Gallery of the Absurd

Sketchbook Chronicles: People Watching in Las Vegas

One of my all time favorite recreational activities is people watching. I can be thoroughly entertained for hours as I sit and observe the parade of humanity pass before my eyes. My sketchbook and camera are always handy for recording some of the more unusual and entertaining specimens that happen to catch my interest. Above is a quick sketch of a bickering couple I saw trudging down the Las Vegas strip. I'm not sure what they were arguing about, but they were doing it loudly and seemed completely disgusted with each other. He looked like a giant angry owl with his pointed hair and large-framed thick glasses and she was dressed in schlumpy tourist garb, but had obviously spent hours applying heavy makeup and sparkling jewelry.

A few months later, a client was flipping through my sketchbook and spotted the owl man. He screamed "that's it!" and asked me to create a character logo for him to use as his company mascot. So odd.

Sketchbook Chronicles: Forget Crabs, Paris Hilton Has Worms

From this week’s episode of “Hollywood Geographic”:

Biologists have recently unearthed a new species of worm: the Heiress Worm Lips. The worm lips, as seen here on Paris Hilton, are oversized, fright-inducing invertebrate that thrive as parasites on attention-hungry heiresses. Heiress Worm Lips are considered larger than humanly possible, and typically filled with Restylane. This species has little substance outside of the injected collagen and has difficulty forming big words. Worm lips can be found blowing kisses to photographers, wrapping themselves around bongs, kissing the butts of B-movie directors and latching on to Rick Salomon in the best-selling DVD, 1 Night in Paris.

In everyday language, the term worm is also applied to various other living forms, such as larvae, centipedes, shipworms and Joe Simpson. medium: ink and gouache in sketchbook, digital color, text written by Holy Candy.

Sketchbook Chronicles: George Bush Cries Every Day

I've been really bored with this week's celebrity gossip news, but the report of President Bush admitting to shedding tears of "self-pity" and witnessing ghosts emerging from the Lincoln Bedroom happened to catch my eye. Bush claims,"I've got God's shoulder to cry on...And I cry a lot". After reading this article, the first image that came to my mind was of George Bush tearfully clutching a giant teddy bear/deity with a look of indifference on its face. I quickly recorded the image in my sketchbook. Another image came to mind too, but I'm on the fence about whether or not to post it. Some folks get awfully touchy when you mess with the President...which is why I'm so tempted to post it. Medium: scan from sketchbook, digital color, text.