Parade of Delusion

First completed piece of 2022 is here, depicting some version of an event that occurred over a year ago in 2021. This event has obviously been at the forefront of the news lately and, unlike most news these days, has actually kept our attention longer than a week after it was reported. After a whole year passed I felt like I had spent enough time thinking about the events that took place on Jan. 6th, 2021 and some of the motives that pushed people to do what they did, that I could condense my thoughts into an illustration about it. 

A lot of the narrative around this day has been getting twisted over the last year and there is a big attempt by certain news outlets and people to rewrite this day as a peaceful demonstration. A lot of this has made me think about how much of our history is distorted and altered and how a lot of this can be found in iconic works of art. The first image that immediately popped into my head was Jacques-Louis David's painting of Napoleon Crossing the Alps and I think it lent itself perfectly as a reference for this to display a false sense of bravery and heroics. Plus, after I read about the horse made of 5G energy appearing on a family's lawn I knew I had to illustrate that in some way.

This piece is me jumping back into a series I started working on during 2020 and have wanted to add to since these days are feeling very similar to the first year of the pandemic before the vaccine became readily available. the uncertainty, anxiety, and confusion is still very much a part of our daily lives and I feel like I have more to add to the series I first started as a way to process my feelings around the pandemic.

 

Debt Collective Comic

Last year I was approached by Laura Hanna at the Debt Collective to create a socio-political themed comic for their website that they were preparing to launch. A handful of other artists were asked to create something based on the topics the Debt Collective are trying to address and I was asked to create a comic about Neo-Feudalism, which is the idea that there is a rebirth of policies prevalent in feudal societies. But, Laura also wanted to give a hopeful message in the comic, encouraging that there is a way around the current state of affairs. I haven't done a lot of political work in the past few years, compared to how fired up I was about it right out of college, but it felt good to get back in it, and also read a bunch of infuriating news articles. Thanks to Laura at the Debt Collective for asking me to participate.

Below is the B&W version before the color was put down. The whole process of making a comic is very humbling and every time I work on one, which is not often, I always gain more respect for the people who really understand the medium and make it look easy. 

Here are a few close-up shots from some of the more detailed sections of the comic.

Process pics below.

Another Glimpse Into My Free Time...

...and another astronaut exploding. I must be regressing into my pre-teens. There's no other explanation for all this weird sci-fi/astronauts dueling in space bullshit I've been sketching a ton of recently.

Bryan Ferry. One of my favorites.

Here's some classic Ferry doin' "Slave to Love" and a cover of "Jealous Guy" that totally beats Lennon's original. And David Gilmour is even there rippin' it up.

The Boss doin' the classic boss face. For years I couldn't stand him, then he became a guilty pleasure, now I have just come to accept that I am a Springsteen fanatic.

Paul Ryan. Never trust anyone with two first names.

Here are some of the sketches I did of Iggy Pop. Doing all of these helped me figure out which pose I wanted to use on the sign for Gimme Coffee, which I think there's an obvious choice here, but then I just couldn't stop drawing him. Seriously some of the most fun poses to sketch for reference. Pic of the sign can be seen in my previous post.

I hope this happens.

Pages From the Book of Sketch Vol. 2

Some recent faces I've done in between other things going on. Feelings are a-brewin' down below that drawing people, or to be more specific, doing caricatures of random famous people, isn't as fun as it used to be. There may soon be a void where there was once hours and hours of enjoyment from people drawing. But I heard from a wise old man that if it isn't fun, then what's the point?

New Caricatures

Here are a couple portraits from a project I worked on a few months ago. Unfortunately, it didn't pan out as planned but, in the end it was still fun to do some new drawings, and get some insight into the literary culture of Romania. This first one is of a famous Romanian playwright, poet, journalist, and political commentator; Ion Luca Caragiale (1852-1912).

The next one is of Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889). Regarded as the most influential Romanian poet, he also spent time as a journalist and editor for the newspaper Timpul. Him and Ion Luca Caragiale both belonged Junimea, a literary society, which was an intellectual and political association from Romania.