“SELFIE” is very busy and has a mixed medium of ink and pencil. I haven’t attempted to do this before and didn't even know if the two would mix well but I'm happy with the outcome.      

    I was in-between drawing “Octopus” and “Seahorse” and didn’t have anything with me except my drawing tools. I was just getting on a plane from Malaysia to Korea and with time to kill, decided to put the pencil to the paper. Slowly a face emerged in pencil. For some reason I grabbed my pen and started with that, too. Then more pencil and ink and pencil and ink, etc…. the plane landed and it was then that I realized a couple of things: 

      1. this was going to be a very intricate piece,

      2. It was going to be filled with mixed media, and

      3. I was going to name it ‘SELFIE”. 

    The title became so because I had just taken so many selfies in Malaysia. With that, the theme of the drawing ended up with more of a Vanity Kills type of theme. The frame going through the chest of the subject represents the way that people get so caught up in their world of selfies that they don’t even realize the things that are actually in front of them. It was possibly inspired by a version of an old 17th century painting called “Vanity”.

      "Selfie" also displays content from my Sea Creatures series, making it a kind of off shoot of it.  Behind the main subject is an underwater scene with the 5 creatures that were on my mind while working on the Sea Creatures series. I wanted that part of this piece to represent what the subject might think is really going on in his life but, in all actuality is not. .The reality of his life is what's around him. Chaos. Thats right- the chaos is a true representation of what is going on in his life. 

    There are many more hidden similarities between the Sea Creatures series and “Selfie", so keep your eyes peeled for them. What do you think? Be sure to look for many, many images hidden throughout. (Oh, and I hid one of the monkeys that I had a selfie with in Malaysia.)