WEEK 01 - SKETCH365.com

SUICIDE-CHOPPER
001 OF 365 DRAWN ON: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2005

Suicide-Chopper is a detail of painting Straphanger and was the first sketch out of the gate. I didn't know much where I was headed with the entire project but I had scribbled out the 10 Subjects, so I had some parameters, but I did know I wanted to just let my mind and hand wander. I wanted to be able to allow myself to go far into the realms of abstract line art. This piece was a combination motorcycle / helicopter / tooth / scrotum / nipple with fighter aircraft cheetah spots for nose art. I also made a conscious decision to try to deconstruct it to as many curves as possible.
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OCTOPUS
002 OF 365 • DRAWN ON: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2005

Octopus is a detail of painting Sea. It was the first sketch in the subject of Sea and I didn't know yet how detailed I wanted to get with each sketch. I wanted to put a good foot forward so I spent about 8 hours working on this piece. I drew it entirely from my cartoon memory of what an Octopus looks like. It ended up becoming the central image of the 10Subjects painting (S)ea

I briefly used a vector version of this piece on a business card, to which cartoonist Lynda Barry commented "Oh, what a great drawing of an encephalopod!"
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DANTE'S CUPID
003 OF 365 • DRAWN ON: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2005

Dante's Cupid is a detail of painting Sin. It was the first sketch in the subject of Sin and although I went pretty abstract with it. Although Cupid is traditionally an icon of Valentine's day and romantic love, always thought of Cupid as an evil fraud.

In Dante's Inferno there are 9 circles of hell. I imagine Cupid to be a sinful little cherub who with his bow and arrows casts fraudulent love on unknowing strangers. The analogous Cupid depicted above would exist in the 8th Circle (Fraud) of hell, which I represented by the abstracted figure 8 within his body.
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WOLVER-ABSTRACT
004 OF 365 • DRAWN ON: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2005

Wolver-Abstract is a detail of painting Superhero. It was the first sketch in the subject of Superhero and is an abstract depiction of one of my favorite comic book icons, Wolverine. I started my career interning at Marvel Comics when I was 15, and by 16 I was coloring comic books.

I colored mainly for The Punisher, Fantastic Four, Avengers, and a bunch of Spider-Man covers, but it wasn't until years later that I got my first chance to color Wolverine. Right when Marvel was getting into the online comic world I was freelancing for a digital coloring house, and they got the contract to color the Marvel Comics Online strips. I worked on the first Woverine. I've always preferred Wolverine to have his headpiece on so that's how I depicted him.
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BLUE-SHARK-WHALE
005 OF 365 • DRAWN ON: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2005

Blue-Shark-Whale is a detail of painting Sea. It was the second sketch in the subject of Sea and being that I made the lines pretty thick I knew early on that it might have to be situated a little in the background. I initally was drawing something shark like but he also looked sort of like a whale, so I just called him a shark-whale. He has teeth, and his mouth is so agape that his lower teeth have bugged out of his mouth.
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ANOREXIA
006 OF 365 • DRAWN ON: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2005

Anorexia is a detail of painting Socialite. An initial impetus for starting this experiment was the massive ammount of work I was doing at the time for Maxim Magazine. It was very strange that I was doing 1-2 assignments for every issue of the American version of the magazine, as well as the two page "How To" monthly spread for the UK edition, which would then be reprinted in anywhere from 2-16 other editions around the world.

It was getting to the point where the only times I would lift a pencil is if Maxim had emailed needing more drawings of large breasted tiny waisted women, guys xeroxing their asses, or dead celebrities giving advice. It sucked my creativity and didn't allow me any time to work fine art drawing on my own. I knew that to afford myself time to draw my own stuff I would have to force myself by giving myself deadlines, the same type of deadlines commercial art clients placed on me.

Sketch365 in that way was bourne out of necessity. Socialite was to become a reflection of the work I was doing in "real life".

This being the first Socialite drawn in the project, I teamed with celeb website A Socialite Life to auction it off (See Contest).
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NEBULA
007 OF 365 DRAWN ON: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2005

Nebula is the first detail of painting Space. I thought it would be interesting to try to depict an innerstellar cloud of dust and gas as a swirling angry physical mass with eyes and abstracted pincers. I made the lines kind of thick so I knew it would have to ride somewhere in the background of the painting. I was starting to pick-up a trend in these pieces, I was enjoying the curvy aspect all of the pieces were having thus far, and continued with this piece, not allowing for many actual straight lines.
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