As mentioned elsewhere on this site the first memory I have of drawing was when I was around 4 or 5 and took it upon myself to embellish the upholstery of our family’s dining room chairs with a Carter’s Marks-A-Lot permanent marker. I learned two very important lessons from this experience:
- Artistic expression on furniture doesn’t impress mom & dad
- Scribbling is the most fun thing in the world to do
From that point on I didn’t necessarily want to draw more, I had to. “KISS guys” as I called them back in the day were my main subjects. I could do a mean Alice Cooper, too. His makeup was a lot easier to draw – after a few trips to the record shelves at K-Mart I had his makeup design committed to memory. I became a drawing machine; in 1st grade I would draw KISS guys in exchange for actual KISS trading cards (thanks, Leah S. wherever you are). I had a pretty sweet collection built up by 2nd grade.
Will draw for KISS cards
The drawing machine ran full blast up until computers came along in the mid 90’s and kicked my pens and paper to the wayside. I’ve drawn here and there since then but not nearly as much as I used to. A few years ago my brother Chuck (check his amazing illustrations out here) thankfully bought me a sketch book while visiting us in Brooklyn. After a year or so of watching it collect dust on our bookshelf and thinking “I need to start using that thing…” I finally busted out a black marker and put it to use. Fast forward another year and now it’s almost full. A few things in there ended up being used for Iced Ink art and there are a lot more that will probably join those ranks someday. With the exception of one or two pencil drawings on the first few pages of the sketch book they’re all black marker. That was my favorite drawing utensil as a kid and still is to this day. It’s forced improvisation which makes it as annoying and frustrating as it is fun. If something comes out of the marker not looking like it did in my brain? Tough titty. MAKE IT WORK as Tim Gunn says.
I recently signed up on Instagram after hearing some friends of ours (ahem) talk about it and suggest that the wifey and I check it out. After all, one can never have too many social networking profiles. I wasn’t sure what to do with it at first so I snapped a picture of one of my doodles “Goofynnocchio” and thought “Hm.. I should do this every so often.” After a few consecutive days of posting more drawings, “every so often” became a challenge to myself to do at least one a day for a year. I’m signing them all EEK – that is my illustrating alter-ego. “Ekim” was my nickname in high school which became “EEK” for short. Eventually more people knew me by that than they did my real name. It’s more fun looking and a lot quicker to leave EEK on a drawing than m i k e k r e n n e r. Sheesh, I get tired even just typing it out.
THE RULES:
- Markers and pens only (i.e. no erasers so if I fuck up, too bad)
- Try and keep the time I spend on each one under 10 minutes
A lot of them won’t make much sense but that’s how I roll. Making sense isn’t all it’s always cracked up to be. Alls I care about is having fun, keeping my drawing chops up, and hopefully even improving them. Right now as I type this day #17 (“sadmau5“) is under my belt. 348 days to go!
http://instagram.com/mistermicycle
