LokiLoki

The adventure of being alone in the universe... And in New York City.

Crisis time came to the little studio apartment building nestled in the "quaint and soon to be gentrified," neighborhood of Bushwick in Brooklyn. " It all started with an e mail I received on the ol' computer thingy there." said new Bushwick resident artist Fred Haper (correction, Fred Harper) What seemed like an innocent request by a client received Saturday evening after a day of wild grocery shopping and a spontaneous trip to DSW shoes to buy some Dr. Martins. Fred came home and saw he had a nice little job from a possible new regular client from Hong Kong.

"I had plenty o' time to do ah sketch for Sundee, and get the finals done by Mondee." said Fred, who was wrapped in a blanket as he sat shivering on the back bumper of an ambulance warming his cold manicured hands and battered self esteem on a cup of hot chocolate... until the driver came back and told Fred to quit doing that! Fred picked up his tape player that was playing a compilation of Sad Songs From the 70's for mood and then left indignant.

Fred's girlfriend, Molly Crabapple (Dr. Sketchy's Rainy Day Coloring Book on sale now) came over to Fred's studio to distract him with her ambition and her new red cat collar tightly hugging her little neck. Fred lifted weights, Molly stood by with lust in her eye and details get muddled afterward.

Sunday morning. "Ah was take'n mah time ta get a nice detailed sketch for my client, I had just fixed mah scanner the other day..." Indeed. Fred spent almost an hour on tech support to fix what turned out to be a small problem easily fixed. " I got the sketches all figured out and hit scan, and... (sob)" Fred's scanner, to use a technical term, had shit the bed. (Thanks Steve W.)

Panic time. Sunday late afternoon Fred went over to Molly's and scanned in the sketches and a B&W final finished for a Phoenix paper. The sketches were now late. Final approval didn't come until 11 am Monday... THE DAY THEY WERE DUE! Back at the studio, Steve had showed up to work, Fred was almost finished with the first color spot when Phoenix called. "Do you have time to do 3 more spots?" Fred said, "Sure! When do you need them?"
" Tomorrow (Tues)"... (gulp)
" Send me the info."
Soon after, another client in Denver called with a B&W needed by Thurs.
Hong Kong was almost finished, Steve W. was ordering a new scanner. Not to mention, (until now) that Fred had finished stamping the 1200 postcards Sunday night which he dropped in the mail Monday morning. Steve had done all the labels and a good chunk of stamping the previous Wed.

Tuesday. Deadline time. Phoenix art director has a noon deadline. A crucial detail she didn't share with Fred on Monday. Fred now had about an hour to finish up the 3 extra spots and tweak the original assignment and hustle over to Molly's to use her scanner. He also had to spend an hour or 2 fixing the colors for the Hong Kong client earlier that morning. " I just wanted more espresso, but I didn't have time!" Fred was a zombie from lack of sleep and he was cranky and had the drops. Fortunately no dishes were harmed as they scuttled from hand to floor to sink...

Fred almost fell back down the stairs of the five floor walk up as he charged through the door at Molly's. She was quite breathtaking as she sat in the sunlight filtering through her plastic yellow flowers spread in front of the window by her computer. She didn't have a shred of clothing on and it would have been a crime if she had! No clothes mean less wind resistance as you put the art on the scanner. They don't mention that in the manuals. She scanned everything Fred handed her as he made espresso for the two of them. "Whew." Fred said as everything got out on time with only 4 frantic calls from Phoenix.

This came out on the cover for The Week magazine Last Fri. Oct. 27th. They asked for some stupid rays of light to be added, but I refuse to show that. I added them in photoshop. I don't know crap about Obama. From a caricature stand point, I wouldn't mind having to draw him for four years. At this point in my life, picking politicians by how fun it'd be to draw their face is just as valid as any crap that falls out of their pie holes!

Some drawings from my head and from life.

I just framed these and am currently procrastinating by blogging about it at this stage. I should be packing the framed work for a group show in Phoenix, AZ.
I'm almost done.

The clown was done from my head in a Moleskin with pencil and a little white gouache. It's a study for a painting I want to do. I've met a bunch of people who are scared of clowns or creeped out by them. I don't know why I enjoy looking at them so much. The Elf girl came about because the model just struck me as faerie like, so I gave her the ears.
She was very slight and struck some beautiful poses. Her name was Cassandra and had just moved to Brooklyn from LA about a month ago.

This week is another light one. I lost about 1500 contacts with one click of the button! I'm going into The Week offices right now, just got a Fed X delivery of weights and gloves and a weight rack tree thing. The Fed X guy isn't a fan of mine.

I'm playing around with skateboards, but only on paper. I'm fascinated with activities that will crush you or hurt if done carelessly. You Tube has so many clips of sports injuries, and all to heavy metal music! The most memorable is a kick boxing clip where the guy does a little kick at the other guy's shin and snaps his own shin. They were nice enough to slow it down and play it a few times for the viewer. His foot just wiggles around unencumbered by any restrictions with bones or joints. His face barely had any expression as his foot came back and wouldn't support his mass at all. He still had no expression as he was going down while his foot just flapped around doing a flipper impression in an attempt at independence and a life of it's own. So I did a quick sketch of a face plant of a skateboarder. "Face plant" is what you type in to do a search on You Tube if you want to torcher yourself... safely.

I went to a friend's drawing thing at a coffee shop in Greenpoint/Williamsburg last night. The model was really "Egon Shiele" looking to me. She also reminded me of the illustrator's work that did all the faeries that everyone has seen and yet I can't remember his name at all! I bought a really nice print of his at a comic book store in Paris this summer. I think it was actual size and it was made at the stage were he was just starting to do the watercolor part. All the beautiful pencil under drawing made most of the picture. I think all my money would go to the comic book stores if I lived in Paris. They have every sort of illustration style and fantasy art represented! I didn't get to see the Louvre, but I saw a lot of comic book stores and espresso bars.


My scanner is dying.

A ten minute pencil drawing done at Dr. Sketchy's at the Lucky Cat Lounge in Brooklyn. The model was Joey Hardcore from the Gotham Roller Derby girls. She was wearing rollerskates the whole time. The knee pads were very real and effective. To change poses, she went from a standing pose and just jumped up in the air and came down in a dramatic (seemingly) knee crushing heap on the little stage for a kneeling pose. I could see (in my mind) the billowy puffs of dust emitted from the impact. It was uncommon theatre injected in to a figure drawing environment. A new trend at Dr. Sketchy's seems to be the performers who are modeling starting the session out with a taste of what they normally do on stage.

Looking back on the year and all the stuff I've done, the most interesting to me (at the moment) is I first heard the term "Black Eye" at Starbucks. I learned "Red Eye" at least a year or two ago, but had never come across Black Eye until this year.

"Red Eye" is a shot of espresso in a reg. cup of coffee. Yummy, right?
I was a little sleepier than usual one afternoon, so I asked for a Red Eye with an extra shot. The black girl behind the counter looks at me and says "You want a Black Eye!?" Her tone was more of a statement than a question. That woke me up rather quickly as I thought I might have said a racial slur or was treading on racially sensitive dynamite. She saw my face and quickly broke into a huge smile and laughed at me and then asked if I wanted a few more shots in it. I'd say she was a couple Black Eyes ahead of me. Now my fear is going into a coffee shop and asking for a black eye from some bruiser with a chip on his shoulder with a long reach from behind the counter and getting the literal thing!.. To go?