Ethical Dilemma: Poll Smoking

Before I head off, I've decided to put up a little opinion poll over on the right side of the page, right under my picture. I'd appreciate it if you took two seconds and voted on it. But before you do, read on for the full story:

One of my smoker friends bought a pack of Camels the other day that came in one of their new "art packs". Apparently Camel has opened their marketing doors to a variety of different artists lending their talents to the package design of Camel cigarettes. Anyway, on the package there was a little advertisement to submit your own pack designs, so my friend told me I should give it a shot. And to be honest I'm sort of having an ethical dilemma over this.

I think people always ask themself questions like this when they decide to pursue some sort of creative field that lends itself to mass communication; questions that ask if he'd help create things that help sell products that promote things he has some moral objections to, or to a product that leads to the death of hundreds of thousands of people every year, in this case. I'm not a smoker, and to be blunt I happen to think it's a pretty retarded habit to pick up, but on the other side of the coin I respect a person's right to choose to smoke addictive and harmful materials, and to enjoy them to their fullest. So is it wrong to create a simple illustration to go on a pack of cigarettes (that might kill someone, but will no doubt be sold, art pack or not), in an attempt to further one's career as an artist? Is that what they mean when they say "selling out"?

I dunno, I'm a little stumped on this one. Granted, the point may very well become moot because there's a very high likelihood that something I draw won't get picked to go on a pack of cigarettes, even if I did decide to give it a shot. But it's a question worth asking, hypothetical or not. Later (for real this time)

December 22: Vacation

Hey folks, sorry I haven't really been posting much recently. I haven't really been very satisfied with the stuff I've been coming up with with my wacom (which is currently the only media by which I can draw anything that I can get onto my computer and then onto this blog), and have been, in a weird place with art in general; I hope that you'll excuse me from posting any new drawings this last week.

Anyway, I'm heading off to Atlanta tomorrow to spend Christmas with my parents at home. In my bag I'm taking with me are:
-my sketchbook
-pens
-wacom tablet
-an art project I'm working on in my spare time
-about a dozen DVDs
-and two books

So I'll have plenty of things to read, watch, work on, and draw with. I hope to pull something noteworthy out of that list to post here, but it probably won't be until sometime after the 25th. Keep checking because I'm not dead and I'll come up with something.

Okay, I'm going to go now. I need to hit the hay so I can drive tomorrow. But before I sign off I'll leave you with some words of encouragement that have been keeping my spirits up (or at least keeping things in perspective). It's something artist and blogger Von Allan wrote on his blog. Enjoy:

"It takes courage to do art. To have the courage of your conviction and do art when perhaps no one else believes in you. When it comes to art, that’s the only talent there is. The courage to overcome. By conflating populism with artistic merit (or Talent or whatever word you choose to use), you are undermining the inherent nature of what art is. There is nothing God-given about[the ability to do art well] at all. There is the work. And there is courage to do the work."

See you guys later. Happy Holidays

December 16: The Final Product

No gallery openings anytime soon, but hey, having a t-shirt you design printed for the cool record store downtown ain't too bad either, right? Yeah, not too shabby.

So the shirt I designed for CD Central finally got printed this week, so today I made the trip downtown to pick up my shirts and a gift card I won from the contest. And I gotta say, the shirts look pretty slick. To be honest, though, it still hasn't quite hit me that a shirt I was drawing two months ago is now on sale somewhere...people might actually pay money to wear something I made. I can't imagine who these people might be, but it's fun to imagine that they're out there. Anyway, here are a couple pictures of the shirts:





Pretty awesome, right? They're selling for about 9 bucks each, so if you like them go buy a couple. Later

December 13: Vent

I don't know if it's just me, or if this is something that every artist goes through, but every now and then I can do nothing but loathe the stuff I draw. I look at my scribbles on the page or the screen in front of me, and then I look at what other artists out there are doing. And the same way a 13-year-old girl looks at the pages of a fashion magazine, I cannot help but compare myself to what I see in front of me. This is usually followed by frustration, sometimes by anger. I get mad that my shit doesn't look like their shit, and that they're admired and respected and I'm not. I get mad that I don't know how to do the things with their work that they do. I get mad that I don't have a gallery opening in Tokyo or an art book coming out at an exclusive party in Los Angeles. Upset, hopeless, frustrated, angry. That's how the cycle goes.

I'm glad, though, that this doesn't happen to me all the time. There are times when I see myself as only a step or two away from an epiphany of some sort, at which time I'll hit that proverbial ten-thousandth bad drawing necessary before all the really good drawings. I sit back and admire the thing I created out of nothing and feel good that my efforts have produced good fruit. Unfortunately it's not that time for me right now. So what I'm doing is writing about this, on a blog that I'm almost positive nobody reads, trying to make myself feel better about my lack of ability, about my lack of discipline, about by bank account, the list goes on.

[It's funny, and this just occurred to me, that when I'm mad I'm mad that I'm not at the top of my career, but when I'm feeling good I'm happy that I almost have a career; not happy that I'm almost famous but that I might almost have any career at all, even if it's just as an up-and-coming artist. That seems a little weird to me for some reason.]

I often wonder if all this hard work will ever get me anywhere professionally. I hope it does, and that's what I keep telling myself, that I'm doing it because I love to do it and that I wouldn't be happy with my life (at all) if I weren't drawing. And it'd be really nice to one day be drawing professionally... ah, who am I kidding, I'd piss myself ten times over to know that I'd someday be drawing for a living.

So I'm posting this just to vent a little bit and get this out of my system. Thankfully it's helping. More sketches coming soon. Until then....

December 13

December 11: Cyclops

Not much to say about this. Cyclops from the X-Men in the original '60s era costume.

December 10: Artist's Block

I wish I knew how to explain how last week I couldn't run out of ideas of things to draw, but now, after two days of not drawing, I've got nothing when I sit down at my laptop. Last week I'd draw my stuff for the day, and by the time I went to bed I had an idea for what I'd draw the next day. You'd think ideas would sort of "pile up" after not drawing for a couple days. Unfortunately that's not the case. I hate that. But instead of doing nothing, I did something random and drew squiggly lines for an hour or two. At least it's something, right? So here's what I came up with for today:



Are your eyes bleeding yet? Good. Even though this was sort of a last resort sketch, I still like how it turned out. It gave me a chance to mess around with typography and play around with something a bit more design oriented (as opposed to just a sketch). Feel free to leave a comment or two of what you think.

December 7

Sorry for no sketches yesterday. Some douchebag building a privacy fence next door cut our phone line, thus disconnecting our internet. Anyway, it's fixed now. So to make up for it I'm posting two sketches. Hope you guys like:



Hands! And fabric folds...



Seriously. I tried really hard and couldn't figure out the perspective. Blerg.

That's all for now, later!

December 5: Kung Fu

Sorry the sketch is a bit late today, I got caught up in 1408 and Live Free or Die Hard. Anyway, I've been drawing a lot of hands lately, and I felt like putting them in a cool action pose or whatever. So then I just drew in the kung fu guy in the background for fun. Hope you guys dig:



Okay, that's all for now. Later!

December 4

I'm on a weird skull n' bones kick. Here are today's sketches:



Here's a bigger version of the skull from the first drawing:



That's all for now, check back tomorrow for more sketches. Later!

Dec 3: Two in one day?! WHAAAAAA?

I guess this counts as a sketch, even though it was drawn over a photo (how wouldn't that count as a sketch, I drew something) Anyway, I was playing around in Photo Booth today, takin pitchers of myself and whatnot, and got the notion to draw a little over it. Here's what I came up with:

December 3: Daily Sketching

I'm trying to make better use of my time not working by drawing more. Here's a sketch from today:

October 30: The big news

Remember that t-shirt design entry I put up at the end of September (It's two posts down)? Well, I just found out on Friday that....I won! The contest was to design a new t-shirt for CD Central, a really cool record store here in Lexington. They officially announced it today and I assume they'll have the shirts printed up in the near future; but if you live in the Lexington area and dig the design, head over and pick one up.

Here's the final design that won:



Hope you guys like; and if you do, go buy the shirt!

October 27: Ugh

Ugh...no posts in October...sorry.

BUT, I have some HUGE news to drop early in this coming week, so look out for that. I also plan on doing a 24-hour comic sometime this week, too, which will go up here...that should be a huge post. Anyway, that's all for now...sorry no updates, but I figured I'd post something to tell you I'm sorry I haven't posted anything.

Later!

September 30: The Devil's Music

Wow. I think this is my only post for the month of September. That's pretty terrible. I did just start a new job, however (in RETAIL!), so that might be a possible explanation. I dunno. Anyway, here's today's post:



This is for a design contest in Lexington. I think I'm about 90% done on it...It just feels like it needs something else. The design can only be two colors, so that was sort of a limitation, but I think it works. If you have any comments or anything like that, feel free to leave them.

I hope to post more in October. I'm trying to get in a routine of drawing something about once a day, so some of that stuff should end up here at some point. I'm also still doing commission work, so if there's anything you'd like me to illustrate or design for you, get in contact with me and we'll talk.

Later!