Shipwreck Waffle Maker

The past few months I've done a lot of planned drawings: using reference photos and working for a distinct look in the finished piece. This was done for the blog and while it can be gratifying, it can also wind you up. As one of my teachers told me in high school, "you've got to be loose before you can become tight.". What he was saying was that I'd start my drawings out too rigid. The result was that the line work was good but the overall drawing didn't flow. In the years following that advice, I really worked to make my style looser. In fact, most of my work following high school became very abstract. It was loose and that was the goal. But lately my work, though I'm happy with it, is too tight and that can make drawing uncomfortable.

So, I was eating breakfast at Shipwreck three weeks ago and while waiting for my food I got the urge to draw. I was in an early morning, "still waking up" mood and was very mellow so I knew anything I was about to draw would be loose. I had a pen but no paper so I went through my wallet and pulled out an old business card. Flipping it over, I cranked this sucker out in a few minutes. As a result, I got what I can only describe as a "runner's high"; that mellowed euphoria one gets after a good workout. This almost always happens when I haven't done a loose drawing in a while.