It started in 2002, when I was living in a tiny, cheap room in Garden Grove, California. I was flipping channels on TV, and came across this episode of MTV's "House of Style," which had a segment about putting butcher paper on your walls and drawing on it. That was the first I ever heard of Doodle Walls. My little room was dark, like a cave, so I decided to try and draw a mural on the wall where the door was. The mural would be looking out the mouth of a cave at a sunset. I got rolls of banner paper, taped them up, and started drawing with a 12-pack of cheap, generic markers. When I went to color in the mural, it just plain SUCKED. So I tore it down. I used the paper later, I cut photos out of my old BMX, skateboard, and rock climbing magazines, and spent my evenings making big collages of action sports photos. In between the photos, I colored in with different types of doodles, trying to find a good way to shade with Sharpies. I knew their had to be
some way. I was never on the internet then, to look up that kind of thing. So I kept experimenting. I didn't find a good way then, but I really had fun listening to music while making my big murals.
Tyler was a kid my mom baby sat for in 2012-2013, when I lived with her. I started drawing kid's names as a gift for my niece and nephew at Christmas of 2008, when I moved to North Carolina, right as the Great Recession hit. My niece was in competitive cheerleading, though she was about 8 or 9 then, and suddenly all the girls in cheer wanted their names drawn. I did about 40 names in 2009-2010, for about $20 each, and they took 4 to 5 hours each to draw. That was the first time I consistently made a little money drawing.
The same weekend Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August of 2005, I literally moved into the AAA Electra 99 Gallery (and Museum) in Anaheim, California. It was a small indie gallery housed in an industrial unit, across from the Anaheim dump. I had been driving a taxi for two years straight, 7 days a week, 70 to 100 hours a week, with only 5 days off in those two years. I was burned out. Taxi driver/artist/gallery owner Richard Johnson offered me a deal: live in the Electra Gallery during the week, when it was closed (mostly), and drive his taxi on the weekend, from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. I took the offer.
For two years, my life had focused COMPLETELY on making money, paying the $600
a week for my taxi, paying for $300 worth of gas
every week, and then trying to make some more money to live on. I completely gave up on creativity for those two years. On my second day in the Electra gallery, I drew a goofy little picture on a Post-it note. That sparked my creativity again, and I was soon drawing for much of every day. I made big drawings of poems I had written with designs in marker. I kept trying to find a way to shade with markers, and switched to regular-sized (fine point) Sharpies, and then to ultra fine point Sharpies for the shading. One day while drawing a tree, I scribbled several colors over each other. I liked the effect. My Sharpie "scribble style" was born. That was the fall of 2005. I've been working on it, and with it, ever since.
This was from 2010-2011, I think. I blended my drafting skills I learned first from my draftsman/engineer dad, and then in high school drafting class. I added in my love of M.C. Escher stuff, and did a bunch of these, shading with Sharpies.
This was 2012-2013, still trying to figure out what to do with my "scribble style." The "tile" drawings. Creative, but lame. This cross is still actually hanging in the Sunday school class room of the church I went to in Kernersville, NC, at the time.
Ride. Thinking about my BMX riding days, long ago.
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