Life Drawings

Here are a couple life drawings. I used nupastel on newsprint.

Bret "The Hitman" Hart

The Avalanche Blog topic for this week was "Hitman". The image came to mind of going home after a long day of work, you drop your keys in the bowl near the door and kick off your shoes all you hear is a whoosh of air. He silently strikes by doing a Flying Squirrel across your living room, slamming his elbow into the tender part of your upper spine and sending you to the ground. You lay motionless on your stain master carpet, wondering if the blood flowing from your ears will come out like the commercial says; hoping that by playing dead the monster might leave. You could only wish to be so lucky. His meaty grip picks your limp body off the ground, Suplexes it back down, and then folds you in half with the Sharpshooter finishing move. All you hear are tendons in your knees and back snapping as you pray that the heavens to "please, kill me now"; and then everything goes black.

I loved WWF. Hulk Hogan, Jake The Snake Roberts, The Bushwhackers, The Undertaker, Andre The Giant, Jesse The Body Venture, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Rick Flair, The Iron Scheik, Macho Man Randy Savage, on and on. It was nothing less than white trash soap opera...and I embraced every minute of it. It wasn't so much that I was obsessed with WWF as the fondness of sleep overs, staying up late with friends, eating lots of sugar, and daring not to go to bed for fear of someone farting on your head. Those were the days.

The aspects of wrestling that I loved was when your hero is getting the crap knocked out of him by fist and metal chair, ganged up on and totally out numbered. Then the crowd cheers, the camera pans, and a once enemy comes in and team up with your hero. They beat the living crap out of everyone and then clasp hands, walking around the ring for their victory lap. The crowd was so ecstatic they're almost in tears.

However, what I hated was when that same senario would happen and just as unexpected wrestler switches sides and is running full speed to the ropes the television announcer screams out at the rate of the micromachine man "That's all the time we have" and it was over. It felt like Santa just gave me the greatest gift in the world, then promptly pistol whipped me, and took it back.

Napoleon Dynamite

Look what I found under my bed! When Disney purchased Avalanche Software, where I currently work, they had nothing for us to do for a short time. A friend at work had a variety of sculptures at his desk that he had sculpted using super sculpey. I had nothing to do so I bought some from him and gave it a whirl. I worked on Napoleon Dynamite as the storyboard artist and script supervisor and also directed some commercials with Jon Heder so I had some good reference. I worked on it for a couple weeks and this was the final result. Work quickly ramped up so I had to take it home. I used a box padded it with plastic grocery sacks then hid it under my bed so my girls wouldn't poke it. I just re-discovered it. Joy! I had to scrape it free of dust bunnies and repair one eye that was mysteriously smashed, but it survived. I had this brilliant plan a while back to bronze the thing, right up until I found it would cost a honking thousand bucks. I think I'll just bake it, that way removing the dust will take merely a good hardy puff of air.

Dragon

My work's Blog topic this week was "Dragon." I loved Halloween when I was really little. A thrown together costume with whatever was lying around. There was a lot more imgination than all the prefab costumes today. My favorite costume was Superman. I think I was Superman for about 4 years in a row. It was this sweet little job with the emblem on the chest, yellow felt velcrow strap around the waste, and a small red cape...kind of like a bib for a first grader. I loved it. However, my trick or treating days ended quicker than I ever wanted them to. I started getting growth spurts in the third and fourth grade. They continued for some time which made me more than a head taller than most of my friends. One year I was singled out and asked over and over "Aren't you a little old for this?" even though I was with a bunch of shorties my own age. I remember faking it to my friends that I was cold. I went home and then I bawled my eyes out. Never went after that. But I made up for it when I was in high school. My friends and I would go dancing every weekend and dress up. The best was when we dressed up like hicks and went to a hardcore techno dance club. The bouncer at the front reminded us that it wasn't western night. "Yep, we know!"

Draggin

I swear I'm not making fun of those less fortunate and confined to wheelchairs. However, I am mocking this lady because she wasn't actually cripple, just really lame.

This beauty was sit-walking her way down the side walk near the down town library. The concentration, fervor, and seriousness that was on her face as she was "suck-puffin" convinced me that if she were to stop smoking she would actually die. The craziest part was the speed at which she did it. I could liken it to the heart rate and metabolism of a shrew.

And as this little Casey Jr. passed and continued down her track I was compelled to turn and salute her caboose for fumigating the day. I watched her quietly scoot away with rapid puffs of yellow smoke pulling at her shoulders and hair... and then I listened. (Shhh) I swear I could hear the driving cadence of, "...tumor, tumor, tumor, tumor..." fading in the wind.

Rodeo Queen, Lehi Utah

There is nothing sweeter in this world than a Utah rodeo. Be it Kamas or Lehi, I lick my chops to go and people watch...wait a minute...I lied. There is something sweeter. A demolition derby! But they're in the same family.

Decker Customs

Here are two t-shirt designs I did for Jeff Decker. He is an amazing bronze sculptor and builds bikes. His lives in Springville, Utah and has a studio, Hippodrome Studios. One of these days when I'm all rich and famous and crap, I'm gonna buy one of his bronzes.