Rose Flash, Q. Cassetti, 2014 pen and ink, digitally colored.

I have been figuratively running around chasing my tail. Not much amusement to this idiot game, but none the less, I have been running and running and not being able to get that furry puff between these long teeth of mine. Around and around I go, making a path from the skibbling in the dirt--kicking up all sorts of momentum, but really not going very far than round and round and round. I am seeing that maybe this can begin to have branches off the path, but that will take a bit of focus and time to get it together. I have, however, outside of this trot, been doing some flash style drawings of roses for a project I have been honored to be given. I have been taking my inspiration from the recognized tattooist, Sailor Jerry (nee Norman Keith Collins, January 14, 1911- June 12, 1973). Sailor Jerry has inspired a look that Ed Hardy has modelled his tattoo illustrations (flash). My approach has been a bit more uptight and pulled back than the looseness of Sailor Jerry and Ed Hardy.

Sailor Jerry Roses, Norman Keith Collins (Sailor Jerry).

I am so pulled back that when the client made a teensy moue around the idea of a tattoo gracing their product, I started spinning the dream around woodcuts...and we were good to go. I love it that by sheer redefinition, the same image goes from bad and difficult to no problem good, holy and acceptable. I guess my roses are a bit of a marriage of both as I am not as loose and fast as the tattoos, and not as totally uptight as the 1629 rose...but a marriage of both. Does that mean the same about me as an illustrator. Heaven forbid!