Back in early 2016, when I first started focusing on turning my Sharpie drawings into an income, Scotty Zabielski up in the Chicago area, was sending me photos of him riding, and keeping me working. I still haven't met him in person, but he's totally helped me out in a whole bunch of ways these last couple of years. Thank you for that Scotty.
Last summer, when the Winston-Salem drama was starting to get out of control, he asked me to do a David Bowie drawing for him, when I got a chance. It took several months, but I finally finished it today. And yes, according to two different documentaries I watched about him, David took his stage name from American pioneer and adventurer, Jim Bowie. After getting shot in a fight, Jim's brother, Rezin, decided to help Jim defend himself. Rezin had a huge ass knife made for Jim. The initial design got changed a few times, but the massive knife has been known as the Bowie knife ever since. Because David Bowie spent his life on the cutting edge of music, I decided to work the knife into the picture.
This one is my standard, large drawing size, 18" X 24", and done in Sharpies on paper in my still unique #sharpiescribblestyle. I'll get Mr. Bowie on his way as soon as I can Scotty, and let's hope he doesn't go AWOL and become a space oddity.
Sumatran Tiger drawing #1, in my unique Sharpie scribble style. I don't keep track exactly, but this drawing took well over 40 hours to do. It's 18" X 24", my standard size for large drawings. I've done dozens of musicians drawings this year. I wanted to try something different and to have a cool showpiece for my first, First Friday in the Richmond Arts District. I'm also raising my prices up to where I'm actually making reasonable money for the time I put into these. This puppy (OK, kitty) is $400. Free shipping in the continental U.S., unframed, if anyone out there is interested. That's a chunk of money, but I have a feeling it will be sold by Friday. This drawing stops people dead in their tracks.
Sumatra is an 1,100 mile long island, the largest that's entirely in Indonesia, with a backbone of mountains all down its west coast. There are some active volcanoes in that range. That's where the remaining Sumatran tigers live, about 400 are estimated to still live in the wild. Poachers kill them for their bones and skin, the bones bring big money for traditional Chinese medicines. Habitat destruction to build palm oil and coffee plantations is another threat to these big cats, which are critically endangered at this point.
Here's the drawing on a chair in my "studio of the day," which was a Wendy's yesterday. I celebrated finishing this guy with a chocolate frosty.
Most of you probably remember the huge underwater earthquake that caused the horrific tsunami the day after Christmas in 2004, and the city Banda Aceh that was so hard hit. That's on the very northern tip of Sumatra. The mega cities of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are on the next major island to the east, in Malaysia.
The Sumatran tigers are some of the smallest of tigers, but still really big cats, with males weighing 220-310 pounds, and females about 60 pounds less. This is much smaller than the huge, male Bengal tigers which regularly weigh over 500 pounds, and can go up to 717 pounds. The tigers of Sumatra live mostly in the thick jungle. The Sumatran tigers have a darker orange coat than other tigers, more stripes, and the thick white main around the face. Like the tigers of India, when Sumatran tigers can't find wild food, they will kill livestock... and people.
Here's a good documentary on a controversial plan to reintroduce Sumatran tigers on a large peninsula called Tambling, which is in southern Sumatra.
My sister Cheri has talked about me doing this one for quite a while, for her husband Nathan. They've both been REM fans since high school. I've been working on it in bits and pieces around the other drawings I've been doing. I just finished it the other day and took it over to them yesterday. I never listened to REM a lot when I was younger, except for all their songs I heard on the radio over the years. "End of the World" has always been my favorite, and I put the lyrics of that one in the background of the letters R-E-M. It was cool listening to a bunch of their music as I drew it. They have a lot more really good songs than I remembered.
Sharpies on paper, in my unique scribble style. There's a little bit of paint pen in this one, as well. Pretty stoked on how this one came out. 18" X 24."
