Listing Imaginary Orthographies…part 1 of 26

A is for Abominable Snowman

“A is for Abominable Snowman” – 3.5x5 inch - ink on paper …first drawing for Alphabeasts, more info can be found HERE.

For Lack of a Better Title…

….or, “After the Long Absence from Blogging”.

I know what you’re saying to yourself right now, “No one has ever smuggled and entire pumpkin through a customs checkpoint, up their ass!”…and while that might be true, it has no bearing over what I’m updating this little blog with….so stop day-dreaming and pay attention!
A while back I had threatened that after the Crumbly Nevertheless Book – “My Legs Are Useless” was finished and in the world (for better or worse), that I would make the actual drawings themselves available. The one thing in my favor at this point is that I never said exactly when, just after.

For those of you preparing to argue semantics complete with lit torches and raised pitchforks, as well as those of you still trying to shove that pumpkin in your bottom, the reason for this post is to let you know that I intend to finally make good on my past threat.

As most of you might already know, at least those of you who had followed the Crumbly Nevertheless blog and/or purchased the book of the collection, the drawings themselves were all done in ballpoint pen on 3x5 inch unlined notebook pad paper…not really the best format to be sold to collectors. So I have spent the majority of this week making the collection both more presentable as well as more archival.

Before anything else, all of the drawings were sprayed with an archiving spray…unfortunately, this was done in my studio. Let me take this opportunity to just inform you all NEVER to do this. While all the drawings are now ph neutral and will survive longer without fading or yellowing, my brain is not! I do believe that my brain HAS in fact both faded and yellowed slightly in the past week….plus, the night after the drawings were sprayed, I dreamt that rabbits wearing top hats were yelling at me for my lack of string possession….but I digress.

From then, it has been a multi step process of bringing the drawings to a presentable and salable state. First, all of the drawings were mounted onto cotton rag paper rendered down to 4.5 x 6.6 inches and embossed to closely frame the drawing.

These mounted drawing would eventually be attached to 8x10 black matts, so I decided to make vintage styled photo corners.

Which brings us to the drawings as they are while I write this. That is, all of the drawings (a total of 116 out of the whole collection) have been mounted and “cornered”, and all of the matt board has been cut down to 8x10. That leaves me with adhering the corner with the drawings to the boards; labels to be made and attached to the matching image; finally, all then to be bagged in protective sleeves to be made available for human consumption. 
I am still undecided as to the best way to make these drawings available. I am at this time leaning mostly towards posting a few at a time on my sadly neglected Etsy Store, but still considering other options.
Considering the amount of work on these that I’ve been able to accomplish over the past week, I’m anticipating having these completed sometime this week, and hopefully photographed and available by the weekend.

Next Up: Completing the print collections of the "Removing the Head to Steal all of It’s Miracles” drawing series.

The Sounds of Reconnecting Eel Parts...

Completely imaginary person asking question: "I thought that you had mentioned that your updated website was going to have been completed before your trip to Los Angeles that happened a few weeks ago. What happened?"
Completely Imaginary answer by me: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGHHHHHH!!!" complete with pounding head against drawing table until it starts to sound like a Nerf Football soaked in Automobile Oil....followed by the falling from the chair into a fetal position on the floor, with labored breathing resembling the sounds of a badly bruised tangerine struggling to poop.

Horizontal Skydiving…Nobody Walks to LA part 2

I know what you’re going to ask, “Under the correct circumstances, can an unattended glass of fruit punch become self aware?” And I’m going to ignore that question and just continue on with my originally intended post, that being the update of my trip to Los Angeles and back, on my bike, for the Sketch Theatre Book Release and Gallery Opening…..I mean….seriously, what the hell kind of a question is that?!

My ride, packed and ready for the road. (Notice its beautiful, shinny bug-free-ness)

Milque Toast, my travel buddy, is getting antsy to go. We are a few hours late on leaving thanks to a kitchen disaster, involving a garbage disposal exploding. (Notice his beautiful, shinny bug-free-ness)

The first day was the hardest and longest of the trip, and contained all of the total jaunt’s mishaps, including: having a semi truck’s tire tread flung at me from the car in front while going near 90 miles per hour. Luckily, the tire hit low enough to get whisked under my bike, but in doing so managed to whip my right leg off the bike and open a gash in the knee. I managed to keep the bike up, regaining control after getting speed wobbles at high speed. A few neighboring autos pulled over as I did to make sure I was alright. I called it a day after this and stayed in the first hotel I could find, where I mended my knee with super glue (not kidding! Amazing on deep cuts!). There I discovered that I had the funniest looking sunburn caused by not putting sunscreen on my hands during the morning ride through Colorado….and after a Good Nights Passed Out Face Down on the Bed, I went outside to find that the tire that went under my bike had hit the roll bar on the right hand side with such force as to bend it back into the engine (as seen above). I decided to take it a bit easier on day two. (which I have no pics to document…we now jump a day to my one and only day in Hollywood)

Milque Toast and I sharing a bottomless mug of coffee from what is becoming my favorite spot to stop in L.A., Café Muse….if having only gone to a place twice now can be considered enough of an attendance to warrant a favorite place recommendation…which I believe is a Yes.


Milque Toast patiently waits for me to take this picture before we visit the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City. We missed seeing the artwork from the Anniversary show, but got to see original Coop paintings, so who could complain?

And finally we arrived at the Gnomon Studios. Milque Toast poses with the incredible Lily Feliciano, the Executive Producer of Sketch Theatre, the one who originally invited me to become involved, and just all around amazing person. The breasts in the background are unidentified and completely unintentional…really…seriously…

The innards of the Gnomon Workshop’s Gallery…with many (if not most) of the sketches that are contained within the Book’s pages. All were up for bid in a silent auction. I was bidding on a Travis Louie sketch (not the one that hung above my own sketch….but seriously, how cool is that?!), and the last time I looked before the bidding was overwith, I was still the high bidder. Enough time has now passed that I have to concede that someone else got a bid in at the last second…and I now hate whoever that is with every fiber of my being (kidding…congrats to the winner)

Milque Toast in front of our new favorite drink, Absinthe. We tipped this drink tender well, for even though he was stocked with whiskeys and vodkas and other such sot after beverages, he did spend the majority of the evening making absinthe drinks for everybody.

Milque Toast with Dave “the Chung” Chung. I met Dave and his wife, Desiree, early on in the evening and hit it off with them immediately. Dave has an awesome style, and an incredible ability to quickly freehand his vision in pen on the page….his sketches are better than my finished drawings.
As an example of what I’m talking about, GO HERE to see one of my favorite sketches he did under the Sketch Theatre lamps.

And here is the BOOK that this trip was all about. I had no doubt that the volume would be impressive, but I was still impressed by every detail taken to produce such a book! The design, the printing and binding…everything about the book is amazing!
It was published by Baby Tattoo, who are also responsible for a few other art books in my collection that I cherish. I think it’s safe to say that they are a company that I’m starting to more than admire greatly.
The book has already been reviewed HERE, by the cool folks at Nerd Reactor.

Here Milque Toast poses in front of the expansive Salt Flats in Utah. Sadly, this is one of the only scenery pics I took during the entire trip. One of the problems with having planned out such a long journey within such a short period of time was the inability to stop and enjoy areas like this further….and there was a lot of beauty to take in.

Just look at this badass bike….got to and from Los Angeles, over 2000 miles, without incident or complaint. (Notice the beautiful dull bug-coated luster)

Nobody Walks to L.A.

I’m a little late on doing this post, that is, I really should have written about this over a week ago. That being said, I’ll just get into the meat of it.

For those of you who know me, or have been following me in any of my various forms of social media outlets (blog, Facebook, screaming out of my studio window into a megaphone made from luncheon meats stitched together), you might recall a drawing I was fortunate enough to do for an ongoing online project known as Sketch Theatre.
A quick recap for those who are giving me that blank stare that I’m all too familiar with: I did a drawing for Sketch Theatre. That’s about the quickest recap I can do.
A little more in depth: Sketch Theatre best describes what they’re about in the Mission Statement, but the process is this: they film artists from various fields drawing and use the footage to make a short film of the process.
Its fairly genius actually, and completely surprising to me that it hadn’t been done before, at least, not to the success that Sketch Theatre is doing it.

Like I said, a little over a year ago I was extremely lucky to become a part of this, and had traveled to L.A. to have my own drawing filmed.

The reason I’m bringing all of this up is because of the fact that I’ll be travelling back to L.A. in just a weeks time to join the Sketch Theatre Crew and many of the artists who have participated for the release of the first Sketch Theatre Book:

Needless to say, I’m excited to be a part of this, and there is no words to describe how amazing it is to be listed among such other artists that I’ve admired.
So, if you are reading this and have the ability to attend at all, please do! It’s looking to be a great event.

I’ll post more info on where and how to get a copy of the book when I learn it at a later date, for those of you who can’t attend.

Hope to see you there!