Parasite 02

Digital - 297x210mm - 2019

This drawing is one of two (the other is here) created for the third issue of the French punk art zine Ад-Ra. I was invited to be apart of the zine by a French man also named Xavier aka Bikesabbath (check out his work here). I first met Xavier during Kappunk 2016, it was a brief meeting, and I think it happened outside one of the venues, we then met again during 2017 around the time of the Life/Gauze show.

The theme from the zine was Parasite. Other than some technical specifications (size, colour etc.), there were no limits to what I could create, there was no approval process. It was the first time I could create for someone else without having to worry about whether they would like it or not. I didn’t even place any pressure on myself to make something good. I felt free.

I was more than a little excited to be a part of the zine. Although I wasn’t working with any of the other artists, it felt great to be involved with something that involved multiple people creating illustrations. For me drawing is generally something of immense solitude, I get a bit lonely scribbling away by myself. Well I do have the companionship of my needy dog staring at me for attention, so I’m never really by myself. There was definitely a feeling of connection when I was working on this drawing and the other.

I finished the first drawing in a day, months before it was due, so I decided to do a second one, I think I finished a week or so before the deadline for submissions. I didn’t know what to draw and the idea of a head being propped up by a bunch of people came to mind, an ego leeching off people for support, or something like that. I wanted to make it look like an ancient structure. 

After drawing the structure for a few hours, I lost all will to finish it, I found how I was drawing was incredibly tedious and boring. I had a smoke break deciding that maybe I would work on finishing the piece the next day. When I returned to my room I randomly decided to make a Photoshop brush that scattered with varying sizes and opacities. I used it to quickly shade a few areas of the drawing, just to see how it looked. I ended up having so much fun using the new brush that I finished it an hour and a half later.

All in all I had a great experience creating the artwork for the zine, and I unexpectedly learned a few new techniques along the way. Thinking about how serendipitously meeting a French man in Japan, led to me being asked to draw artwork for a zine I couldn’t pronounce, led to me discovering a new way to draw… makes me smile.

I always love how life manages to teach a person unexpected lessons in ways that could never be planned.