Welcome to my Blog.

Welcome, this is a new thing for me, blogging. I'm telling you right now, I don't have time to edit, so we are going to have A LOT of mistakes and run on sentences. If that's something that might bother you... I'm sorry.

What am I even writing about? I'm not sure really, they say, "this will help drive traffic." Doesn’t matter, I'll just write my thoughts on things and stuffs. Life's been tough, exciting, and very "real." I recently had a child, I'm moving back to a state I didn't think I'd move back to in a few months, and as I write this my brother-in-law just died. I'm not kidding, fifteen minutes ago I got the call. You might be thinking, Jesus, why are you even blogging then? Well, it's late, they're far away, and I had cried earlier when I found out he was on life support. Mostly I'm writing this because I've been meaning to start a blog for years and life just doesn't seem to quit to let me get it done, and maybe that's excuses, but right now I am out of them.

Art… My art has been an unscratchable itch I keep pawing at. Why I am compelled to create, I can't tell you. I think it varies from time to time and it changes a lot. I can't wait until the worlds align just for me to paint something. I'd never get anything done that way. This is true with tough times, but especially true with good, so careful of those too. If you only do art when you feel like it, it’s a hobby.

I decided to tackle this blog like an art piece even before I got the call with the bad news because I decided to sort of curate my website and "online presence" like an art piece because it was never getting done. And as broken up as I am inside about his passing I'll go through my creative motions to get past it all. In future blogs when I'm done introducing myself I'll speak more on specific pieces I am currently working on, or how to’s, etc.

Traditionally I'm an oil painter, and have been a professional tattooer for the past fifteen years, I write screenplays and last year finished my first fiction book Driving Mussolini (Coming Soon). But for the past couple years now I've transitioned over to digital art.

So to let you know where I'm coming from with all of this, let’s start with what I like. My inspirations range wide, too wide sometimes it doesn't make sense. I have an eclectic repertoire to pull from, you see I was born in Istanbul, my parents were French and American. Very French. And very American. I lived on three continents before the age of ten. As a kid I loved Euro-comics, the masters from Belgium and Spain, you know, Blacksad, Asterix, Tintin, and the more obscure weird spacey stuff (love European Sci-fi). Obviously Marvel and DC, Heavy Metal, 80s cartoons in America. Asia’s Anime, Manga, and traditional art, love it. Also since I'm naming continental art styles, I've especially loved the South African sci-fi grime that they have, that Elysium, District 9 look. In writing these I'm leaving out so much, all the historical figures I treasure, impressionism, renaissance period, etc. All this to humble-brag that I got good taste I suppose. ... I suppose introductions are humble-brags…

Right now I'm working on the Monolith Series. I know… Monoliths have been around for a little while now, and I know of a few damn good artists that crush the Monolith game (really it’s all they do and they do it well), but I had this mini-epiphone on why the monoliths are on planets (all in my head, I know there is no such thing as interplanetary Monoliths), but it inspired me enough to come up with a story behind other Monoliths that I wanted to make my own. On a technical level it was a little over my head in the medium, but I needed to push myself. All this shit is self taught.

I’m also putting together my book Driving Mussolini. It is finished and edited, but putting together a book is a lot more complicated than just numbering pages and sticking a cover on it. Could be I’m terrible with measurements and rules, but, it’s almost done, and I’m very proud of it. I love the story and I know it would make a great movie. I wrote it as a script first so maybe I’m partial to that idea. Only issue I see now is, do I just throw my book into the abyss of Amazon self publishing?

Tattoo wise… man. I. I have a weird relationship with tattooing. I think I might need an entire other blog post on that. Aw. I’m already thinking of future work. See, that’s when I know I’m enjoying it. And right when I do Boom, yes reality kicked back in, Andy is dead.

Ugh. I really liked him too as a human being. Maybe I’ll write a blog post dedicated to Andy.

This is why I do Art. Sort of lets the foreground thoughts take a break.

This devolved into a rant, but here it is, I want to try and get two of these out a week (as I wrote two, my inner whispery voice said, “Good luck with one.”). These next three months are jam packed, but I want to let people know what it’s like juggling life as an Artist. I don’t have time for tutorials or any of that shit. Like, step by step stuff. There’s pleeeeenty of that out there, If you have specific questions, I'll be more than happy to answer you. I’ll be settled in my new home in a few months, so, I might just post pieces and bullshit about it, the process, a little existentialism sprinkled in there, and voila mon ami, a blog.

Not sure how to put a bow on this, I’ll get better at it I promise, be safe, stay creative.

-Z