I'm glad my dad taught me to draw...

 My dad, Tom Emig, with my sister Cheri, and me, about 1972.

For this Father's Day, I figured I'll blog about my dad, because he's the guy who taught me how to draw.  As a little kid growing up in small town Ohio, a career in art, or making a living at any kind of creative work, was out of the question.  Art was for "those weirdos" in New York City and L.A..  The kids I grew up expected to either work in a factory, on the assembly line, or in the office next to the factory.  My dad, Tom Emig was a draftsman, he drew huge pictures of machines, and machine parts, which the guys in the shop used to build the items.  Drafting was as "artsy" as you could get away with, back then, in the Midwest.  As I grew up, dad worked his way up to being an engineer, despite not having a college degree.  He was a mechanical genius, he deeply understood  how machines worked.  I did not inherit that.  But I did love to draw.

One of my Sharpie scribble style drawings from about 2011, using the isometric drawing ideas my dad taught me when I was about 11.

 One day, on a camping trip, when I was 8, I was sitting outside our little camper drawing something, probably a curvy car, like all us kids drew.  My dad sat down next to me, and asked, "Want to see how to draw a Jeep?"  By Jeep in those days, he meant the classic "Army Jeep," originally made by Willys.  Movies and TV shows about world War II were big in the 1970's, along with the TV show MASH, which all featured Willys Jeeps, so they were a cool thing to us 70's kids to draw.  My dad showed me how to draw a side view of a Jeep in about 2 minutes.  He drew one, which I'd never seen him draw before.  Then he got a piece of paper, and I had one, and he showed me, step by step, how he did it.  One tire, then the other, then draw the body around the tires.  In ten minutes, I was drawing really cool Jeeps.

Seriously, it was freakin' amazing.  I was in 3rd grade, and Jeeps, tanks, and halftracks, were our favorite things to draw in school, when we were supposed to be doing classwork.   There were about 5 or 6 of us boys who were good at drawing, always competing to outdo each other.  My dad's simple way to draw a Jeep blew my mind, and I practiced it the whole weekend on the camping trip.  I probably drew 10 or 20 Jeeps that weekend.  

A long way from those early Jeep drawings, here's a convertible VW bug I drew in 2019.  #sharpiescribblestyle

 But the best part came when I went back to school that Monday morning.  From being about the #5 drawing kid in class, I sat down and drew a Jeep before class, and blew the other kids' minds.  My new Jeep drawing skill catapulted me into the #2 spot, of the kids in class.  One kid could draw really good tanks, so he retained his title as #1, in the other kids opinion, but I was a solid #2 suddenly.  That totally helped my confidence in art, and I quickly used the Jeep drawing skill, and started turning out solid halftrack and tank drawings, vying for the #1 spot in class.  While shy and dorky in most cases, I became "the kid who draws Jeeps really good," which was a cool status back then.  

Looking back, my dad sitting down for a few minutes, and teaching me to draw a good Jeep, also helped me find something I was good at.  I was a smart, dorky, super shy kid, who sucked at sports (except dodgeball), and I caught a lot of crap from other kids.  But drawing was something that commanded some respect in school, and becoming "officially" good at something many other kids respected, helped me cope.  And it got me drawing even more.  Drawing pictures became a go-to for me when overwhelmed by all the other B.S. in life.  It also helped me keep in touch with my creative side as most other kids were losing their creativity to "growing up."  

Kurt Cobain drawing from 2017, used as a flyer for my first solo art show in Winston-Salem, NC. #sharpiesctribblestyle

 Two or three years later, my dad taught me basic drafting skills, how to draw the top, side, and front view of an object, using the 45 degree line in the corner to transfer lines and points.  He also taught me to draw isometric and oblique angles, another basic drafting skill.  This led to getting straight A's in drafting in high school,  and also led to me being a "creative dude," in general, which led to getting into pottery in high school, something else I got good at.  

More than anything, getting "good" at drawing as a young kid, encouraged me to spend a lot of time doing creative things.  I was a huge daydreamer, and always had big dreams, but never really tried to make them happen.  But I could sit down and draw for 45 minutes, no problem.  This kept me in touch with, and experimenting with my creativity as I grew up.  That later led to publishing a zine, which was the first longer term creative project that I really committed to.  That zine led to a BMX magazine job at age 20, and that changed the entire course of my life. 

"Harley Quinn/Joker Tainted Love" drawing, 2018.  This is my personal favorite Sharpie drawing that I've done.  I had to sell it cheap while in Richmond, Virginia.  I got out of the hospital after a week long stay from an allergic reaction to medicine, and I needed money to get a motel room for a night.  Still bummed I lost this one.  #sharpiescribblestyle

 From there, I wrote for magazines, edited and shot photos for a newsletter.  Then I got the chance to produce videos, and that got me into video and TV production.  My point here is that helping a kid learn to draw for ten minutes, or do some other creative activity that they're interested in, helps not only their self-esteem at the time, but helps them learn to work with their creativity in general.  And that has lifelong, lasting effects.  While I don't make a decent living (at the moment), I'm now one of those "artsy weirdos in L.A.."  I'm now best known as a Sharpie artist and blogger.  And in today's world, creativity has huge value, and much of our culture and economy is based on creative activities.  So teach your kids to draw, or paint, or sculpt, or play music, or whatever, when they're kids.  In this post, you can see that I've evolved from drawing Army Jeeps.  

Sumatran tiger drawing, 2018.  #sharpiescribblestyle

Michael Jackson drawing, 2018. #sharpiescribblestyle

David Bowie with Bowie knife, 2019.  #sharpiescribblestyle

"Peek-a-boo."  I'd been wanting to draw eyes real big for a while, so I tried it in 2020.  #sharpiescribblestyle

Blogging as a tool to build an audience for artists and writers

My Sharpie Scribble Style drawing of David Bowie with a Bowie knife.  He was on the cutting edge of music for decades. I drew this for Facebook a friend while living in Richmond, Virginia, and then left at a bus stop by accident because I'm an idiot.  I started trying to sell my Sharpie art in late 2015, and I wasn't known as an artist at all then.  I've sold around 90 originals and 150 prints over the five years since, using my blog and Facebook as my main promotion.  

If you make some kind of art or write, and want to sell or promote it, I think you should have a blog.  Now I'm a longtime, hardcore blogger (12 years, 40+ blog ideas tried, about 6 serious ones, 380,000+ total page views), so of course I think you should have a blog.  It's kind of like asking an insurance salesman if you need insurance, the answer's always, "Absolutely."  But do you think you need a blog?  That's the real question.  Here's why I think blogs are good for artists and writers. 

As most all of you know, a blog is a kind of website that you post on time after time, on a regular basis.  It's on the internet, as opposed to on a social media platform, like Snapchat, Facebook, etc., which means people can do a Google/Bing search for your blog.  When you blog your thoughts, ideas, frustrations, photos, videos, or whatever, it's available for most of the world to read.  If you actually want to sell your art or writing, getting your name out there is how you begin to do that.  

Another good reason for a blog is that, because blogs are constantly being updated (2 or 3 times a week is a good goal for most people), search engines love blogs.  Blogs rank high in search results more so than a website that was built once, say in 2014, and has been sitting there untouched ever since.  New content on your blog tells search engines "Hey, there fresh stuff here, check it out."  

Another good thing about blogs, unless we hit the Mad Max days or something, the internet's going to be around for quite a while.  Social media platforms, as big as they are these days, come and go.  When's the last time you checked your MySpace page?  How 'bout Friendster or Squidoo?  Sure, everyone's on Instagram... right now.  But it will fade in popularity at some point, and all your content will fade in popularity as well, or maybe diasappear.  Blogs tend to be around a long time, and they actually gain readership over time, as people find and share different posts.  

Another good thing about blogs is that you can write primarily, like I do, or you can embed videos of yourself or others, you can add links to podcasts, you can link every post to your social media, your Etsy or Shopify site, or anywhere else.  That makes a lot more places in the online/social media world where people can find your photos, art, songs, writing, or whatever creative work you do.  Blogs aren't a substitute for social media, but a good addition to social and other forms of promotion.  

You can also use you blog to promote your fav hashtag.  Take a second and search mine:  #sharpiescribblestyle .  Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram.  I'm not on Snapchat, so you can skip that one.  I don't rock on all of those, but when I meet someone who wants to check out my artwork, I tell them to search my hashtag... anywhere.   Social media usually leads them to one of my blogs at some point.  I'm a fucking homeless guy (no booze, no drugs, just for the record), but I have a better online/social media presence than most small to mid-sized businesses. 

The internet and social media platforms are sort of like free land where you can build a big billboard that says, "Check my stuff out!"  When someone does see your stuff, and thinks it's cool, they can easily share it with other people. That word of mouth (and word of mouse,text, and share) promotion gets your name, and what you do, out where lots of people can see it.   If you blog steadily, and spend some time promoting your stuff, you begin to build a following, or build a bigger, and more important, more solid, devoted following.  

I was able to start selling mediocre art quickly in 2015 because I already had a solid following for my Old School BMX freestyle blogs.  As I got more orders, my art game improved a lot, since I was drawing every day.  I also got more orders, and became known as a Sharpie artist with a totally unique style.  I don't make real living off my artwork, but I've been able to scrape by as a working artist, for five years, and now I'm pivoting to do more writing, and a bit less artwork.  What I've learned from promoting my blogs and artwork can help a lot of other people, like yourself, promote whatever it is that you do, whether it's art, writing, music, small business, whatever.

So that's my basic thoughts on why artists and writers in particular should have blogs, in my opinion.  Hit me up with any thoughts or questions on Facebook (Steve Emig- North Hollywood) or Twitter (@steveemig43).  Now get back to creating something worth promoting.

 

 

Planting flowers in Hell: poetry, other arts, and the gift and dedication of creativity

My favorite bands are mostly punk bands, the music I listen to most often, are bands like Social Distortion, The Descendents, and Face to Face, and several others.  But when I'm in a creative mood, actually working on creative projects, I listen to this entire concert of the Lilith Fair in 1997.  I've watched and listened to this dozens and dozens of times.  This is one of the best documentaries on creativity I know.  

"Writing's so bizarre.  I think that's why it's so fulfilling.  It's like you're... you're making something out of nothing."

-Shawn Colvin, Lillith Fair, 1997 documentary (above)

To be able to reach into the void, to literally stretch your soul out into that other dimension, and bring out something new, something you think the world needs, to breathe life into it, and set that creative piece on its journey into the physical world, that is the work of an artist.  And that work requires every bit as much dedication as that of a doctor, or a soldier, to do it well, and do it consistently.  An artist, a poet of life, may not fight battles with guns, but we are always fighting battles. 

While in North Carolina, three years ago, living in a tent in the woods, and drawing my Sharpie art day after day, fighting the darkness of the deep shadows of the worst aspects of Old Southern Culture, it seemed like I was planting flowers in Hell.  I wondered if it was all worthwhile many times, like when I was hunkered down, under a tarp, inside my tent, as a Carolina thunderstorm raged around me, thinking about drawing at the library the next day.  One day I realized, if you plant enough flowers in Hell, it doesn't feel like Hell anymore.  That is our work as artists. 

To keep trying, keep creating, to build our technical skills, and learn our own creative process, to bring new things, new creative works, new ideas, into the world.  That is our job.  If you dedicate yourself to that over the long term, you eventually build up the drive to keep going no matter what forces of the evil parts of the everyday human world throw at you, or our own fears and personal demons we may be wrestling with. 

 That is our job.  We light matches in the darkness and create new lights to share and pass around and light new paths.  To do that, we must be sensitive to the creative sparks and the nuances, but also build a toughness to break past the doubters and haters.  At this point, if you put me in front of a firing squad, condemned to die a moment later by the executioners' guns, I'd write a haiku on the spot and recite it, as my last work in this world.  

You pull the trigger

Sending lead death to end me

A poem comes, I win

Sometimes it takes that level of dogged dedication to be an artist.  History would forget the names of the firing squad members, and the leader who told them to shoot.  But that poem, that haiku would be written down and remembered, I guarantee it.  

Yes, sometimes it takes that level of dedication to your creative work to be an artist.  Most of the time it does not, thankfully.  But there is a dedication to being a poet, a painter, a sculptor, a songwriter, a musician, a dancer, a content creator, a director, a producer, an inventor, a graphic designer, whatever.  You may not face the firing squad for your creative work, but you face days of creating crap, you face your insecurities, your personal bad habits, your doubts, your mom's doubts, your dad's doubts, everybody's doubts.  You face moments, even days, where it doesn't seem to be working.  

And then... that spark comes, from somewhere.  That next right idea that you need to create.  But the spark is the just that, the spark, it is not the poem, the song, the play, the finished work.  Then comes the dedication that you've built over time, the work to take that creative spark and form it with your technical skills, into the piece of art to share with others.  

Some pieces of art may be instant hits, going viral in your genre' to be admired and to inspire many people in a short amount of time.  Other pieces may not receive much initial excitement at all.  They may sit out there in the world, seemingly unnoticed, for months or years.  But in that time, in their place, those pieces inspire one person here, and another there.  And years later someone thanks you for creating that piece or work you'd long forgotten about.  It did have a purpose, it was needed in the world at the time you created it.  Maybe that "failure" ultimately inspired entire new people and new ideas while you went on, busy elsewhere.  You never know.  

There is a reason we are driven to create something.  Sometimes it's just for our own survival.  Sometimes we just need to get out of our everyday mindset and goof around, and make something to keep our own spirits up.  Sometimes we create a gift for someone dear to us, to help them through a dark time.  Sometimes we create a piece of art that speaks to many, many people.  Sometimes we may create something that seems like no big deal at the time, but it sparks a whole new genre' of creativity in other people.  Sometimes we may create a work that speaks to our times, and helps drive a major, needed,  a change in society itself.  

We never know, as artists what effect a certain piece will have.  Our job is to actually live life, and to learn and grow as artists, to dedicate ourselves to doing the best work we can, as we journey through life.  Our job is to learn our own creative process, to follow our our weird path, to build our technical skills, and to drop everything and create that next piece of work when the spark hits us.  

The world of humans needs our work, even if it may not seem like it at the time.  The world needs us, as artists, no many how many mean and seemingly evil people (most of whom are blocked artists themselves) may try to destroy us.  The world needs new creative pieces of work, new ideas, of all kinds, constantly.  The world needs you to create.  Do your best to hold up your end of the bargain.  Keep creating.

Become

You must risk

If you're to succeed

From when we grow

Sometimes we bleed

Each must climb

Over the fence

For the only cage

Is ignorance

Each Jedi Knight

And Shaolin monk

Evolved from

A lowly punk

Don't get caught

In the world's throws

We must become

Our own heroes

 

-The White Bear 

(aka me, Steve Emig)

A couple of memes I made a while back, on the idea of creativity...

 

Amanda Palmer- "The Art of Asking TED Talk"

I "discovered" Amanda Palmer back in late 2012, I think, when I saw her in CSPAN and she was asked to play her song "Ukulele Anthem."  I loved that weird song at that point, a dark time in my own life, and while I never became a huge fan of her music, I found her way or working in the world as a creative person fascinating.  At some point, I ran across this TED Talk, and it's become one of my favorites.  She later wrote a book called The Art of Asking, and she had a great "Authors at Google" talk about the book, which is a much longer and more in depth dive into these same ideas.  Great stuff. 

Moby interviews Shepard Fairey (the Obey Giant guy for those who don't know)

As I've been doing my Dave Voelker drawing, selling a few, and shipping them out this week, I've been on a Shepard Fairey interview kick.  I've watched 4 or 5 interviews, and found this one that I'd never seen before. 

I saw my first "Andre' the Giant has a posse" sticker in about 1994 (95?) in Huntington Beach, I remember the exact spot.  When I first saw the "Obey Giant" stickers, it really fucked with my head, which was his whole point.  It made me wonder if he had sold out, if the CIA had kidnapped him or something to force him to work for them, or what the hell was going on.  I became a fan of his work.  I became a huge fan of street art while homeless in 2007-2008, though I'd been slapping stickers on my own as a BMX/skate company guy, since 1986 or so.  I also developed a wide range of "non-destructive" street art applications of my own during that year.

Anyhow, I was never a Moby fan, I've never seen him actually speak before this, and the music just wasn't my thing.  But this interview is great.  I dig Moby now.  They talk about Shephard's first punk song he remembers, which was in the skate video Skatevisions, which my one time boss, Don Hoffman produced.  Hearing that really stoked me out.  Agent Orange is the whole soundtrack, and I used to play that video when I worked at Unreel (Vision Skateboards' video company) just to listen to the band.  They talk about Shepard's ideas about art itself, art in public places, street art going mainstream, street artists in galleries, and Moby tells his story of how the Republicans stopped the Pope from appearing at a climate change rally in D.C., and a bunch more.

This is a great look into the minds of two really prolific and talented creative guys, and there's a lot of talk about punk rock, as well.  If any of that piques your interest, check this interview out. 

How I sold 80 major pieces of art, starting without a dime, while homeless

It's a really long and crazy story.  At age 49, I wound up living with my mom in a small North Carolina town, and could not get hired for any job whatsoever.  I sold a drawing in my weird Sharpie "scribble style," now and then.  I decided to focus on making money with my art.  That was in November of 2015.  I literally didn't have a dime to my name.  I had my art supplies, a room in a small apartment, and a refurbished HP laptop still running Windows XP.

I still don't make an actual decent living from my artwork.  But in the last 3 1/2 years, I've sold over 80 of my drawings, most of them for $120 to $160 each, a few sold through a gallery for $250 each.  These drawings, 18" X 24," take me 35 to 45 hours each to draw, on average.  That's not much money per hour of drawing, mostly because I was homeless most of the time I've been drawing and selling these drawings, and have been selling them to pay basic living expenses.  Obviously, if you start in a better position than I did, and you art is of a good quality, much more is possible.

Here's how I sold those 80 drawings:

1.  I committed to doing what it took to actually sell my work.  I decided I was actually going to do the day to day work needed to make and sell my Sharpie drawings.

2.  I sat down at the computer one night, looked through all kinds of art online for about three hours, and asked myself, "What would I actually want to put on my wall?"  I simple stencil of my first childhood hero, Bruce Lee, was the answer to that question.  So I printed out the photo, and drew it in my style.  I knew then that I needed to focus on drawing picture of inspiring people.  That was the subject matter that worked best for my style at that time.

3.  I tapped into the online following I already had from my BMX freestyle blog.  I primarily used Facebook, my main social media platform at the time, to show people my artwork, and ask if anyone would like me to draw them something.  My first orders came within a week or two of doing that.

4.  I sold my art cheap to start with, and offered to re-draw any drawing people didn't like.  A lot of people will tell you, "Don't lower your price, your art is worth much more than that."  Those people don't actually sell art.  They may make a lot of it, and show it off on Instagram and Facebook, but they don't sell much.  Let people get a cool piece of your work for a reasonable price, and make sure they're happy with it.  My first few drawings I sold were 12" X 18," they took me 8 to 12 hours to draw, and I sold them for $20-$25.  The key word there is, I SOLD them.

Then I sold a bunch of 18" X 24" drawings, that took me 18 to 22 hours to draw, for $40 to $50 each.  Again, I SOLD them.  I got better at my craft, my drawings improved, and I raised my prices to $75 each, then to $100 each, then to the $120-$160 range.  I always offered to re-do the drawings if people weren't satisfied.  I never really want to re-draw anything, but I do want people to be happy with my work.  These days, after thousands of hours of drawing, that's not really an issue.  Guess what, not one person who bought a $50 drawing is bummed that my drawings later sold for $150.  I'm now at the point where I'm raising the prices to $350.  I'd rather not sell the original and sell prints at this point, anyhow.

5.  I started a Go Fund Me campaign early on, the idea was to earn raise $1,000 quickly so I would have money to make prints to sell.  I didn't just ask for donations, I did drawings for everyone who pledged money.  In reality, I did raise the $1,000, but I did it drawing by drawing over four months time.  The Go Fund Me campaign just became an easy way to order and pay for my drawings online.  The $1,000 goal encouraged people to help me out and order a drawing.  It also allowed me to draw every single day for four months straight, and get into the rhythm of being an actual working artist.  By the time I reached my goal, I got set up on Paypal, and just kept taking orders online.

6.  Moved to a city that had a decent art scene in North Carolina, though I couldn't afford any place to live.  I wound up living in a tent in the woods, which I definitely DON'T recommend, and scraped by.  Some guys who saw me drawing one day suggested I show my work to a local record shop, which I did.  They liked it, and I wound up doing a small art show there.  That shop, a really cool one, was Earshot Music, and Phred, the owner used my Kurt Cobain drawing for the online flyer (above).  Only a handful of people came to the show, but one was an artist and collector from the 1980's New York City art scene.  He bought the Cobain drawing the day before the show, and wound up buying three more drawings form me.  I also sold about 10 more drawings through the record shop, most to one couple.  That just shows the power of getting artwork out where people can see it. 

I also found one studio/gallery owner who really liked my work in the downtown art scene there, and she sold a few more.  I wound up having trouble getting paid for some of my work there, so that relationship wound up bittersweet.  She promoted my work a lot, but also had trouble paying me sometimes because her cash flow issues.  That's another risk of this that you just have to deal with as things happen. 

7.  When I moved into the tent in the woods, I had several blogs going.  I brought them all into one single personal blog, Steve Emig: The White Bear.  Though three of my blogs drew good sized followings over the seven years before that, I wasn't sure anyone would read a blog about old school BMX freestyle stories, Sharpie artwork, and my thoughts on the future and the economy.  But that blog just had its two year anniversary, and has 76,000 page views in two years.  My blog readers are where most of the early buyers of my artwork came from, and where I still keep getting some art sales from.  I highly recommend a blog, or for most people these days, a Vlog, to promote your artwork, in addition to Instagram, Facebook, and whatever other social media you're using. 

8.  I used Pinterest to help build my web presence for my artwork, and I found one good hashtag to use all the time, #sharpiescribblestyle.  I use other hashtags, particularly on Instagram, which I'm not very psyched on, to be honest.  But Instagran has a huge reach, and can definitely get you followers, and maybe sales.  Use the social media platforms most that you actually like most.  Nearly all my online sales I've done have been handled on Facebook from people who read my blog.  But I took the time to make sure that is you look up #sharpiescribblestyle on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or Google images, you'll see A LOT of my drawings.  That just took work, day after day, of actually taking the time to put stuff on each platform, with tags and hashtags, day after day. 

Like I said, I did this while living much lower, and with less resources, than most all of you reading this will ever have to deal with.  I'll go into more depth on these ideas in this blog as time goes by.  But these 8 ideas above are the basics of how I sold over 80 major pieces of art, while homeless most of the time, in the last 3 1/2 years.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to finally get to a place where I can turn this writing and art into an actual, stable living.  I've had a lot of headwinds holding me back at times, but I've had a lot of people help me out, as well, at key moments. 

My battery's going dead, no place to charge at the moment, so I'm going to post this and proffread it when I can.  Sorry for any typos at the moment...