Life drawings

Drawings of my life.

shake the mountains when they dance

Here are some leftover boys. Boy drawings. Scrappy little drawings that are a means to some kind of as yet not quite congealed end.

See I didn't used to draw fast like this. Now I do draw fast as a way of thinking and getting a handle on shapes and forms. But the fast drawings give me clues to take forward to more purposeful drawings and paintings. And yet the fast drawings are still tangible bloggable items.

Blogs make everything feel like an 'end'. Here are my drawings... bish bash bosh.

This leads to a sense of 'What was I doing?'

But I am definitely doing SOMETHING.



I guess I like fast drawings, but I don't want to get seduced by them to the point of forgetting what I was aiming for. That's what I was getting at.

This is a pouty exhausted Randy.





These are rough Cenas with Fred Flintstone for comparison:





This manboy used to smirk when he was younger:





WTF? Is what I said to myself when I re-experienced this one:





This one combines boyman meanyness with Milt Gross studies:





I do like big boys these days. I wish I was better with words and could say more why I draw them.

A little bit without rude words in of E E Cummings: 'the boys I mean are not refined':

'they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance'

I was looking for poems about boyness but that one's a little bit unsympathetic. I don't want to reinforce negative stereotypes about wrestlers or anything. Then I did a little search for poems with the word 'wrestler' in and I found this line by a chap called Robinson Jeffers:

The second-born has strength for his beauty; when he strips for swimming the hero shoulders and wrestler loins Make him seem clothed.

But that's enough of all that.

John Cena is A Bump-Lunk!

Maybe that doesn't quite rhyme with 'erumpent' like I wanted it to... never mind.






I've been suffering for my art... I just said 'Right! If I'm going to draw John Cena, I'm going to do it properly.' I had been floundering in indecision, but now I was going to make the sacrifices necessary to see this task through.

But sifting through the reference material was not always easy on the peepers.



(I also referred to this problem on my wordy blog)

Bless his big flat topped rectangular foam wax head.





With this subject, it was kind of a case of 'You can't spoof a spoof'... I actually found it quite hard to get the drawings funnier or more strikingly extreme-looking than the original.

Or... to capture some aspect of the uniqueness of the original and play on it til the cows come home.

He does look sometimes like his arms are on backwards. And that's not the only feature he has in common with Fred Flintstone.





In the past I compared Cena to Poochie from that Simpsons episode that parodied focus-group thinking. Well, that was a little bit unfair. Even though it was true. Cena's designated wrestling persona did in the past make him into an extremly undignified human vehicle for the most unedifying corporate version of the 'tude' that John K described on his blog recently....

But he's a good stick really, is Cena. Watch him fly!









In real life, he appears to possess no 'tude, no pride, vanity, shame, grace, or feminine characteristics. He's also a walking epitome of 'uglycute'. Well, I say 'walking'... he doesn't appear overly good at activities that involve coordinating more than one limb.










When I do these drawings, I start off comparatively careful, with my observational head on...





But then there comes a stage where I'm suddenly faced with a plethora of possibilities... oh no!









Sometimes when I feel I'm gaining control, it makes me feel drunk with power... other times indecision leaves me befuddled. What is my ultimate aim? Moody intense paintings? Cute lighthearted cartoony designs? Involved, extreme caricature? The ability to draw Cena from memory? A striking image for a myspace comment (that's slightly depressing..)





A lot of the decision seem to boil down to 'mood'. Do I want to do something joyful and silly, or something that caters to all my high faluting serious propensities...

Not that the two things HAVE to mutually exclude each other, it may be like a continuum... or it may be that I have to find a way to be serious while infusing my pictures with joy.





I have said that I find it possible to 'get past' a subject and into my own intent once I learn the subject really, really well.

Well gosh I'm having fun with this for the time being.

P.S. apologies to John C and his friends and family, I didn't mean to be mean or anything. All insults are delivered with affection.

John Cena, drawing, cartoon, caricature, WWE, lunk, uglycute