Tattoos Famili: Cafe Coco

"Stripes" is the theme for Illustration Friday today as I continue in my endeavor to submit to their site EVERY Friday of 2011! So far, so good and today I've got an illustration from my Scraps & Motives (S&M) Exhibit at Cafe Coco in Nashville back in the summer of 2008. This drawing is actually a very small work (about 5 inches tall) and is a crowd favorite. The look on his face was my own response and outlet for being overrun with house flies at the time I drew the piece. I hate flies, they make me crazy and I'm sure it's a sight to see a grown man jumping up and down in victory every time one feels the wrath of my swatter. I'm not sure why, but folks seem to like my characters the more they look like they should be wearing a helmet. Why do you think my viewers are drawn to the deranged?

Click HERE for a stream of ALL of my Illustration Friday entries!

Drawing has always been a nervous habit for me. My dad got called to school when I was in the fifth grade to discuss this compulsion and its "interruption of my learning" even though I had practically straight A's. The problem was I was (and am) scatter-brained and have to channel the voices so to speak. Teacher thinks I don't listen because I doodle and draw. My notebooks in school would contain illustrations and scribbles throughout. I would often turn in my homework and worksheets with things sketched all over them. This has continued throughout every job I have ever had. If there is paper around and my hands aren't occupied, art happens. My current job involves a lot of talking on the phone and monitoring my employees on their phone calls. During my execution of such managerial marketing duties, idle hands find re-purposed office supplies.

Here is something I brought home from last week...


ball point pen and dry erase markers on chipboard backing from a scratch pad of paper (5in x 3in)

When I first started the job a few years back, I had a bad habit of drawing on sticky notes. Usually, now it's incorporated into my notes and thrown away but sometimes I put to use the cardboard scrap such as is used above. I did have a little stack of the stickies going though and what resulted was this work from my solo exhibit, "Scraps & Motives" at Cafe Coco in 2008...


"The Sticky Incident" Inks on Sticky Notes (2007-08)

ART HAPPENS!

What do you like to doodle on?

01/27/2011

Here's a newer doodle of note (pardon the pun) from this past week.

04/09/11 Ball Point Pen and Highlighter on scrap Chipboard

04/18/11 Ball Point Pen on scrap Chipboard

05/11/11 Ball Point Pen and Highlighter on scrap Chipboard

05/28/11 Ball Point Pen and Dry Erase Marker on Card Stock

06/16/11 Gel Ink Pen on Chipboard

08/06/2011 Hotel Preston (Nashville)

08/16/11 Ball Point pens on Chipboard, taking over a doodle from Cameron McKnight, a co-worker.

09/01-02/2011

09/19/2011 Topsy-Turvy

09/21/2011

10/04/11 Gel Ink Pen on Scrap Printed Card Stock for Titleblocks

10/29/2011

11/09/2011

12/01/2011

12/27/2011

12/28/2011

01/20-22/2012

Gel Ink on Card Stock / 01/27/12

Several months back, we were out of town in a hotel and I put down a couple of doodles which we gave to my wife's friend. To my surprise, she scanned them and used one as the image on her new debit card!