-Josh Hoye

Via Cyriak’s site:
” Hello, I am Cyriak from 100 years into the future, where I have been exhumed and sent backwards in time via cyberspace in order to welcome you to the unabridged contents of my brain-damaged imagination.”

Check out more of Cyriak’s bizzare movies: cyriak.co.uk/

By Logan Zawacki

Let me start with a quick introduction to our artists:

*Chad Landenberger has lived in Jacksonville for the past 6 years where he attended the University of North Florida and received his BFA in Graphic Design. He works for a local advertising agency designing logos, brochures, and websites, but his side work is what allows him to keep his sanity. Chad is involved with the local arts scene and organizes the annual I’M BOARD Skateboard Art Show.

*Shaun Thurston lived in Jacksonville until he was 18, moved away, came back and then moved again to Atlanta about 6 years ago. He had success working with Sneaker Pimps and got in tight with the ATL artists Dosa Kim and Misa Miko. He worked various jobs that gradually led to artistic opportunities, but decided to return to Jacksonville to be closer to his daughter and leave the “pretentious” culture of Atlanta. He still does art projects regularly in Atlanta, but Jacksonville is where he likes to call home.

Now onto the Q&A…

What about the 12-hour drawing part are you looking forward to the most?

Shaun: Hopefully there will be free coffee. That will be needed by the sixth or seventh hour! Actually when I work on a new piece I work for 10-12 hours minimum anyways, so for me it’s just another night.

The only difference is this time your work will benefit the American Cancer Society.

Chad: I’m really looking forward to being surrounded by the artists again. The ONE thing I miss about college is hanging out with my peers, and the people who inspire me, so that’s what I look forward to about this event. Looking over to the person next to me and seeing they’re drawing something really cool, then looking over to the other person next to me and seeing them drawing something really cool, and that’s gonna make me want to do better work.

And it really does make a difference! Myself and all the other guys who participated last year will vouch that when you look to your left & right and you see all these artists creating awesome work it really makes you step it up.

Shaun: You don’t get the urge to get up and kick their sketchbook off their easel? (laughter)

I’ve been talking with the other artists to find out how their lives have been affected by cancer and I was wondering if either one of your lives has been affected by this disease?

Chad: My family hasn’t had a whole lot of cancer. I know one of my uncles died from cancer, but its really scary how prevalent cancer is in society these days. The one uncle who I lost to cancer was a doctor and he told me that every guy will either die from colon cancer or with colon cancer. That’s pretty scary shit! I try not to focus on the negative, I’d rather focus on the positive and at least we’re doing something to raise awareness and money for further research.

Shaun: I have plenty of friends who have battled with it and overcome it. It’s weird how I see cancer as “eh, you got cancer…it’s fixable” but that’s only because people continue to support the funding.

I’ve been on the other end of that spectrum where I only know a couple family members who have survived cancer. Most of the survivors I’ve met have been through my involvement with the American Cancer Society. Before I got involved with Relay for Life I wanted nothing to do with cancer. To me it was a plague. If I knew somebody had cancer it was “goodbye.” But it’s great now being a part of this event and getting to know more and more survivors, and talking to them about how the research being funded by ACS made a difference in their fight against cancer. It’s nice to know that we’re part of something that really is making a difference in people’s lives.

Shaun: When somebody is dealing with cancer you definitely SEE them dealing with it. You can witness the physical change and it’s great watching a community rally around somebody and focus on the positive aspects in life and what’s worth living for. I lost my grandfather to cancer before I was born, and my grandmother lost a third of her lung to cancer, which is my aversion to smoking, but I still see it as a survivable disease (when treated.) Cancer is no longer a word that has to mean death.

Amen. So are there any artists this year that you look forward to seeing produce work, or that you look forward to working with?

Chad: I’ve seen Shaun’s work, but it will interesting to see how he sketches. I think it will be really cool to see different people’s styles. I’m looking forward to seeing how Clay (Squid Dust) sketches because I like his style and Josh Hoye because I think he is an awesome illustrator. Those are just a few of the names I’ll throw out there.

Shaun: I know I don’t want to see my sketches. (laughter) Don’t expect any finished sketches from me. I think of sketches as the beginning of a thought and I need at least an hour to finish that thought. I honestly don’t know who I look forward to seeing the most.

I’m just thrilled to be drawing around all of you guys! All the artists involved this year are people I admire and each person has such a unique style, so to just see their work from a conceptual sketch to the final piece will be great. The 5-minute sketches the past 2 years have really blown me away because they start off crappy and by the end of the day you have miniature bodies of art.

Shaun: To be honest with you, I’ll probably start with 5-minute sketches using paint and small pieces of wood just to get the gestural drawings out of the way and then buckle down and start my larger paintings.

That’s awesome. Really looking forward to that.

Chad, I was curious about your involvement with AIGA and some of the shows you’ve participated in recently with them?

Chad: Well the AIGA is the professional association for design and I got involved as a student, but I wasn’t as involved as I would have liked. Then I met Varick and he became the President of AIGA (Jacksonville) and he really liked my drawings and the shows I’d put on that were more than the traditional graphic design shows that people thought of so he brought me on board as Programming Co-Chair. So that’s my involvement now with AIGA and it has really helped me with my 9-5 job as far as networking and educating me about not selling myself short as a designer. (As an artist) you have a skill that people are willing to pay for, so don’t sell yourself short.

Great advice! So Shaun, you’re back in Jacksonville and I already see you’ve done one huge mural in the back of Underbelly and another one at The Lodge, any other big projects lined up?

Shaun: I just finished a giant mural at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Atlanta, GA. Its this giant cobra busting out of the wall. I did that to make opposing teams cry. (laughter) I wanted to make the deadliest mascot ever and still get paid for it. I’m also about to work on an interior mural for my buddy Ian Ranne. My biggest goal (as an artist) is to create nostalgia for my work. When people grow up with it, or they’ve seen it, and its something they’ve been aware of in the background at a show they went to and they meet me years later and they’re like, “What!? (You did that?)” Because I’m like that with so many people here and I grew up seeing the work of people I’m now friends with, and I see that as the highest form of art appreciation. To be able to grow up with somebody’s stuff. Every time I can afford to do something community based, I’m gonna do it!

Chad: You kind of touched on “when you get the opportunity to give back,” and I think more artists should do that. You can do art all day long, but when you get those opportunities to give back it betters you as a person and as an artist. It’s a selfless act.

Shaun: And you recognize yourself as one of the thin percentage (of artists) who can give back on that level. You can change the aesthetics of a place. People don’t realize it, but subconsciously it’s affecting how they remember that place. Everything down to the bench you wait on the bus for needs clever design. The colors that you see at a restaurant will instantly affect your appetite. The places that are community-oriented and have blank walls, you’re not going to feel like people are putting in any effort. I didn’t grow up to be a doctor or an engineer, I grew up to affect 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional spaces visually. That’s where I can give back, so don’t expect me to be doing CPR, that’s where a doctor can jump in. But I’ll paint a picture of it! (laughter)

This concludes our artist interviews for the Drawing For Life. Thanks for reading and we hope to see you Saturday at the Art Center II!

By Logan Zawacki

Let me start with a quick introduction to our artists:

*Yvonne Lozano moved to Jacksonville over 20 years ago from New Orleans, LA. She attended Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and graduated from Jacksonville University. Yvonne worked for Reddi-Arts and became more involved with the Arts scene in Jacksonville through a couple co-ops and is now a member and full-time employee of The Art Center Cooperative. Her work is on display at The Art Center and she recently has been working on a huge mural on the exterior of Reddi-Arts. Yvonne is also a member of the St. Augustine Art Association, Gainesville Fine Arts Association, and the Art Guild of Orange Park.

*Brian Gray is originally from Michigan and has lived in Jacksonville since he was 10 years old and has always been an artist. He is a self-taught artist who became involved in the Arts scene about 3 years ago and has exhibited in shows from here to Los Angeles. While trying to find Call to Artists to display his work he realized there wasn’t a central hub where Jacksonville artist could go to find out about Local art shows, so he decided to create TheOuterBox.com, a blog site dedicated to Jacksonville artists, shows, and the art scene in general. Brian has been involved with the Drawing for Life Marathon since it’s first year. He heard about the event and donated artwork to auction off and after seeing the results of the first year became a member of the 12-hour drawing marathon last year.

Now onto the Q&A…

Brian, how was the experience last year participating in the full 12-hour drawing marathon? Was it as challenging as you thought it would be?

Brian: It was like the coolest thing. The artists were guys that I had already participated in shows with and admired, so to be around that kind of energy and just have fun with it was FUN. I didn’t even think about the time. You didn’t even have time to think about ‘oh my god, I’m supposed to be drawing for how long?’ Even when we weren’t doing the Power Hours, we were feeding off each other. I was sitting next to Rob watching him paint and watching Ed paint, and then when we started swapping stuff and I was doing my version of David’s Oscar & Sid characters it was just really cool.

Yvonne, I know you’ve had a chance to hear people talk about the Drawing for Life Marathon, so I want to know what you’re looking forward to about participating in this year’s event?

Yvonne: I absolutely love artists getting together and working together, and I’ve dealt with a lot of artists in my lifetime and usually you have egos to deal with that force you to work around them, and I think it’s awesome when you can get artists together who are friends and working together for one common cause. It’s not a contest, its not about ‘I can draw better than you.’ It’s all about your heart and where it’s at, and if you have a skill, use it! Not only am I donating my skills, but its also camaraderie and fellowship with other local artists. No matter how great of an artist you are, you can always learn something from someone else, whether it’s creativity, skill, or even just influence. I was really excited when I got asked to join!

Brian, I know you were inspired by your Aunt’s battle with cancer last year during the Drawing Marathon and I was wondering if Yvonne has lost family members or friends to cancer?

Yvonne: I personally had a scare with cancer a few years ago, and luckily I was able to stop it before it became cancer. My mother had the same scare where she had a medical issue that could have potentially been cancer but they caught it early enough to stop it. So it is definitely one of those things that I think has affected everybody. There are a couple prominent people in the Jacksonville arts scene that are unfortunately dealing with it so I think everyone in one form or another knows someone who has been affected by cancer.

Brian: It seems like the older you get, the more you notice it. I never really noticed it that much until I started participating in this event. Now, I realize how common it is and that cancer isn’t a rare disease.

Yvonne: We just did Artsy Bras with The Art Center in October as part of Breast Cancer Awareness month and it was interesting having all these women come out of the woodwork about ‘this woman had her breast removed’ and ‘this woman had both breasts removed’, ‘I had a biopsy’, ‘I had a scare’, etc.

For me personally, the best part about participating in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life event is that the funds don’t serve one kind of cancer. It provides equal amounts of funding to find a cure for skin cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, etc., because there are so many different forms of cancer! The American Cancer Society strives to find a cure for EVERY form of cancer. I can’t applaud them enough for what they do.

Back to the Drawing Marathon, this year we have 14 artists involved and I was wondering if there is one or two artists you two are looking forward to seeing produce work?

Yvonne: Who’s on the roster again? (laughter) Just kidding!

Brian: I’ve known Shaun Thurston for a while and I’ve seen all kinds of his work, from murals to artwork on people’s arms, so to see what he comes up with for the marathon and during the Power Hours will be interesting.

I’m definitely excited to have him be a part of this because he wasn’t even supposed to be in Jacksonville, by chance he returned and it all worked out. Yvonne, do you have anyone in particular?

Yvonne: Gosh. Everyone! I’m totally one of those people who can learn something from a five-year old, know what I mean?

I don’t have any 5 year olds participating this year. (laughter)

Yvonne: I just try to be that open-minded and act like a sponge, soaking it all up. I’d love to see Logan’s work because I’ve known him for over 10 years. I met him back in 2000 when we both worked at Toys R’ Us and I had no idea what he did. He left Toys R’ Us and disappeared for a while and then our paths crossed again a few years later at The Art Bar.

Oh lord, who knows? If I met you at The Art Bar I don’t remember. (laughter) If it was a Thursday night…good times!

Yvonne: It was a Thursday night actually. I remember. But then I found out you were into the Art scene and I saw the work you produced and was very excited.

I was just as excited to find out you were a local artist because when we worked at Toys R’ Us I didn’t even know you did art! Now I have to know something, what inspired your unique style? Your body of work is inspired by childhood memories, but what inspired the way you present those memories?

Yvonne: It all started my last year at JU, I was doing a lot of figure studies and portraits, and around that time one of my family members had just passed away. My family is from Colombia so it wasn’t a relative I’d see all the time and one day I was flooded with all these memories of her and my childhood when my mom called to inform me she died. Creepy. The last time I saw her I was a kid and she lived in this tiny town in Colombia with dirt roads and chickens coming out of the houses and I remember she was always so happy to see us. She would make us these little coconut ice cube things with a toothpick in it and we would be so excited because it was 100 degrees there. She would just be so happy to make us happy. I could see her, I could smell her, and I was moved by the simple life that she lead. I started asking myself why I didn’t appreciate the little things in life as I got older?
Then, my mom had bags and boxes full of old photographs from when I was a kid, and there was one picture of me and my sister in two trash cans that my mom had filled up with Mr. Bubbles. We were really poor growing up in New Orleans and the roads would flood a lot (as everybody knows by now.) So in New Orleans we would have the equivalent of Snow Days when it would rain too much and my mom would have to come up with creative ways to entertain us. Again it was an example of a simple life, so I wanted to create it. My characters originally had eyes and were bonier, since I’m pretty bony. (laughter) After a while of developing my style, the mouths were removed and the children became fatter, and I wanted to my work to look like a child was making it from afar, but as you get closer you realize it is more complicated.
The coolest part about people viewing my work is finding out I wasn’t the only one who had these weird experiences. Listening to people say, “I remember doing that” or “I did that as a child” was really cool.

Everybody has filled a trashcan with Mr. Bubbles. I mean, who doesn’t have that story? (laughter) After you’ve explained it your style makes perfect sense. It’s inspired by the simplicity of childhood, and by the simplicity of your relatives, and the way you translate your characters in a simplistic nature makes total sense. Thank you for sharing!

Brian, I have one question for you. After getting attacked a couple years ago for your artwork not being “Art” how have you bounced back from the criticism?

Brian: Well, honestly the criticism never meant that much. It pissed me off. It all really boiled down to not being a bunch of artists coming after us (Brian, Squid Dust, Ed, ToyCrusher), but one person. The best part was no matter what that one person said, I still had people who loved my work and his opinion didn’t affect them. I’ve seen plenty of people look at my work at a show and I can tell they’re thinking, “This isn’t art. What the heck is this?” But then there are the other people who see my work and they have to buy it. My work lately has much more thought put into it and is more than just trying to make something look cool. I like to cater my work to the skate & surf culture around Florida.

After all your experiences with local galleries, gallery spaces, and different art co-ops, do you have any words of advice to local artists

Brian: You’re better off as an artist if YOU go to businesses, if YOU go to empty buildings and YOU talk to the owners about using their space. Don’t let someone else do it for you. If I go to talk to an owner I’m going to be more passionate about describing myself and my art compared to someone who is just trying to help me out. You’re better off selling yourself versus having someone else do it.

That concludes the informative part of our Q&A, but if you’d REALLY like to get to know Yvonne Lozano and Brian Gray check out our “10-minute Q&A” session that covers off the wall questions like “Can you name all of Santa’s reindeers?” to “Who would win in a fight between He-Man and Lion-O?”

These interviews are TheOuterBox.com exclusives!

Haiti Benefit happening 3/3 durring Art Walk with a great line up of bands:

Crash The Satellites

Wild Life Society

Besotes

Wudun

RICKOLUS

Heavy Flow

Manatella

Music starts at 6pm

 Art filled room of amazing pieces. We are holding a silent auction and the artist being kind as they are donating their amazing works, for the cause.
And ALL money raised will directly help all the unfortunate people in Haiti.

 Moon River Pizza will donating a ton of pizza and refreshments will served.

 So eat the best pizza in town, listen to the beloved music of Jacksonville and, bid on your favorite artist  and 100% will go to the poor folks in Haiti.

Matthew S. Bennett

Kim Barry

Brian Gray

Joey Thate

With your kindness of just five dollars will provide: Housing, Food, and Clothing. So be a part of the world here at home and have fun doing it at Suite106 Gallery in the Jacksonville Landing!

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The 3rd Annual Drawing for Life marathon to benefit the American Cancer Society is in on this Saturday from 10am-10pm. I will be drawing, painting, and overall creating some fresh new work to help raise funds for the ACS along side my fellow local artists.

In conjunction with the event- I have come up with four brand new paintings that are really one of a kind and will help me out in raising some funds for the ACS. 100% of the sales will go to the ACS to help me fight in the battle against cancer. The auction is on eBay til Friday at 9:3PM(or so). Bidding begins at JUST 5.00. Each painting is done on vintage Japanese paper, painted using acrylics, signed, dated, and comes in a simple black frame measuring 8×10. Please help me raise some funds for the American Cancer Society and bid away. Not only will you be helping me reach my goal but, you will be taking home a very unique piece of my work at a very affordable price. Check out all the works I have up for grabs on eBay here! Thank you all for your support!! You can also make a one time donation by just clicking here. Thanks for your support!

Brian Gray on eBay

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By Logan Zawacki

Let me start with a quick introduction to our artists:

*Ed Dansart is one of the main contributors on TheOuterBox.com and this will be his second year involved with this event. He participates in regional shows throughout Jacksonville and South Florida, and is a regular artist with the local comic book company Chalkline Studios. When he’s not working on new art projects he also plays guitar in a few local bands.

Now onto the Q&A…

Who in your life has been affected by cancer that has inspired you to become involved with the Drawing for Life Marathon?

Ed: I’m inspired by my uncles and aunts who lost their battles with cancer, as well as some who’ve survived. (I’m inspired by) people I look up to and role models such as Special FX great, Stan Winston, Michael Crichton, Michael Turner the comic book artist who died at the young age of 36. He died just a couple years older than me, so that’s very scary. It affects everybody!

Ain’t that the truth.

This is your second year participating in Drawing for Life, what do you look forward to the most about this year’s event?

Ed: This year is gonna be a whole new ball game! First thing is the amount of artists that are participating. Going from (Logan) and David the first year, to our small group of 6 last year, to 14 this year…that’s just crazy! The other big thing is it’s open to the public, which I think is good, but it will be a little different for me because I’m not used to working in front of people. I’m usually very private when I work on stuff.

Is that something you’re looking forward to? Or are you a little hesitant or scared?

Ed: A little scared. (laughter) I can play music in front of crowds of people, but that’s more like a group thing, so hopefully that will transcend since it’s a group Drawing Marathon. When I do my work I’m usually secluded in an art studio, so this will be a totally different atmosphere, but I think this will be good to get more people involved and make a little more noise.

Absolutely! And hopefully more funds this year to help further the cause.

You mentioned drawing in front of a crowd this year and the actual place we’re having it is The Art Center II, which is part of The Art Center Cooperative, which you are also a part of. Would you mind briefly talking about The Art Center and your involvement with it?

Ed: Basically I’m a hanging member. I just hang my stuff pretty much. (laughter) Seriously though, I do work there and try to put in my hours during Art Walk or other Gallery Openings. Art Walk brings in 1,000+ people each month and we showcase a lot of different artists. From the weird stuff I do to more traditional landscapes, we have a little bit of something for everyone. It is definitely a great place if you’re a local artist looking for some exposure. The Art Center also does a lot of work for the community.

I want to give a big “Thank You” to The Art Center for allowing us to use their space for this awesome cause!

Is there a particular artist you are looking forward to seeing produce work this year?

Ed: What’s cool about this year is the variety of artists and how different all of our backgrounds are. We’ve got lowbrow artists like Brian Gray and myself, photographers like (Logan Zawacki), fine artists like Shea Slemmer, designers and commercial illustrators like Chad Landenberger and Tim LeNoir, so we’ve got a lot of artistic backgrounds coming together and its ALL going to be interesting to see. I don’t have a particular artist I’d like to see, but maybe all the new people. I look forward to seeing what they produce.

I’ve got to agree with you on that one. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the new artists can do!

Ed: Last year, even though we were all different artists we still shared the same aesthetic taste. We all liked comics and shared similar backgrounds, so to bring in artists who don’t necessarily have a love for comic books or share the same aesthetic should be pretty interesting.

Outside of the Drawing for Life Marathon, what other projects are you currently working on or exhibitions you currently have?

Ed: I’ve got nothing. (laughter) Nothing. I’m just loafing around. (more laughs) No, I’ve got some work down in Gainesville at this cool little place called The Laboratory. I’ll have new work at The Art Center for the March Art Walk. I’m mainly working on new things, and there’s a cool comic book store down south called Tate’s Comics that I’m working on a piece for them. Other than that I’m just keeping busy designing t-shirts and flyers for some bands.

My last question, if you were to pitch the Drawing for Life Marathon to another artist what would you list as your favorite part of the event?

Ed: Probably the camaraderie. Meeting like-minded artists and potentially doing work together down the road is really cool. Like last year I knew about Tim LeNoir and seen his designs and clothing around town, but never actually met the guy until the Drawing for Life Marathon and he’s a really cool guy. Fortunately this year I actually know everybody, so it makes it less intimidating, but I’m interested to see how everyone works together.

I’m definitely looking forward to getting to know our fellow artists. This is a great opportunity for each of us to get to know one another and not just the name. We all know each other’s names because we’re part of the Jacksonville art scene, but we rarely get a chance to actually work with each other.

Ed: It’s a tight-knit community, so we all know each other, but there are a lot of opportunities to do shows locally for new artists. Jacksonville isn’t very clique-ish when it comes to getting involved with shows. There’s so much going on here that you don’t have to break into a certain group of people. Shows like I’M BOARD and any of the Joe Van Dyke shows are a great way for new artists to get involved and avoid the politics of showing their art. Another good way to keep up with the art scene in Jacksonville is to check out all the local Blogs.

That concludes the informative part of our Q&A, but if you’d like to REALLY get to know Ed Dansart and Logan Zawacki check out our “10-minute Q&A” session that covers off the wall questions like “What Star Wars character are you?” to “What is the most random job you’ve done?”

These interviews are TheOuterBox.com exclusives!

The interview you are about to read is part of a series of Artist Interviews tied in with the 3rd Annual Drawing for Life Marathon that will take place on March 6th, 2010 from 10am-10pm inside The Art Center II (111 E. Bay St., Jacksonville, FL 32202: located above the Ivey Bar.) Drawing for Life is a 12-hour draw-a-thon featuring 14 local artists and all the artwork created throughout the day will be sold with 100% of the proceeds going to the American Cancer Society as part of their annual Relay for Life fundraiser.

By Logan Zawacki

Let me start with a quick introduction to our first two artists:
*David King is the co-captain of the Drawing for Life Marathon and this will be his third year involved with this event. He is the creator of Oscar & Sid, a daily online comic strip about two best friends who just graduated college and all the antics that taken place in their lives. David noticed that none of the comic strips in the Sunday paper targeted the “SPIKE TV” guys market, so he wanted to produce something different. The first three hundred Oscar & Sid comics strips will be available in book form later this year and you can keep up with the duo daily by going to www.oscarandsid.com.
*Rob Jones is a comic book artist originally from Long Island, New York. This will be his third year involved with Drawing for Life, but only his second year doing the full 12-hour marathon. He works full-time for Dick Giordano, a comic book veteran and former executive editor of DC Comics as well as Charlton Comics. When Rob isn’t working with Giordano, he runs his own comic book company by the name of Chalkline Studios. The company was founded by Rob and their anthology series, Unleashed, has featured artwork by fellow DFL participants: David King, Ed Dansart, and Logan Zawacki. Rob is also looking to publish his first trade paperback later this year titled Perfect Storm, in which he writes, draws, inks and colors the entire book. Preview the book at www.perfectstormcomic.com.

Now onto the Q&A…

What is it about this event that keeps you coming back?

Rob: It’s a good cause. We’ve all been affected by cancer. Everybody has somebody they know and care about that has been affected. As artists we can only do so much, but we’re gonna do our part to do what we can.

Who are some of your biggest inspirations? I have a couple relatives whose passing really motivated me to get involved with the American Cancer Society, so when you’re drawing and you’re thinking of that person who inspired you to do this, do you have one or two people in particular?

David: Well, I lost my grandmother to leukemia. My cousin’s husband died at 33 yrs old. He just woke up one morning with a pain in his knee and 3 months later he died from cancer. And then just this year my uncle passed away, actually about a month ago, and his death was caused by pancreatic cancer. So it’s affected my family pretty hard.

Rob: My little sister had breast cancer about 7 years ago. That was tough.

So she is a survivor?

Rob: She’s okay, she’s home now. She lives in New York and I went back to visit her (during treatment) and I’m very glad I lived in Florida because I could not take it.

David: (to lighten the mood he turns to Rob and says) How are your boobs doing?

Rob: Mine are terrific!

David: You check them on the 12th? (laughter)

Rob: I’m working with a B-cup, trying to get them down to an A-cup.

All that running will pay off eventually. (David & Rob have been running to prepare themselves for the Donna Deegan 26.2 Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer.)

Is there any particular part about the Drawing for Life Marathon that you look forward to every year?

David: Last year when we had more people and we saw the Power Hours come to fruition, and we saw everybody’s versions of those different characters, that thrilled me to no end! To Brian’s take on Spider-man and he’s a skull Spider-man, to see all that stuff is kind of like when (Logan) and I first started talking (about DFL) how it would be cool to see all these people do this kind of stuff. The Power Hours are fun and make me feel like we’re actually doing something.

And for those of you who don’t know what a Power Hour is just yet, basically we have one entire hour where every 5 minutes we start a new sketch. So at the 5-minute mark you stop whatever you were working on and move onto the next chosen topic. In the past we’ve done characters from Marvel, or video games, or some generic theme. Well this year it will be even more generic in order to support the various artists we have, the different painters and illustrators, so we’re gonna use themes that are far more loose. Instead of saying “draw Spider-man” we’ll say “draw anything you can think of when you hear the word beach.”

David: Are we doing 10-minute sketches, or still keeping it at 5-minutes? I think we were talking about it.

I think we’re gonna do a couple 5-minute hours and then do a couple 10-minute hours, because I believe we’ll have four Power Hours this year. (If you’d like to witness a Power Hour they will be scheduled at 11am, 2pm, 5pm, and 8pm the day of the Marathon.)

Rob, is there a favorite part for you?

Rob: My favorite part is at the end of the last Power Hour when all the sketches that we’ve done were collected and you saw this mound of finished work. It was very cool!

Are you guys surprised by the quality of everybody’s work? In a matter of just 5 minutes, everybody gets focused and just gets down to it and draws. Here’s your limit…draw it! (Are you surprised) by the ability of artists to just throw stuff together like that?

David: You can tell how popular the 5-minute sketches were because the first year (we did Drawing for Life) people ate them up. When you’re loose and not thinking, it brings out your personality, the fun…

…Individual styles.

Rob: I had a really hard time with the sketches the first year until we got to Napoleon Dynamite. (laughter) And then for some reason I just nailed it and from that point forward I had a blast. But I really struggled up until that one sketch.

David: What’s funny is as he’s talking about Napoleon Dynamite, I can flashback and I remember doing that one. Even though we’ve done God knows how many, I can remember each one of them.

Well, we do 12 an hour and we did five Power Hours the first year, so we did 60 each. Last year I believe we also did five Power Hours, so 60 sketches a person makes 360 5-minute sketches total!

Are you guys excited about going LIVE this year? This is the first year Drawing for Life will not be held inside UNF’s Photo Lab behind locked doors. This will actually be live and open to the public for 12-hours straight.

David: I’ve always thought we needed to do that. There were six of us sitting in a room and the Power Hours were jazzing us up, so can you imagine people watching us?! It’s gonna be a blast! People perform better when they’re “entertaining” so it will bring out a lot of personality and good times.

What do you think about the number of artists involved with year?

David: I think its great to get more people, my only concern is that they’re doing it for the right reasons. I don’t want people doing it just to make a name for themselves. As long as they keep to the meaning of why we’re doing it, then the more the merrier. Last year, everybody knew why they were there and were jazzed to be doing it for the cause. I hope everyone is still excited about doing it for the “cause.”

Is there a particular artist this year that you’re excited to see produce work?

Rob: Well, my favorite artist in the group is standing right in front of me, Mr. Logan. I love when you do your sketches and they always turn out great. They always make everyone else work harder, so every year I look forward to seeing what you do.

Thank you very much, Rob.

David: I’m looking forward to everybody’s work, but I’m really looking forward to the artists like Ed and Tim and Brian, who have a more modern style and when they’re forced to draw something they’re unfamiliar with, the stuff they produce is amazing. When you take them out of their comfort zone of robots and octopuses…(a humorous jab at Ed) the stuff they come up with is brilliant.

For me personally, I was flat-out blown away by Ed’s renditions last year and the style of them. I know our (art style) is so familiar and when we draw comic book characters we draw them like they look, like the way we grew up drawing them. Where Ed and Brian’s style, and even Tim’s sketchy style, are totally different interpretations that I found insanely interesting.

David: That’s what I said…that’s what I meant to say. (laughter)

Rob: When it’s spoken eloquently, that’s what he said.

David: Did it sound like I was insulting (Ed)?

A little.

David: I’ll try harder next time. (laughter) Are we gonna do an all octopus Power Hour?

Ed Dansart: Sweet!!!

* If you’d like to hear the rest of the interview please download it here.

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