As the current headline of this blog implies, every once in a while... i get bored at work. yes it's true. when i do, i find myself reverting to some primeval state of mind where all i can do is anything but the task i am assigned. This happens probably more than it should. In fact a little known secret is that it's happening right now..... yeah. anyway here are some sketches from the inside of my staples brand steno book that i drew instead of working or paying attention in meetings.

What represents winter? snow and ice? freezing wind. a blue old man with a beard of icicles, exhaling? ugh. boring. I'm trying to motivate myself to start up illustration Friday and this week's theme is winter. go figure its the week of Christmas. but what does winter mean to me? Excessive amounts of tea and coffee and empty glasses covering my room. dead crickets that came inside from the cold but froze to death under my desk anyway. blankets of all different patterns and colors, piled around me all at once because i insist on sleeping with out any clothes on but it is 15 degrees in my room. my space heater. drawing next to the fire. haha my dog jack covered in snow rampaging around my living room. big furry hats. but those are all shallow surface level wintry things.

i am an ar-tist. shouldn't my thoughts be all existential and philosophical and deep and interesting? there should be more layers of visual metaphor than layers of clothes that im wearing at any given moment. (right now, 4) and how could i ever do an art piece about winter and not pose a question to the viewer about the cycles of life, death and rebirth as symbolized by the changing seasons? because i'm just so fasinated by blah blah blah bhalljksdf.

i wish i had my camera with me right now. the gritty remains of my chai latte mix look really cool at the bottom of my company's mug on my desk. kind of gross but there is pretty interesting lighting for an office.

i need a haircut. i like to grow out my hair during the winter because i like to pretend that it makes me warmer. maybe thats what i should do my drawing about. hahaha. there is the real process as illustrated by my last post. start thinking about it. start thinking too hard about it. go off on a tangent and the tangent will bring you right back to where you started with a halfway decent idea. i should be working right now but.....engh..... i'm a week ahead of schedule and i'm having a caffeinated mental outpouring and all i really feel like doing is writing down what i'm thinking. i was originally writing in my sketchbook but all i was writing about was ways in which i need to improve and it was getting too whiny for my taste. all the characters were far too two dimensional ( ba dum chsh). i like this. if i could tell myself at age 15 that one day i would actually enjoy writing about something i would not have believed you.... me.... i hated writing. possibly why i went to picture school rather than a regular person paper writing school. not that i am suddenly kurt vonnegut or any good at writing at all but i'm having fun just illustrating what i'm thinking and that has to count for something right? see there. i just posed a question to my readers. ohhh i'm a literary genius already! but wait. i already did a hair themed winter illustration. that poster i did for that song by devendra banhart "long haired child" well shoot. harumph. what else happens in the winter? things hibernate. bears. frogs and turtles. haha dead crickets hibernate. FOREVER. but dead crickets are depressing. i guess the winter is depressing as a whole. but as someone who likes an excuse to be antisocial and stay inside and draw or just laze around on the internet i kind of like winter. also i really like snow. SNOW. it snowed yesterday. just a tiny bit. ok so what do we have so far. staying inside, blankets, tea, afro's, space heaters hibernating animals and dead crickets. can we make an illutration out of this?

i think we can.

*(royal we)

For those of you wondering what my creative process looks like, your hearts deepest desire is about to be granted. A look into the mystical, powerful and much debated inner workings of the right half of my brain. OOOOOOHHHHHH..... AHHHHHHH........Ok here goes:

Step one.

Sit on couch:

Step Two:

+

Step Three: Start drawing relevant stuff.

Step Four: STOP drawing relevant stuff.

(non relevant stuff includes but is not limited to: stuff you see around you on fire. stuff you see around you breathing fire. and things eating other things. or both.

Or really just whatever.

After that you can revisit step Two as many times as necessary to get back to step 3. and just keep going through until you either

A) get bored

B) get stuck at the coffee step

C) go do something else entirely

D) God forbid arrive at a clever original idea.

The End.

(all images other than my drawings are the property of whoever put them up on google images)

Here it is! If you live in Arlington go see the show! I will be there selling prints of the poster and you will get free stuff from the band! Exclamation point!!

Here is an update on the new torches poster. I am actually way more done with the final version but i'll just put up the process stuff for now. This is a sort of color comp sort of thing. I am thinking of using the hermit crab by it self as a Christmas card maybe. if you are in my family and reading this disregard the previous sentence. OH i was going to add headphones on him! OK well ill go draw those now. or maybe i will get back to work seeing as i'm at the office.....

Yet another torches poster is in the works! They will be giving out a special gift at their upcoming show and the poster is meant to advertise that fact. still going to do a few more sketches to work out the details but the hermit crab is a sure thing. i love that guy. I have to say that my phone camera is really awesome. Who needs a scanner when you can just email yourself pics from your phone!? Kids these days and their internet cellphones. HA!