2007-01-28 Illustration Friday -- RED -- Rhinoceros-Egret-Dog

2007-01-28 Illustration Friday -- RED -- Rhinoceros-Egret-Dog, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Thanks to Illustration Friday, I'm going to be forced to buy biking leathers and a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Cos I was strolling down the main aisle of Cresta shopping centre, easel hanging off my shoulder, napsack on my back, my tablet computer ensconced in the napsack's warm, moist, fertile interior. When all of a sudden I thought, 'Hey! It's the Exclusive Books sale! Let me see if there's anything I can put onto my overloaded credit card!'

No sooner had I thought it, than I was upon the rows and rows of sale tables.

And one book called my name.

FREEDOM: Credos From the Road by Sonny Barger.

I bought it. And went to Mugg & Bean to paint my Illustration Friday pic, on the topic 'Red'. As is my wont, I couldn't leave well enough alone and simply interpret the topic in a linear way. Instead, I had to go lateral. Again.

But when I got to Mugg & Bean, my favourite window seat at the table next to the plugpoint was occupied by a woman with loutish kids making smart-alecky remarks that made the woman laugh.

It's sick. Sick.

Sick that someone could sit at my table! Thereby making it impossible for me pull my computer out and start working on my Illo Friday pic.

I was forced into starting Sonner Barger's book.

Sonny barger is the archetypal Hell's Angel. I'm not exactly sure, but I think he started the movement. And he's got some incredible things to say about life and ethics and honesty and laws and treating people well. He's got a philosophy that I could have written. Cos it's completely in line with almost everything I think and do.

All that's missing is my leathers. My bike. And my wandering along the open road.

To be fair to myself, I WAS a biker a long time ago, but I had a pretty narrow escape from a serious injury in a major accident. And my brother, one month after my accident, lost his arm and about a year of his life to hospital recuperation due to his own serious accident.

And one of the bibles of my early adult life remains Robert Pirzig's ZEN & THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE.

Anyway. The woman with the kids wasn't budging. So I decided to move to the other plug point next to the cash register, deep inside the shop. Not a great spot to babewatch. But hey.

And that's where I implemented my take on 'Red'.

Keith, one of the managers there, helped me with lists of animals. There were three categories. Animals whose names started with the letter 'R', those that started with 'E', and those starting with 'D'.

o Red Panda. Rooibok. Raccoon. Rabbit. Rat. Raven. Red Herring.

o Eagle. Eggeater (a type of snake). Eland. Electus Parrot. Elephant.

o Duck. Donkey.

In the end, I chose the Rhinoceros, the Egret, and the common or garden Dog.

So here's my contribution to the world of R.E.D.

By the way... it's my duty to inform you that my button shop is up and running, and causing a stir. Please don't visit it if you are easily offended. It's a little bit like T-Shirt Hell, in that I'm attempting to be as tasteless as possible in some cases. Though there are one or two safe ones.

This painting was made using CorelDraw 10 for the initial design, and ArtRage 2.2 for the painting, on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc (whose battery is wrecked, hence my need to sit near a plugpoint), in Mugg & Bean Cresta, with the first third of FREEDOM: Credos From the Road by Sonny Barger devoured.