T-shirt sketch ideas

sketch page today

a tikihead and some other doodles...

Springtime is Tikitime

The weather is so great today... upon waking we were drawn directly to the yard. Trimming, weeding and redressing neglected Tikidom, followed by a jacuzzi. Sitting in the jacuz and looking around the yard usually leads to some new ideas. I may start planning this years additions to the yard and completing the border paintings along the fence. I have something way grander than anything I've put in the yard yet. I'll keep you posted.Past backyard project...

From my last batch of Tattoo Flash

Son House and Delta Blues

Rock and Roll was born in the South, the bastard child of Blues and Country. Country borrowed from the blues. The blues spawned swing music, which developed further into jazz. What made the blues so great was that it was based on emotion and feel. Expressions of hard living,wrong choices made, mans failure to resist temptation. Mix in some old world superstition plus some new world fire and brimstone religion...gawd vs. da debil, good vs. evil,a life of sin etc., "man's ruin": the needle, the bottle, Fornicating with wayward women, adultry, gambling, deceit and murder.When you here people talk about the origins of the Blues, Robert Johnson is often credited as "the Father of Delta Blues". Johnson as well as Muddy Waters, were both proteges of Son House. And there were likely many others before him. But if you've never heard Son House sing accapella accompanied by nothing more than a hand clap on songs like "John the Revelator" or "Grinnin' in Your Face" , you are missing out.Taj Mahal did a great version of "John the Revelator" in the Blues Brothers movie and there are references to "John the Revelator" and lines from other Son House songs on several of the band, Clutch's CDs. Depeche Mode also covers "John the Revelator".I first heard reference to Son House in a Lynyrd Skynyrd song called "Swamp Music".And later after hearing recordings of Son House, I realized the influence he had on the vocal style of Skynyrd singer, Ronnie Van Zant.

Son House

Delta Blues

I really love the talltale folklore type aspect of the blues thing and would really like to see a good movie done about it that really played up the supernatural kind of voodoo side of it. And I'm not talkin' about a movie with Ralph Macchio in it, although Steve Vai as the "Devils Guitarist" was pretty cool. Something darker with a nostalgic vibe like HBO's "Carnivale". Here is a link the speculates the "Crossroads Curse" and dealin' wif da Debbil.

Crossroads Curse

New sketch, plus 2 past recent and 1not so...

I like a lot of not-so-mainstream "heavy" bands like Mastodon, Lamb of God and a Southern "Black Sabbath meets Skynyrd" type of band from Georgia called "Artimus Pyledriver". They belong to a genre that many refer to as "moonshine metal". I sketched this first one whilst listening to them. Songs about drinkin' Whiskey, Smokin' weed, Fishin', driving really fast in Pick up trucks. Good stuff. White Trash blue collar hard rock. But you won't find it in Wal-Mart.
I like these guys not only because they play hard and loud, but because they are very in touch with the musical roots of their region, specifically "Delta Blues", which will be my next blog topic.

The next two ended up as T-shirt designs for a Hotrod/Motor enthusiast T-shirt company.





And this was a old game background layout I found of some cartoony warehouses.

The Norse Gods

...are by far, the most rugged and robust badasses of all mythological deities. The Greek gods, by comparison were a bit lite in the winged loafers.


This is Thor, god of thunder, son of Odin, the Allfather...or zeh Allfazzuh, if you're German, representing Doitchland. Here is a cool tidbit about Odin that my friend Aaron forwarded to me:

Odin

and that led me to these:

Thor

Mjollnir

An old white board drawing progression drawn at work.

Wake up, oh sleeping project

Time to finish inking this forgotten one...

and re-awaken Tiki Lotus.

An old pic to get me started

That Blog type thang...

So everyone's doing these blogs things. A cool way to share stuff your working on maybe...with people you don't get to see all that often? Share comments of new music you are listening to, perhaps? Or maybe just a feeble attempt to prod us to become more prolific...sketch a day? We'll see. If the job doesn't suck most of the creative drive out of me first. Working for people eats up a lot of time. Ok. I'm gonna give it a go. If I stick with it... Expect to see scantily clad women, tikis, vikings, Norse gods, pirates, ninjas, buddhas, shrunken heads, zombies, hotrods and whatever the frak else I think of.
Geo