My Sharpie Scribble Style Art 2005-2019 - #20

 Let the commissions begin...  Tupac Shakur was one of the early requests I got from the artist/collector who bought my Kurt Cobain drawing.  Here's a weird thing about drawing people with Sharpies the way I do.  There are no skin tone colors in the Sharpie marker palette.  So at this point in my drawing, I made skin tones look "right" with only black and gray markers, and shadows.  Lots of shadows.  Later I started using pink, light blue, and lavender to shade white and gray areas or skin tones.  So here's my little secret, anyone I draw, whether black, white, Latino or whatever, I use shadows and the exact same colors to shade them.  Pink, light blue, lavender, gray, and black, in that order.  Whatever the race or skin tone, I color them with the same colors of Sharpies.

 This was the first request I got from the guy who bought my Kurt Cobain drawing.  I didn't want to do the same Bob Marley photo that everyone uses, so I did some searching, and really liked this photo.  Since it was largely shades of blue, I added the reggae colors of red, gold, and green in the letters of  "ONE LOVE."  I've done so many drawings over a couple of years, that I forgot about this one.  Looking back, I really like this one a lot.

 This was a drawing I did to replace the spot in the Earshot show for one of the drawings that sold first.  Everything for the show had to be music related, since it was in a music shop.  That's the main reason why I've drawn so many musicians and bands.  I love doing them, as long as the music doesn't suck, because I listen to it while I draw, for about a week.  To get a little out of the box, but still in the music realm, I decided to draw The Blues Brothers.  I wanted to get the band from the movie in the drawing, not just Jake and Elwood, so I combined the two photos.  In the blue of the background, there are song lyrics and quotes from the Saturday Night Live appearances, and from the Blues Brothers movie.  This one was one of the first bought by the couple who kept me busy through much of the spring of 2018.

 A friend of mine in Winston-Salem let me store my personal stuff in a spare closet while I was living in the tent.  As a "Thank You," I told him I'd draw his favorite singer or athlete.  He told me Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood were his favorite singers.  I found this cool photo of Carrie and Miranda singing their duet "Something Bad."  So I drew that.  Their hair came out a little too yellow, but all in all, this one came out pretty well.

I did this drawing when I had time in between the paying drawings.  Then I just had it in my sketch pad, for months, and I never remembered it when I visited his house.  It became an inside joke that I would bring it by soon.  As luck would have it, I had this in a poster tube with another drawing, which I gave to a guy who bought the second drawing.  Out of nowhere, that guy suddenly decided he was going to direct my "art career."  So we had a falling out, and I never got Carrie and Miranda back.  So I need re-draw one or both of them for my friend at some point. 

 This Michael Jackson drawing was requested by the guy who bought Kurt Cobain, but then he flaked out on paying me when I finished drawing Michael.  I've never been a huge M.J. fan.  I know he was one of the most talented singers, songwriters, dancers, and all around performers ever.  Yeah, I watched the world premiere of "Thriller" on MTV, like my whole generation, and a like a few of his songs.  But he's never been a favorite of mine.  But of all the drawings I've done, technically, this is one of my best.  This drawing wound up in a juried show in the Delurk Gallery in Winston-Salem, which was really cool.  I think this ended up being one of the drawings, $1900 worth total, I left behind when I left North Carolina in a hurry.  So I'll never get paid for it.  Live and learn.

When I started meeting people in the Trade Street art scene in Winston-Salem, one person in particular really took to my work, and she went on to do a lot to promote my work locally.  When we started talking, in was late January and Black history month was coming up.  While neither one of us is black, she asked if I would want to do something for Black History Month.  No problem, I was down with that.  It was really a no brainer for me, Dr. Maya Angelou, largely known as America's Poet Laureate, lived the last few decades of her life in Winston-Salem.  She had passed away (no one dies in North Carolina, they all "pass") in 2014, and so I decided to draw her.  I went to work, picked her poem "Human Family" to ad to the drawing, fully legible, not as a texture in the background like I do with most musician drawings. 

So this drawing wound up in the front window of a studio/gallery in Winston-Salem all through February of 2018, and there was a lot of good feedback on it from people.  It eventually sold for $250, which is what the woman at the studio priced my drawings at.  I was never sure who bought it, but I got paid my share, and it was able to stay on display in that studio. 

In addition, the woman at that gallery managed to get this drawing up on stage at a garden party for Maya Angelou's 90th birthday.  A bunch of the best regional poets read their own poems, and Dr. Angelou's, on stage at this park, standing right next to my drawing.  That was a really cool thing to have this drawing involved with.  At that event, I met Maya Angelou's only niece, and archivist, the woman in charge of Dr. Angelou's legacy. 

Because so many people really liked that drawing, the woman there made 10 full size prints of it, and there were 3 or 4 sort of off color proofs, screw-ups, as well.  I signed and numbered all of these, including the screw-ups.  They were supposed to be sold for $100 each, and I'd get $35 of that.  I got paid for one.  Dr. Maya Angelou's niece and archivist got a free print for her collection.  I never got paid for the rest.  So that whole mess was a big lesson in the art business, and I'm operating at a really low level, small sums of money. 

That's why I'm not naming this woman.  I don't think she intentionally set out to scam me.  I did get paid well for a few things that sold through her studio.  The vast majority of my paid work came from other places.  I got a lot of local publicity from her promoting my work.  But she also was struggling with money, trying to make her dream art studio pay off.  I think she just was strapped for cash, and not of the highest integrity, so lagging in paying me, or selling stuff behind my back, was a way to make ends meet. 

The lesson here is that if you're an artist, you NEED to either watch and handle your own business well, or have someone you completely trust handle it.  So while I was working all the time and struggling to survive as a homeless guy, I lost at least $700 or so, and I left $1900 in work behind when I left North Carolina.  So if anyone out there makes me a cool offer to help sell my art, and I'm taking my time to make a decision about whether to work with you, or not, this is why.  "Good opportunities" are often not that good when it comes down to it.

My Sharpie Scribble Style Art 2005-2019 - #19

 My first solo art show.  Earshot Music store, Winston-Salem, NC, November 4th, 2017.  I spent the summer of 2017 living in a tent in the woods, scraping up a few dollars a day for food, bus fare, and art supplies, and I was drawing every day.  By late September, Jane, the art director for Earshot Music, liked my drawings, and put two up on their side wall, which featured work by a handful of local artists.  She asked if I could get enough work together for a full show. 

I worked every day for about six weeks to put together eight drawings for the show.  Jane called around, and got me an artist profile write-up in the Winston-Salem Journal newspaper/website.  The standout, the drawing I really upped my game on, was the Kurt Cobain/Nirvana drawing above.  When I first stepped back and looked at it, I surprised myself.  Then Phred, owner of Earshot, used it for the online flyer above. 

This drawing sold an hour after it went up on the wall, the night before the show.  And that really started things going.  The buyer, and artist and collector who was part of the 1980's New York City art scene, mingling with people like Basquiat and Keith Haring, was impressed, and talked the whole night of the show about me doing an art book.  He ended up buying 3 or 4 more drawings from me in the months after. 

About 8 people came to the little show.  My best friend Rick, my sister Cheri, and one of her friends, were three of them.  Tiny crowd.  Yet, I was able to use that little gathering, and the art being visible there for a month, as a launch pad to really get started selling my work consistently for low, but decent prices, $120 to $160 a drawing.  The winter was rough, sales were intermittent, and the tent was really cold.  But I trudged through it, and things picked up in the spring, by April, I was drawing nearly all day, every day, and making about $500 to $600 a month from it.  Not a living, but it was a step in the right direction.

 Here's the drawings hung on the back wall.  Far left (to right) is Gene Simmons/Kiss, then Joey Ramone, , Gwen Stefani, Johnny Cash, then below, Kurt Cobain.  The other two were the "Tainted Love/Harley Quinn" drawing, and The Ramones band live.  All were 18" X 24"

 I did this drawing for me.  I loved the song "Tainted Love," and after drawing this, learned from Phred at Earshot that it actually went back to Gloria Jones in the 1960's.  I knew the song from the 1981 Soft Cell, new wave version.  There are also great covers of it by Social Distortion, Imelda May, and, of course, Marilyn Manson.  There's a fan video to the Marilyn Manson version featuring Harley Quinn and the cast of the Suicide Squad movie, which is where I got the idea for this drawing.  

I hung on to this drawing, but had to sell it after getting out of the hospital here in Richmond, last August.  I was still half dead after a allergic reaction to medicine that damn near killed me, and kept me in the hospital for 6 or 7 days.  I needed money for a cheap motel room for one more night to recuperate, and I sold this and a Bob Dylan drawing to The Mix Gallery at a good price.  Jay there didn't know me, wasn't into the music, but recognized good artwork.  So that deal worked out for both of us.  This drawing is hanging, right now,  in The Mix Gallery, in Richmond's Arts District, at 12 West Broad.  I don't work with that gallery on an ongoing basis, they own the drawing now, but I believe it's for sale.  This is my absolute personal favorite of all the

 drawings I've ever done.  I might buy it back at some point, if I get the cash.  Next we have my "Gwen and Now" drawing.  It's 1994 ska Gwen Stefani on the right, and 2017 pop goddess Gwen on the left.  I tried to give this a kind of old school, punk rock flyer feel.  And it didn't really work.  This one never sold, and I wound up giving it to a person who bought some other work off of me as a bonus.

 I was never a huge KISS fan, but in junior high I heard Kiss's Love Gun, Destroyer, and Rock 'n Roll Over albums over and over, ghetto blasted, on the school bus.  But this drawing came out really cool.  It sold shortly after the Earshot show started, I think.

 This is my second Johnny Cash drawing, "The Man in Black."  I tried a different idea, and it was OK.  The entire lyrics to his song, "The Man in Black," are in the background, repeating twice, I believe.  The couple who bought this drawing moved to Kentucky, but were back and forth from NC to KY for months.  They bought several drawing from me, keeping me working all spring.  I never actually met them in person, I'd drop drawings off at Earshot on my schedule, and they'd pick them up on theirs.  They now have a whole entertainment room in their new house filled with my drawings.  I was really thankful for their interest, and for keeping busy for so long.

My ugly mug in front of Earshot.  Huge thanks to Phred and Jane for giving me the opportunity there, and helping me in the months afterwards.  

My Sharpie Scribble Style Art 2005-2019 - #18

 The punk stuff... and Metallica...  I did this drawing for me, got it mostly done, then it sat for months as I was busy doing work for other people.  I wound up giving it to Social Distortion bass player Brent Harding outside their show here in Richmond last fall.  So it wound up on their tour bus.  Not sure what happened to it then.  I imagine they get a ton of stuff from fans. 

Social Distortion is my favorite band.  The third punk show that my BMX friend Mike Sarrail took me to, in 1988, Social Distortion played, at Scream off Wilshire in L.A..  Punk still seemed too thrashy to me, and I just wasn't getting it.  Then they played Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire."  I was like, "Oh shit, this punk band is playing Johnny Cash, the coolest country singer ever."  I was hooked from then on, and it opened me up to punk rock as a whole.  Mike continued to introduce me to new music and we went to a ton of shows, and I even shot video of some.  18" X 24" #sharpiescribblestyle

 I just did this drawing of Joe Strummer for Facebook friend Brent Schulze.  I never got into The Clash really, my mistake.  When I draw anyone, especially a musician or band, I totally dive into their music and story while I draw the pic.  The Clash is now on my list of stuff to listen to regularly.  "London is drowning, and I... I live by the river."  Actually, I DO live by the river at the moment.  So that song's been in my head a lot, lately.  11" X 14" #sharpiescribblestyle

 From the Godfathers of punk rock back in 1974.  Joey Ramone.  Hey, ho, let's go.  Oh, and there's a story about the quote at the bottom.  Ask me sometime.  18" X 24"

 What's punk about a little girl riding an alligator at the L.A. gator farm in the 1950's?  Everything.  That's punk as fuck.  The caption of this one is: "Most progress in the world comes from the freaks, geeks, dorks, and weirdos."  12" X 18"

 Three of four of The Ramones in action.  Sheena is a punk rocker now.  And I'm an old crusty one.

A security guard at the awesome new library in Winston-Salem, NC asked me to do this for her husband, for his birthday.  It was a big spend on her salary.  She bought it, surprised him, then told me two days later, "He likes it, I'm not even allowed to touch the drawing now."  Metallica in the round. 

My Sharpie Scribble Style Art 2005-2019 - #17

 Odds and ends...  As I mentioned way back in this series of blog posts, when I decided to start building my Sharpie art into a business, I knew I had to step up my art game.  I looked through a bunch of art online, asking myself what I would want to put on my own wall.  I ended up drawing a simple, stencil-style face, of Bruce Lee, my first hero.  As my skills improved, I knew I wanted to go back to Bruce Lee, and do my own take on the classic poster that all us kids of my era knew Bruce Lee from.  This is that drawing.  I was pretty dang happy with this one.  The flames in the back could been a bit better, and I added a bunch of Bruce Lee's quotes on the left, which was cool.  This drawing is 18" X 24", and is now living in California.

 This is my "four legged niece," my sister's dog, Willow Belle Durham.  Willow is a very lovable dog, an Aussie Doodle, and probably my favorite extended family member at this point.  She was part grown, but still a puppy, at the time of the drawing.  Willow Durham is her name on Facebook, and she'd love to friend you.  She's not prolific at posting, but maybe you can get her a little more active online.  Other facts about Willow, she will offer you a paw to shake if you mention (University of North) Carolina, and she'll bark is you ask her about Duke.  She also likes scarves.   12" X 18"

 Here's a full grown Willow in a photo I took of her with Taffy, the ceramic tribute my mom did in the 1970's to her (my mom's) dog, Taffy, a golden cocker spaniel.  When I was a little kid, Taffy was still living at my grandma's house.  So to me, this is my favorite dog picture from our family.

 Being perpetually broke while living with my mom, I drew/made this photo collage for her on her birthday a couple of years ago.  The photos are of her two grandchildren, Katherine and Ethan, through their lives.  Mom was pretty stoked on it.

 This is an 8 1/2" X 11" drawing I did recently, starting with a magazine photo of BMX freestyler Monte Hill doing a turndown.  I did this to illustrate my poem "Become," one of the few poems of mine that survived, because I memorized it.  Here's the poem:

Become

You must risk

If you're to succeed

For when you grow

Sometimes you bleed

Each must climb

Over the fence

For the only cage

Is ignorance

Each Jedi knight

and Shaolin monk

Evolved from

A lowly punk

Don't get caught

In the world's throws

We must become

Our own heroes

-The White Bear

(my BMX nickname/poetry pen name)

This is why you don't see many selfies from me.  I make goofy faces and don't smile.  The 20 years of struggling with homelessness and working hard as a taxi driver have taken their toll.   I'm fat, and my teeth are basically all rotted or broken off at this point, and I look like shit.  That said, here I am with seven drawings taped up on the front window of an empty storefront, on Broad Street, to show off my stuff off at the October First Friday Art Walk in Richmond's Arts District.  #sharpiescribblestyle

My Sharpie Scribble Style Art 2005-2019 #16

 Let's talk water...  Once I got going in 2016, and drew every single day all spring, on drawings I was selling, I wanted to try something new.  Water of most any kind is one of the hardest things to draw or paint really well.  Obviously, I have along way to go on that.  But these are the tries I've made at drawing water-based photos well.  Above, an old photo I found of surfing legend Kelly Slater in a small barrel.  It was a decent start at something technically hard to draw.

 A while later, I wanted to try another surf related drawing.  I wanted to step it up by drawing a really good, and hot, female surfer.  I immediately looked up photos of pro surfer Karina Petroni.  I gave her and her friends a few rides in my taxi during the U.S. Open of Surfing week in Huntington Beach, California, in 2008.  Karina is not only very attractive, and an amazing surfer, but came across as a really cool person.  So I went looking for a really good photo of her to draw as my second surfing pic attempt.  I couldn't find a surfing drawing that worked really well with my style.  But I found this great "duck dive" photo.

For all of you who don't surf, a "duck dive" is when a surfer points the nose of their board down, into the face of an incoming wave they want to pass by.  Sometimes they can paddle over a wave.  Other times, it's too big or too close, and they "duck dive," like ducks do, diving through the wave.  This drawing came out better than the Kelly Slater pic, but it still is along way from awesome.  What can I say, water is hard (to draw). 

 Somewhere in 2016, my BMX friend from the early 1990's, BMX jumper, "Barspinner" Ryan Brennan, started taking time off to go hang out in Hawaii.  Before too long, he started posted photos of him free diving, going for depth, swimming with sea turtles and dolphins, and even the occasional tiger shark.  As I kept looking on Facebook for people to do drawings for, Ryan asked me to draw this on.  On the left is Ryan in a camo wetsuit, coming up from a 66 foot free dive at a place called the Blue Hole, in Arizona.  I added the line, "There's another world one breath away."  Ryan was stoked on that. 

Ryan now regularly dives to depths of about 150 feet on a single breath, and is teaching others free diving and talking tourists out on dives.  He has a bunch of great pics on Instagram @barspinnerr.  He's given me permission to draw them so sell, as long as I send him some cool stuff along the way.  Before the free diving, he built a BMX trick team business, and still runs it, spending part of his time in Hawaii and part in California. 

I did another drawing of a sea turtle from one of Ryan's drawings a while back.  Then a Facebook friend asked me for an original sea turtle drawing.  So above is a close-up of the second sea turtle drawing I've done, form one of Ryan's diving photos.  This one was an 11" X 14" original.

I later went back and re-drew another version of the same photo as an 11" X 17" drawing, and I have copies available of this one for sale. 

My Sharpie Scribble Style Art 2005-2019 - #15

 Star Wars... and some weird timing...  As 2016 was coming to an end, I decided to draw a picture for me.  So I drew Yoda, my favorite character, and tried to visualize The Force in the background.  That didn't really work, but Yoda looked cool. 

 A month or so later, I decided to keep the Star Wars series going, and draw Darth Vader.  For that one, I put a lot of the negativity we all hear, both as kids and adults, in the back ground, representing the Dark Side.

 Well, with Yoda and Vader drawn, it seemed logical to draw Princess Leia around Christmas of 2016.  A couple days after I started drawing this, Carrie Fisher went to the hospital for a heart episode, and the suddenly died right after that.  That was really sad, especially since I just discovered her one woman show, "Wishful Drinking," then.  It's hilarious.  The timing of the whole thing was just too weird.  18" X 24"

Shortly after I started my old school BMX blog, FREESTYLIN' Mag Tales (now deleted) in 2008, the top female rider of the 80's Krys Dauchy, started commenting and emailing.  We became web friends, and she helped me through that tough period.  She refers to her home as the House of Chaos, and years later, I drew this for her.  

Looking for new ways to sell drawings, I advertised on Craigslist to draw people's favorite athletes or musicians.  I got one job from that, and a woman in a town half an hour away gave me a deposit to draw Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead.  This is that drawing.  I had a friend in California ask if it was for sale when I showed it on Facebook.  I said, "No," and wound up drawing another Jerry Garcia drawing for her to give to a friend.  I never did get the rest of the money from the woman who ordered this, so I sold it to someone else months later.  "What a long, strange trip it's been."  The background is my freehand work, as someone who's naturally weird, but has never taken acid, trying to draw something that would appeal to people who've done way too much acid.  18" X 24"

I got this commission through a woman at a studio/gallery in Winston-Salem, NC.  Mary Oliver is a really good poet I'd never head of, and she's also from northern Ohio, like me.  In fact, she grew up a few miles from where my grandma and her sisters grew up.  But there weren't any really good photos of her.  I did the best I could, and this is one of my least favorite drawings from a technical perspective.  Her poem, "Wild Geese," is a really cool one.  The high school English teacher who ordered this liked it, and that's what counts.  In the months since I drew this, Mary Oliver passed away.  If you like poetry, check her work out. 

My Sharpie Scribble Style Art 2005-2019 - #14

 Getting started making money...  I did a handful of smaller drawings as I first started to work towards making money with my Sharpie art in late 2015.  Then I got the idea to draw Johnny Cash, my favorite singer/songwriter from the country music my mom always had on the radio when I was a kid.  Johnny Cash was also a big influence on the leader of my favorite band, Mike Ness of Social Distortion.  I actually traded this drawing, sort of accidentally, for sandwiches for  my mom and me.  We showed it to Jo, the owner of the small, but awesome, Deli on Main, in Kenrersville, NC.  My mom often bought Amish noodles there, and Jo made great sandwiches for lunch.  I took the drawing in to show her at a time when my mom and me were totally broke.  Jo liked it, and asked what I wanted for it.  I joked that I'd trade it for lunch.  Jo took me seriously, and asked what we wanted.  Last I heard, this drawing is still up on the wall at Deli on Main.  Didn't make much, but it was a great lunch when we were broke.  18" X 24"

After Johnny Cash, Jo at the Deli asked if I could do one of her favorite musician, Janis Joplin.  No problem.  So I made some money on this one, and it's in Jo's house, last I heard.  18" X 24" #sharpiescribblestyle

 My cousin Matt, who I hadn't seen since childhood, was coming through the area (of NC) for work, and stopped at my sister's house for the afternoon.  He turned into a really cool guy, and the three of us spent the afternoon catching up.  When I showed him the Sharpie work I was doing, he wanted me to do Slash from Guns n' Roses.  Still early on in my work at drawing musicians, I wasn't sure how to draw a picture that wasbasically black on black on black.  I did my best for the time.  I've since learned I can tone the black with under colors, so I have red/black, green/black, blue/black, or purple/black, that all look slightly different. 18" X 24"

 Us young boys of Generation X had two main heroes as little kids.  Bruce Lee and Evel Knievel.  I decided to draw Evel, but, as weird as it sounds, there aren't very many good still photos of him jumping.  Most of it is sketchy movie film footage.  This didn't come out that well, but I had to try.  #18" X 24"

 Back in the BMX drawings, I mentioned Mike "Boozer" Brown, who is paralyzed and has serious health issues right now.  I kept getting drawings to him too late to raffle off at the BMX jumping jams held to help him, so I told him I'd draw his favorite musician.  Keith Richards was his pick.  Not totally stoked on the face on this one.  But Mike liked it, and that's what mattered.  18" X 24"

Dealing with my mom's drama day after day, I got to thinking about the Dementors J.K. Rowling brought to life in the Harry Potter books.  She said the Dementors were "depression personified."  One thing depression does is steal your dreams.  So I drew this one freehand of a Dementor trying to suck up my dreams.  It hung on the back of my door, so I could see it when I was drawing when I lived in my mom's apartment.  18" X 24" #sharpiescribblestyle, WPOS Kreative 2019, #wposkreative

My Sharpie Scribble Style Art 2005-2019 - #13

For about 7 years, Sharpie scribble art was just something I did now and then.  I'd do a few drawings in a spurt, then not do any for a while.  I sold the kid's names drawings, but the rest were just for my own amusement.  I had a cool way of shading, but wasn't sure just what to do with it. 

Finally, around 2012, after my dad's death in August, and I moved in with my mom, I looked Sharpie art up online.  It just never really occurred to me before that.  I blogged, I looked up things to do with that, but art wasn't something I ever bothered to look up. 

When I finally did look it up, the best Sharpie art I found was, the black and white work by Jessie Armand.  I saw videos like this, and later, ones like the Lamborghini he draws on above.  It just looked so cool.  So, every once in a while, I'd do some "doodle art," black and white drawings, inspired by Jessie's work.  None of mine every comes out as cool as his, but it's really fun to do.  Here's a few of my large doodle art pieces.

 Always good advice.  Life throws shit at you.  Rise Above.  18" X 24"

 A plethora of hearts.  18" X 24"

 The D.I Y./ Do It Yourself mantra didn't come from the home improvement world, it came from punk rock.  18" X 24"

A complicated heart.  18' X 24", #sharpiedoodleart, #sharpiescribblestyle

My Sharpie Scribble Style Art 2005-2019 - #12

 The mainstream sports drawings...  I was living in the small town of Kernersville, North Carolina, in 2015, when I decided to work towards turning my Sharpie art into a business and start making a living from it.  I'm still working on the "making a living" part, but that's due largely to crazy life circumstances.  Like I said before, I didn't have some lifelong dream to be a visual artist.  I didn't even consider myself a visual artist until more than a year later.  I simply never got called back for any job I applied for in K-ville and that area. 

I sold a drawing now and then for a little money.  So that seemed like my best bet.  Since I like doing it, I knew I would stick with it for the long haul.  Living in NC, I became a Carolina Panthers fan.  They're perpetual underdogs, and do crazy shit, like run the ball on 3rd and 17, and then convert the first down.  It's easy to root for a team like that.  So I drew  picture of Cam Newton.  Not long after, someone bought it.  Then I did another.

To order a drawing, email me at stevenemig13@gmail.com

 I found this Carolina Panther picture online, and just wanted to draw it because I liked the look of it.  It took a while, but I eventually sold this one fairly cheap.

 This is the first Cam Newton drawing I did, doing his "Superman" thing, like in the other drawing.

 My nephew Ethan has been a Boston Red Sox fan since age 4, and never switched.  Diehard.  I was running out of ideas of what to draw for him for birthday's and Christmas.  Being unable to find work, I couldn't afford a "real" gift.  So I went old school, and drew Ethan a picture of Babe Ruth.  I put a poem I wrote on it, about how "we must become our own heroes." 

 From year one, the clean cut Luke Kuechly just plain kicked butt as a super smart and tough linebacker on the Panthers.  He studies films so intensely that opposing quarterbacks often hear him calling out their plays as they line up.  This one was requested by the woman who bought the first Cam Newton drawing.

I'm not a big basketball fan, but I am originally from Ohio, so I was stoked when Lebron got an NBA championship for Cleveland in 2016.  I drew this drawing of Lebron going for the basket, and one of Kyrie Irving shooting the three pointer that clinched the championship.  I tried a little different background, which I wasn't too happy with.  I sat on both of the drawings for a couple of years, but finally sold them separately,  for much less than I normally sell drawings, in 2018.  #sharpiescribblestyle