Much to my surprise, I got an email right away, asking if I could do a drawing of Jerry Garcia. I've never been a serious Dead head, but I do like their music. We traded a few emails, and settled on the photo for me to draw. Like I usually do, I listened to a whole bunch of The Grateful Dead's music while drawing this one. I wasn't sure what to do for the background. I was thinking about the dancing teddy bears, but didn't have enough space. I've never done hallucinogenics, no acid or mushrooms back in the day. But my brain's pretty weird naturally, so I just hand drew designs to make a trippy background. I channeled an old friend I worked with on the American Gladiators crew named Lico. Lico was a 300 pound vegetarian Mexican American with a huge afro, and a diehard Deadhead. He's one of the greatest characters I've ever met. One night while hanging with his family, he decided I needed to see The Grateful Dead play. So Lico, his wife, two kids, and me piled into his little car about 2 am and drove to Las Vegas. The dead were playing there, but we couldn't find a room or tickets. So we drove back to L.A. about noon. And I never got to see The Dead play live. While drawing the background, I asked myself what Lico would see while trippin' at one of their shows. All in all, it came out pretty good.
Coming from Generation X, my introduction to The Grateful Dead was their music video for "Touch of Gray." But listening to a bunch of singles, and several live shows on You Tube, "Scarlet Begonias" is now my favorite Dead song. This drawing is done in my unique scribble style, Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24". None of my mom's stuff on Craigslist sold.
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