Secret Projects! Shhhh!

Halloo all!

Happy sweaty-warm weather! I hope you're all enjoying the weather warming... admittedly, not my favorite thing in the world. Don't get me wrong - I do enjoy the summer months. However, I am not overly fond of being hot or sweaty or as is often the case for me, vaguely sun-burnt despite buckets and vats of SPF 70+. Regardless, summer means parks and picnics and ice-cream, so go play outside!

I've spent only a bit of time enjoying the weather. There has been a bit of apartment flux chez moi (a petit move and two lovely new roommates), and then family whatnot and a secret project of sorts have taken over these past few weeks, severely limiting both outdoor free time and time in the studio. As such, the book project is inching along, snail-style. (Though I am nearing completion on a new spread... it was too wet to finish tonight, so a couple of finishing touches tomorrow should do it.)

But back to the secret project! A certain singer in a band just moved to Greenpoint from Jersey (about time!), and I thought it appropriate to welcome him back to the five boroughs with a little bit of ridiculousness.

So I wracked my little school-tired brains and began doodling... what to do for a band dude? I let my pen wander across the page. The doodles started with guitars... and then all of a sudden the guitars had wings... and then they had beaks... and little legs... GUITARBIRDS! YES!

No eye-rolling. You know you love the ridiculousness.

So the sketch... please note the infinitely awkward upside-down guitarbirdy on the bottom... that definitely did not make the cut...

Once I had a sketch, I started in on my little birdies, using a brush pen (ink) to draw them and then adding color with light washes. At first my idea was to just hang the little birdies all over the room... BUT... if I were a little guitarbirdy, I would most certainly want something to land on. TREEEEEES! Yes! So I cut a bit off my enormous roll of drawing paper, taped it up on the wall, and started inking trees with the same brush pen I used for the birdies.

And then the super sneaky bit... I checked Band-Boy's cellphone for his roommate's phone numbers, wrote them down on the post-it... which I promptly lost. Groan. But I had email addresses! Success! One of his roommate's let me in before his scheduled move-in, and here's what happened.

This - blank wall, roll of paper trees, and a carefully concealed flock of guitarbirdies sandwiched in my copy of Will Eisner's "Comics & Sequential Art" (an excellent read, btw) - is what I had to work with:

Yes, I worked barefoot... it's summer. 'Nuf said.

Step one: Flattened and attached the first tree with a bit of painter's tape, wrapping it around the corner of the wall, and congratulated self on excellent match of white paper and white wall:

Step two: Attached the rest of the branches and stepped back to admire handiwork:

Step three: Chose and attached the first birdie:

And then the whole family:

And a friend:

Step four: Started populating left branches, checking every now and then to make sure birdies were fairly evenly balanced in number and color:

Step five: Danced around the room like a fool, excited by crafty handiwork... and took many photos:

Left:

Right:

Details and characters:

(The little banjos and the pink-red acoustic family are probably my favorites... I kept only one of the birdies - the third little acoustic guitarbirdling.)

Step six: Added little hints of the ridiculousness hidden behind the door:

Finishing touches:

Wait for it... wait for it...

And without further ado, I give you the final product...

Wee! AWESOMENESS!

So there you have it. I actually wrote this post up right after I did my super-stealthy-guitarbird-hanging-caper but had to save it so as to keep it a secret. Whew, secret project-tastic. And with that I shall leave you, dear readers. Hopefully this bit of absurdity will tide you over until I finish the next couple of spreads for my book. For more photos or perhaps your own custom wall paper, feel free to drop a line. ;)

PS You should absolutely check out the band - Diehard - because they're pretty fab. They have some shows coming up both in NY and elsewhere on the East coast during their summer tour. If you're interested, let me know. I'll probably head to at least one of the NY shows.

Diehard