A day of death.

   So, November 2nd, Octane Gallery inside Kustom Thrills Tattoo shop in infamous historic East Nashville will be a large group show titled "Dia De Los Muerto". A theme show calling on many local artists to bring their embelishments to the topic of the Festival of the dead, or day of the dead.... followed and including some heavy drinking... I'm sure.
   I, like many of these artists chose a "back door" approach. Flashes of brightly colored sugar skulls and Mexican Skeletor seem to haunt me with a fever of over exposure, so i did a little more research.  I chose marigolds for a static repeating element due to their relation to the subject...and continued on to the more frightening theme of the visage of death and decay.

   Goin' with a 15in by 19in size in loo of a fuckin' sweeeet ass frame i found at Goodwill, I started a small scaled prelim sketch including a decaying lolita, wind brushed candles, and a shitbox of marigolds and greenery from a sort of aerial perspective. I also included a tattered scrap of paper in her right hand. Now on to the final line copy that I will do on velum with microns and sharpie.

    With this out of the way i can take a crisp clean drawing to Kinko's and have them enlarge it to the final size.

  Dude, I was amazed how well the marker on velum drawing worked in the enlargements. On previous peices i had taken dirty three and four color pencil and ink thumbnails in for enlargement and gotten fuzzy yuckfest enlargements out of it.  Not the case here...fuckin' a.
   After cutting a large scrap piece of Masonite to size and priming it, I'm on to gluing the paper enlargement down.

   Here is our affixed and dried line copy. Now i can start laying in the main tones of color......stay tuned for more. cheers.

                                                     -jonny