - why is my ART being dragged into this?

The worst thing about this whole episode is that - and I fight back tears as I write this - I can't help but feel the defacer has IMPROVED my masterpiece.

I am conflicted.

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ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: WIRE

Because you guys aren't paying THOUSANDS of dollars for my aceos (yet... bwa ha ha ha), I have to have a day job. Thanks, guys. That day job is Groundskeeper/Maintenance trainee. I am learning a lot of good skills, I gotta say. Fixing faucets, changing water heater elements, what happens to the bodies of dead birds. You know, life skills.

The answer to that last one, by the way, is the Groundskeeper finds them, calls his birdwatching wife, tells her what he thinks it is, she sighs irritably at his lack of bird identification skills, and says, "I'll have to see it. Bag it."

Here's how that transaction went the last time:

Me: I found a weird looking dead bird. I think it was killed by a paintball. It has a crest, a cardinal-like mask, bigger than a titmouse, a little smaller than a robin.

Her: A crest, mask, wait a minute - what? A Paintball?

Me: Yeah. There's this fleck of neon orange paint on it's wing.

Her: Are you and your maintenance buddies running around with paintball guns all day, shooting at birds?

Me: No! I swear! I promise I'm not paintballing on the job. Anymore.

Her: Sigh (irritably). Bring it to me.

Turns out it wasn't paint. It was a Cedar Waxwing. They have a little neon pink waxy tip to their wings. No one knows why for sure.

Here are a couple of work in progress pics:

First layer of watercolor over the sketch



More detail, ready for HJoshy inkiness

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ANOTHER SLEEPING DOG SKETCH

This is what Happy looks like around 10pm.

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SLEEPING DOG WITH BALL

Here's my dog, Happy.



Here's a quick sketch in my notebook of her sleeping.



Here's the beginning stages of the watercolored aceo.



Then I inked it all up, to make it all HJoshy and stuff.



So, that's my dreaming dog, and the journey from a doodle to an aceo for sale on ebay.

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PINK FROG

A day just like the day before
The fly flies by
Oblivious to what's in store

Today is not the same at all
The frog feels ill
He drank his fill of Pepto-Bismol

His upset tummy has him beaten
The frog is pink,
The fly is safe from being eaten.

Here's a pic from the work in progress:

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ARMED FROG

I cleaned up this one a bit.

Yes, it's an ARMED FROG ... wearing an old-timey swimsuit. Why? To summarize Aesop:

Boys throw stones at frogs for enjoyment. Frogs say, yo, dude, this activity may be fun for you, but it's killing us.

That's it. The whole fable.

Moral:
What's fun for you might have bad consequences for others.

My take:
If the frogs were well armed, this wouldn't be an issue. I'm thinking payback. Give the frogs appropriate weapons, like guns and machetes, and the boys will will have to find other means of amusement.

And the swimsuit? Fashion, baby. Fashion.

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DEBUFFET-ISH PINK CAT

You knew it would happen eventually.

In my art education travels, I find masters who inspire me. Debuffet, who's all "three dimensions are for suckers," (I might be paraphrasing a bit) makes for a great Kitty experiment. No depth. Two dimensional. Haphazardly, even chaotically, put together. Not entirely unlike me. And yet... and yet you love kitty, don't you?

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ART CLASS SCRIBBLES

More pencil sketches! Are you thrilled?

Voila. Now I gotta go to the gym to hit things.

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SIR PERCY AND THE DRAGON

The dragon, of course, is a symbol for Hedge Fund Regulation.

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THANKS, QUEEN!

It turns out that Percy Walker, local BILLIONAIRE, is a knight. Apparently his nemesis, known only as Percy Hater, has a problem with American knights being called "Sir." It's against the Geneva Convention or something. Personally, I don't care. I'm calling him Sir. Sir Percy, Knight of the Bipedal Mode Of Transportation, Regulation Slayer, Really Really Rich Dude.

The title? According to legend, upon being knighted Percy succinctly yet poetically exclaimed, "Thanks, Queen!"

Here's a close up:



Doesn't really look like him, but hey. I'm an artist. I've captured his AURA.

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HIDING GEISHA

Emperor Nobunaga has been a real pain lately. "Read me more poetry! Serve me tea! Make intelligent conversation!" Dude. Chill.

What's a geisha to do? Make like a panda and hide in the bamboo.

Yes, smarty, I know geishas are from Japan and pandas are from China. Give a guy a little poetic liberty, why don't you? It's not like I tried to rhyme "station" with "direction" or something equally ghastly.

What's that, you say? You want a Haiku? What do I look like, a geisha? Sigh. Fine.

Attention craving
Mama's boy with great power
Sun rises, moon sets.

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