This is my gift to myself.

Not this specific sketch, but all of them combined. Every day, I give myself the time and resources to interpret my deepest creative thoughts onto paper. I do this every day because that is when I’m truly at my best, when I am alive, when I am at peace.

This is also my gift to the world.

This specific sketch and everyone before it. I do it because I am able, by the grace of God. This vision I possess is a great gift given to me to borrow for a short time. I truly believe it is my calling and my purpose in life to share it with the world. I believe it is an obligation that all artists share.

In this sketch, I have discovered a new technique, blending highlight direction (I have GOT to come up with a better name for it). By accident, I forgot to blend the features at the bottom of the sketch. Instead, I get an entirely new type of texture to explore. Thank God for mistakes.

Happy almost-birthday, Jesus.

I haven’t gone way out there lately, so I decided to do another ode to Michael Brown.

I draw what I see. How else could I draw it?

The older I get, the more in touch with my feelings I get. Don’t get me wrong, I am not going soft, in fact, quite the opposite. I have made an amendment to my Declaration of Independence.

I give myself the right to disengage with any person, place, or thing, past or present, that creates an environment I don’t want to be in, or is a burden to maintain. It’s amazing what you can do when you declare your independence.

Furthermore, I will continue to pursue relationships with individuals and activities that I deem worthy of my time. These relationships must grow fruit….or mushrooms…I am thinking Sunday afternoon at Larry’s, three awesome movies, back to back to back, and Jill bringing out snacks every two hours.

I digress…

I have quit a whole slew of bad habits lately and this frees up a lot of my thought time. The way I fill this time is with thoughts of what feelings I want to get in touch with. Like how about happiness?

Happiness. Holy shit (sorry mom, dad…kids), really? It seems like there would be a bunch of factors influencing one’s happiness – and there is. The key for me is to rid myself of a majority of those factors. I find that whatever I am doing at the moment is what I am supposed to be doing and I will do it to the best of my ability, or else why do it in the first place? Remember how I said I won’t put myself in situations that cause guilt nor anxiety? I’m talking cleaning a dish, a spoon…folding a shirt. It makes me happy that I can do it and do it well, by the grace of God.

I learned a long time ago that money does not make you happy, it just pays the bills. Oh, and money is not the root of all evil, it’s the love of money (1 Timothy 6:10). Okay, I’m done jawbonin’.

Getting back to the surreal. I never know what will influence my next drawing, or when. I had one ready for today, then this came out.

My youngest son, Stephen cooked chicken this weekend and left a piece of raw chicken in the sink. I discovered it yesterday (I gave the maid the week off, okay?). I am still smelling rotting chicken flesh in the kitchen for some reason. There must be another piece somewhere. So, what do I do instead of look for it? I use the smell to inspire this drawing. After I finish posting, I will look for it. I mean, seriously, how many places can raw chicken hide?

Texture is key in this sketch. I want the user to recognize most of the textures here. Therefore, trying to figure out what the more foreign textures feel like, based on knowledge of all of them presented here. For instance, what might the neck feel like, based on the knowledge of the feeling of meat.

Art evokes emotion.

My son doesn’t like this sketch. He says it’s just too creepy. I said that’s the whole point of drawing it. If you’re creeped out by it, then it’s effective. This is my Halloween sketch. It’s meant to be creepy. I hope it has that same effect on you as well.

Mwahahaha…

I love the new merging-of-techniques style. In this sketch, I am going for a plastic-rubber membrane look. I was gonna go for translucent, so I was going to draw intestines, but I didn’t have time.

I get most of the ideas for Sketch of the Day first thing in the morning when I’m in the shower. I then go to station number one and begin sketching. I set up work stations in my house every day. This way, if I get bored or stuck at a task, I switch stations. I will say that not all of my stations are all work. Station number four or five (depending how many stations are set up in front) is always the BB gun and a target range set out in my back yard. I am surprised how many things I can get done in one day using this method. I have learned in my professional life that I must slack off and allow my mind to wander aimlessly. That is precisely how I come up with how to execute the drawing, or what my next best idea is. I allow it and I welcome the opportunity. Stop by the house some day and I’ll prove it.

The next part of my evolution using these merging styles is to figure out exactly how I will execute different textures and what would I get if I combined two very different techniques in many different ways. This was a creation to do both. Some textures were planned, such as the leather of the boot, and some not so planned, such as the plastic fabric of the torso.