Skip to main content

Shake It, Baby

The Shake-Niggurath - Threadless T-shirts, Nude No More

So my good friend spruce (aka Jeff) forayed into that limitless mire of hipster fashion, that bog of sarcasticaly appreciated t-shirt design, threadless. He's an artist, as you can see (and by the by, entered some 24 hour comic something or other, and made this very cool, very quirky, very spruce comic ). He's got a great style. I always get the impression that many of his characters are Dali-inspired Gumby-dolls infused with malevolent intent. There's a pliability there, and a quirky fun that you only get when you arm a serial killer with a very strong rubber band, I imagine.

Anyhow, he created this from scratch. From nothing. That whole creative process thing is terrifying and weird and I think is put under too many words and thinking; and, like zen or your first wedgie, can only be really be known by experiencing it. Nevertheless, I'll attempt to blather on a bit.

When I asked him about his design he was vague. Like, he drew it and whatnot, then thought of a back-story. Like whatever was driving the creation of it and whatever he later lacquered on as a 'story' were completely separate.

That's pretty cool.

You read critics and people who 'care' about art or music and whathaveyou, and they tend to analyze art and meaning until it's desiccated husk would be too dry for The Economist. But, it seems that more often than not, there's just a 'oh shit lets just go ahead and do it and worry about the details later' approach. In a world of checklists and how-to books and endless self-analysis and re-analysis, there seems to be some truth in this method.

There's this old samurai saying that I'm sure I got off some anime or samurai comic or anime samurai comic, and I can't find the quote, but the gist of it is 'given the option between an elaborate feint, the awesome dude will just charge straight ahead'. Paraphrased there, a bit. I think the original is a little more formal and mentions cherry blossoms. But the heart of it is to DO, I guess. Less dithering.

And, as you can see by this t-shirt design, this creates more awesome.

If you think it's as super rad as I, then please go to Threadless and vote.

Comments

Unknown said…
Thanks for the encouragement, pal. A lot of stuff like this I draw comes from nothing in particular. I draw some lines, it starts looking like a face and some more lines and the face looks all melty and blobby, so I start drawing blob monster, blob monster seems to have the consistency of a McDonald's milkshake, so I draw the monster oozing out of a discarded cup and colour it pink. It's not a straightforward process, but most of my drawings make a sort of sense to me. I think it's more fun when that thought process is opaque to the viewer and they have to do a lot of wondering.

Popular posts from this blog

Insults From A Senile Victorian Gentleman

You SIR, have the hygeine of an overly ripe avocado and the speaking habits of a vaguely deranged chess set. I find your manner to be unctuous and possibly libelous, and whatever standard you set for orthodontal care, it's not one I care for. Your choice in news programs is semi-literate at best and I do believe your favourite news anchor writes erotic literature for university mascots. While I'm not one to point out so obvious a failing, there has been rumour that the brunches you host every other Sunday are made with too much lard and cilantro. If you get my meaning. There is something to be said about your choice of motor-car fuel, but it is not urbane and if I were to repeat it, mothers would cover their children's ears and perhaps not a few longshoremen within earshot would blush. How you maintain that rather obscene crease in your trousers and your socks is beyond me, perhaps its also during this time that you cultivate a skin regime that I'm sure requires the dea

Europe : Italy Venice Cram Tour - March 23

 The bullet train's only hiccup, thankfully was the text to speech announcer and we made it into Venice. A city hollowed out by AirBnBs and skyrocketing costs of living. Before the pandemic it got approximately the population of Canada in tourists every year. A romantic city, a city that seems only fit for secret agents or heiresses taking a break from the yacht. Thanks for not killing us, pal! It seems that going from Rome to Florence to Venice we've been gradually getting into smaller and more cramped streets with every jump. Rome was tight and packed but at least cars seemed to get up to a fast enough speed to do some real damage to a family of four. Florence, or at least historical Florence where we went had mostly pedestrian ways that grudgingly allowed cars, and most often just seemed to be scooters. Venice is entirely people. People and boats but a boat isn't going to run you over unless you are doing your walking tours, really, almost impressively wrong. One gets th

Learn A New Thing...

Man, you really do learn a new thing everyday. There have been a few shocking realizations I've had over the past month or so: -bizaare is spelled bizarre (how bizaare) -scythe is pronounced "sithe", not the phonetic way. Which is the way I've been pronouncing it in my head for my whole life. My entire youth spent reading Advanced Thresher Sci-Fi and Buckwheat Fantasy novels, for naught! -George Eliot was a woman, real name Mary Ann Evans. -Terry Gilliam is American. -Robocop is a Criterion Film. I shit you not . -Uhm, oh damn, just after I post this, I find that, this movie is a Criterion film as well . Maybe I don't know what being a Criterion film really entails.. Alright all (three) readers of my blog, post and lemme know some earth shattering facts you've learned recently.