King Of The Surf

 

"King Of The Surf" ink pen on paper.

Hi there. I figured since I done gone and told the internet that I was opting to not actively engage in social media much any longer, and stated that the place to see whatever I was working on would be this here blog, well...I figured I should probably actually post something. 

First thing's first. The note I posted on my Instagram account (see below) stating that I was choosing to step away from the platform, was in reference to the inundation of "Suggested Post(s)" and thoroughly obnoxious Tik-Tok-esque videos that jam up your content scroll. It was getting to the point where the accounts I was actually following were making up a thin minority of the content I was seeing. 

It's annoying, it's distracting, and with a finite lifespan of unknown duration, it's a detriment to my quality of life. Perhaps that reads much more dramatically than I actually mean it. All of the friends, acquaintances, artists, musicians and other random accounts that I personally chose to follow on the platform, I will still check in periodically to see what they are up to, but I won't be actively posting anything there. At least not for a while.

Besides, I much prefer long-form posting like this, where some substance can be paired with an image, rather than just zine-scrap picture bombing. And keyboard typing is much more my style than fingertip-tapping out hashtags. 

The sketchbook doodle above was an exercise in drawing a complete image from scratch with an idea for inspiration but no reference material in front of me. Just a blank sketchbook and an ink pen. The pen contained dark blue ink, whether or not that translates across the scan or not. The idea was to do something in the vein of the illustrations paired with fiction in the old Men's adventure magazines of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, like MALE, For Men Only, Man's Adventure, All-Man, Stag and other laughably titled publications. Of course I had to put my own spin on it, finding zero interest in just drawing a scowling he-man who is present to improve the world or save the day with the inherent level of his manliness.