Ive been spending my time for the past month and a half on doing things in the house. Ive been focusing on stuff for the yard, and projects in the garage. Talking to all my family including my daughter who lives in the middle of ground zero in New York city. She has been calling, and her birthday just passed. So I know she is okay, but I still worry. I worry about my other family, and my mom all the time. I have not drawn or painted at all. I don’t know why I have not tried to draw, paint or do anything creative. I think I mentioned once that the environment I’m in currently might be blocking that part of me. This environment is nothing like the way I felt when going to Traders Village to draw.
The Saturday mornings setting up everything to start my day at the Traders Village was a real treat for me. Drawing the first people of the day and watching their expressions as I ripped the page from my easel to show them for the first time was exhilarating. I never didn’t appreciate this feeling. After spending 10 years active duty in the Army, I used to dream of the day throughout those years, of just settling down and focusing on my art work. I was never really sure how I would come back home and do it, so finding a platform at Traders Village was a real opportunity for me.
From day to day I still look at my social media and watch my videos of me drawing my clients. Its hard to watch sometimes because of the uncertainty of this current situation that everyone is going through. Its hard to believe that it was only a month ago that I was drawing people and now we are all on a lock down for our lives. Conspiracy theories are going crazy. It seems like the foundation of our lives is beginning to crumble under this huge weight. People are becoming desperate for food and attention. I hope this all blows over soon before people start to do something that they cannot come back from.
Doom and gloom ….. maybe I have found my inspiration. Ive been itching to draw and paint just recently. Just writing this blog for school has helped me focus on what I’ve been doing and how I have handle this situation thus far. Me and my wife just received our stimulus check this week. We payed our bills and bought groceries. Then I put some money aside for some art equipment. I was watching a documentary of a guy in Los Angeles named Cartoon. When I was growing up in Bakersfield California in the late 80’s he was a huge influence on my art. He was young like me at the time but was already well known. I found a good bit of inspiration watching this. In watching, I found that he enveloped himself in his environment and created something from that. His inspiration was his environment that he couldn’t escape, so he made it part of his artwork and became famous from it. I’m not looking for fame but I do like the idea of using this time to influence my art.
Caricatures By A Veteran 