It’s day two of sports week at 8-Rock.com! I know you’re must be positively buzzing with excitement, ’cause I know I am! This drawing depicts another composite figure, based on a salesman at Best Buy and the UPS guy who takes his afternoon nap in the library reading room. I combined the hairstyle from the Best Buy employee and the facial structure of the UPS delivery man with a facial features of my own making. I’m imagining that is this subject of this drawing was an actual UFC fighter, he would probably be a middleweight. The backdrop is the legendary octagon of the UFC.
This week is sports week on 8-Rock.com, dedicated to my two favorite spectator sports, rugby and mma (mixed martial arts). Today’s drawing shows a mixed martial arts fighter in the gym. The figure depicted in this drawing is a composite several athletes that I’ve seen on local basketball courts and in UFC footage.
There’s something kind of wonderful about a big guy who loves small, beautiful things. When I was at the Harrison Street Whole Foods last week, ran into the man in this drawing. He was a tall brother in a white tank top that showed off his impressively sculpted upper body. With his full beard and bushy eyebrows, he looked a little like a Black Paul Bunyan. At the moment when I saw him, though, he seemed a lot more interested in picking out a spray of pink mini carnations than in cutting down trees or hauling logs.
This drawing was originally created to be a part of a series of paintings and collages called The Idea of Ancestry, after a poem by Etheridge Knight. The markings and patterns on the skin of the figure in this picture represent ancestral memory of the African home of his ancestors.
I ran into this man at a local toy store. He was buying a teddy bear for himself, and he and his friend were having a pretty serious conversation about the proper selection criteria. The two men argued for a moment over one particular bear which both agreed was the cutest in the store, but only one man–the man in my drawing–believed it to be sufficiently cuddly and soft. He ended up purchasing that bear, even over the objections of his friend. His explanation, of which I only heard a part, was that he liked “lovely things” and could better tolerate a moderately cuddly bear that was extremely beautiful than a moderately beautiful bear that was extremely soft and cuddly. Case closed.
Two-hundred and thirty drawings down and Seven-hundred and seventy drawings to go!
I chatted briefly with this slim and stylish fellow-artist at the Dick Blick store on Broadway (across for the California College of the Arts). We were both agonizing over the various thicknesses and colors of the Micron drawing pens. I think the guy behind the counter was a getting a little impatient, but understandably so. We were not only bonding over the fact that we both used Micron pens, but also over the fact that we both liked the same thickness of line and both of us only ever used black ink.
To this slim and stylish micron-pen-loving guy I make the following request: If you happen to stumble onto this blog and if you happen to recognize yourself, do drop me a note with a link to your own online gallery or even an invited your next gallery show. I’d love to see your work. We pen-obsessed sketch artists of Oakland have to stick together.
This drawing was inspired by a regular at one of my favorite local cafes. I go to there to work–to write, do some research, make some lecture notes–but he comes to the cafe on his break. He sits on a chair in the corner, drinks an iced coffee, and reads his paper. I glance over at him wistfully, enjoying the irony that we come to the same place for completely opposite reasons.
I spotted the guy in this drawing at the Mel’s Diner on Geary in San Francisco. He immediately captured my attention because he was doing to the unthinkable; he had dropped his keys somewhere near the bathrooms and he was actually kneeling down on that dirty floor–actually touching his knees to the tiles–trying to find them. Yuck. Fortunately, he did find his keys. Unfortunately, they weren’t anywhere near the bathrooms; they were on the floor under the table beside the one where he had been eating.
I spotted the guy in this drawing at the Mel’s Diner on Geary in San Francisco. He immediately captured my attention because he was doing to the unthinkable; he had dropped his keys somewhere near the bathrooms and he was actually kneeling down on that dirty floor–actually touching his knees to the tiles–trying to find them. Yuck. Fortunately, he did find his keys. Unfortunately, they weren’t anywhere near the bathrooms; they were on the floor under the table beside the one where he had been eating.