Plan B - Drink and Draw

Last night at the Chair Affair I ran into a friend who happened to be running the sound for the event. He mentioned a couple bands playing over at Plan B afterwards so since I wasn't busy and had consumed a couple free drinks already, I decided to head over. I carry my sketch books around with me almost always and so while I waited for the bands to start and for Joe to get done breaking down the "pipecloth" I started sketching a bit...

As I was drawing a picture of me thinking about monsters to draw one of the bartenders asked if she could draw me a picture. And then asked this girl, who was only identified to me as "Almost a Doctor" to add onto her drawing... The result is this charming doodle of someone confused as to why they are being pee'd on by a dog. The bartender drew the person, the "almost doctor" drew the pissing pooch.
Shortly after this the music started, and with the small crowd and my prime bar stool, I couldn't resist trying my had at capturing them... The first band was a husband wife combo called Destroy Nate Allen. Their energy was pretty awesome, talking the crowd into singing, clapping and participating with them as they sung silly punk folk songs about riding bikes and how he hates the song she likes..
Next up, and probably my favorite act of the night, a group called Dangerous Ponies . Their band is pretty massive, their music catchy, and their tambourine player is so hard core that he cut his hand up on his tambourine. Plan B must be used to this, as they dressed his hand quickly and returned him back to the stage before the next track was complete.
About this time Joe show'd up and another group came on who's name I didn't catch. Their music was pretty mellow/dark sounding with an 80's new wave edge to it.
Finally the band that Joe is friends with, Cat Fancy, was on. They were pretty rocking, I drew the lead vocalist a second time, cause I felt she came off way to manish below, but I think that drawing ended up with, as I drew a pretty silly and ill drawn picture of him on the back side.
There are more non-band related doodles from the night but I think I'll save them for another post. Also, I'll be posting more about the chair affair as soon as I download and sort the pictures I took.

Mountains Made of Fur

I recently began exchanging tweets with Jessica Gowling of Natures My Friend. She's a printmaker and artist from Canada who's work often centers around nature. Recently she finished making the "Mountains Made of Fur" zine pictured above and sent a tweet out asking if anyone wanted a copy. I, of course, tweeted quickly back that I would love one.

The envelope arrived in my P.O. Box held together with a furry triangle sticker. And after careful consideration I opened it down the right side and slide the contents out.

I can't show you everything that was inside the envelope but here's a few glimpses...

And some fun stickers, including my favorite "When Life Gives You TENDONITIS Make ZINES" .


The back side of the Zine folds out into a poster, and that's going up on my newly made inspiration walls ( more on that in a later post). The stickers should be finding their way around town soon. As a thank you for sharing her art with me, I'm sending a package back ( should be in the mail soon) with one of my comics and some other goodies... I haven't really done any mail art swaps before, but if anyone else is interested in a swap, let me know! If you want to get in on Jessica's mail art, be sure to find her on twitter!

Packages from Afar

If there is any benefit for me about Laura, aka CuriousDoodles, traveling and leaving me here in Portland, it's that I often get cool things in the mail. I haven't shared any of these mailings publicly but she was recently in India, and I just received the following package from her.

I forget the name for this type of mailer but the whole thing is wrapped in a soft canvas like fabric and held together with string and what appears to be wax.

I think it's by far one of the coolest looking packages I've ever received in the mail. I have yet to open it though, as I'm not sure how to do so without ruining it. My guess is to start with the string and sort the rest out from there. I have a hunch though that this is a storage package ( she's been sending back stuff she doesn't want to lug on the rest of her 6 month trip), so once I check in with her I'll see if I should even bother to try and open it or just leave it for her return.