“In a world where attention is a commodity, the physical act of drawing is a powerful tool, to express and create ideas. It can create an amour to deflect things that are not relevant to your vibe. “

I now wake up super early, any where from 5am (body is fresh, ready to draw, training and read books offline) or 7am, depending on the doms (delated onset muscle soreness) from over training, where is my ice pack and deepheat at? Man needs Hecovery (In the deep Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Accent, if you know, you know).

Do the mundane morning task of the day. I wash my face and brush my teeth. Boil the kettle to have my first gourmet coffee, freshly pressed in my AeroPress, this week is the Ingana limited edition from the Taylor of Harrogate, man is charged and that aroma is the one.

Make a fresh green smoothie before my workout too. Man puts bare ginger, like the proper Sorrel and Ginger ting in Jamican, not the watered down counterfeit with bare chemicals.

“I use no chemicals only juices and berries.”

-Prince Akeem of the Kingdom of Zumunda, Coming To America *

This morning I reflect over some new concepts I’m starting to develop, after looking back at few old comics, the typography is starting to draw me to another world (the comicbook world). Just think the juxtaposition of the comic text and graffiti style is definitely the way forward. Remixing and re-meshing sketches.

Just a quick study of my tag ‘Swish’ above (done on Adobe Photoshop with a Wacom Intuos Pro). The S is a standard graffiti style, the W is an Origami style, the I is a cut throat blade with a basketball symbol above to represent the superscript dot, the S is a ghost like figure bouncing a ball and finally the H is a bubble letter style.

“Avengers Assemble.”

-Captain America of the Avengers, Avenger Endgame

Avenger or Dark Avengers? lets see how the sketches are going, work in progress write now. The process is Idea > Sketchbook > Digital (Photoshop or Illustrator TBC) > On a wall somewhere on LDN? The possibility is limitless!

After watching Jim Lee’s drawing tutorials on youtube (see the magic in the video link below), This man is a Korean G, when I was in primary school, his drawings of the X-Men had a profound effect on me. He helped create Gambit with Chris Claremont, I actual did a A3 sketch of Gambit and someone stole it in my class (kids will be kids).

Even being a child, man knew the power and respect you got from being an Artist. There was a Irish kid a year above named Kiren, man had the skills to draw all your favourite WWF characters like Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior in caricature form, he use to draw all the boys dope muscle bound men who were Hench. I also had close family friends growing up Respect to Jhames and Jayson Belardo for the drawings of Optimius Prime back in East Ham. Mans young mind was blown to see young teens the mad skills with the humble pencil or pen.

Not to forget Papa Milenko drawing table in his home studio with a drawing board, a craftsman can have a place to draw exquisite technical drawings of building. I also remember my cousin Mio’s drawing of a gun in felt tip pen, His younger brother Oli’s pinboard of wonder, ticket stubs of a LA Lakers game, photos of beach scenic views from around the world, photos of his handball team and medals of winning. All visual nuggets of information to feed my younger brain, no smartphones or even internet at these times. The mind was offline and experiencing thing in a tactile state, to touch is to learn no AR, VR or AI here.

Drawing can increase focus and attention to detail, how? Well drawing requires hand and eye coordination that you need to develop, we all start of drawing stick men as kids. To evolve we need to understand basic geometry, by breaking down a complex form into a series of simple shapes. We can start to draw the initial ugly part but overtime the quick gestural sketch can seduce you to some cool visuals (but remember this takes work to get to this level). Failure should be expected and failure is always apart of the drawing process. Remember great buildings were build on ideas of multiple layers of tracing paper, the first is never the best. Iteration gives you the firepower to overcome the feelings of this ugly drawing in progress, say the mantra ‘work in progress’.

When people say to me; “I can’t draw.” never believe them, I am an Optimist and I know everyone can draw. It just takes time and effort, these days people don’t want to fail. Now I am older failure is apart of life, I hate losing. A great example would be my father buying me a Chess set from WHSmith and then beating me multiple times and I would cry as a child. We are not always going to get what we want in life but by reading, reacting and adapting. We can get a bit better for our personal growth.

I have also done my research on how to setup up channel on how to teach others on the planet, how I draw analog and digital, did my first test recordings today, need to fix the sound and improve the lighting before I make my first elusive youtube video.

I have just got back from playing some hoops with my boy Mark, did some shooting drills. No sun today but it was great catching up with him, getting our shot on… Swish. Its probably been over a year since I have been on the court, summer days is definitely the one!

Time to get back on the creative vibe, peace.