Back in 2009, a friend of mine asked me to illustrate a tattoo that he described as “The King of New York Ultimate Kick-Ass Basketball Tat.” I was shocked when he told me what he had in mind: he said that it would have a basketball wearing a crown as the centerpiece, and surrounding that would be majestic lions and the World Trade Center and King Kong scaling the Empire and, obviously, the Himalayas. After my giddy laughter subsided, I started drawing. Three years later and the tattoo has been inked. Below is a photo and an excerpt from the original brief. Move over Frank White, there’s a new King in town.

Design Brief: The King of New York Ultimate Kick Ass Basketball Tat:

1. 2 majestic lions
2. the Brooklyn more pref. Williamsburg bridge
3. world trade center
4. basketball (on fire or not)
5. “KING OF NEW YORK”
6. crucifix???
7. Shamrock???
8. Empire st. building
9. Kong?
10. Crown
11. HUGE possibly japanese magestic mountain w snow and clouds

This multimedia painting is a portrait I did in the early 2000’s. That’s me on the left, along with my cousin Jered (center) and friends. The image is based on the photo below. This piece was done with acrylic paint, colored pencil, and a photocopy transfer technique (involving using nail polish remover to transfer ink from a photocopy to a layer of acrylic) that I used often at the time.

For more images from this sketchbook, see my previous post.

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I’ve had this sketchbook for nearly a decade and it means a lot to me. In a former incarnation, this was a book about the Dag Hammarskjold Library at the U.N. I have defaced and repurposed it so now it is a sketchbook. It says ‘Old Liar’ on the spine, which is one of the derivations I made out of the former title of the book (another derivation is visible on the cover). There’s a lot of collage in it and drawings as well. Here’s the book and a few pages.

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