Princess Leia from the original Star Wars movie

 After I did the Yoda drawing in the last post, I got the urge to draw a pic of Princess Leia.  So I got started on it.  As fate would have it, Carrie Fisher went to the hospital, and then died, while I was drawing this picture.  Sometimes things just happen like that.  Below you can see some of the great Leia quotes I put in the background.  18" X 24," Sharpies on paper.

Yoda

"Hmmmm... many Sharpies you do have... pictures you will draw."  I had this little pic of Yoda on my wall collage for months, and I wanted to draw it.  I finally drew this one for myself, with lots of Yoda's quotes in the background.  No sooner had I put it on Facebook, then Scotty Z. from Illinois wanted it.  So this Yoda now resides in the remodeled house on the shores of Lake Michigan.  18" X 24," Sharpies on paper. 

"Hmmmm... old song I do like... Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is is."

Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon

About a year and a half ago, I knew that to start making some money, I would need to step up my artwork to make my drawings something that myself and other people would actually want buy and put on their walls.  I got on the computer and just looked at all kinds of art, especially graffiti and street art, trying to figure out what I would want to put on my wall.  I found a stencil-like face shot of Bruce Lee, and drew that.  That drawing took my artwork into a whole new realm. 

A few months ago, I drew this one, the classic photo from the movie Enter the Dragon.  This was the poster of Bruce Lee I first saw as a kid, and how I pictured him, years before I actually saw his movies.  Old school BMX freestyler, zine publisher, and current entertainment industry rigger Brian Reed grabbed this one.  18" X 24," Sharpies on paper.  #shadowsandsharpies

Cam Newton and a Carolina Panther

 I've never been a huge football fan.  But the Carolina Panthers are a gnarly team and perpetual underdogs, except for last year, after their Super Bowl appearance.  I've done a few football drawings for people around here.  Above is Carolina quarterback Cam Newton doing his "Superman" thing.  Below is a Carolina panther drawing of a pic I found online.  Both drawings are 18" X 24", Sharpies on paper in my unique scribble style.

My Recent Stuff

In an upcoming post, I'm going to link a bunch of the stuff I did back in my BMX/skateboard industry guy days.  But for those of you who've never heard of me, here's what I've been doing the past couple of years, along with not really making a living.

Freestyle BMX Tales blog- This is the reborn version of a blog I started in about 2009.  After living a year on the streets of Southern California (which followed years of taxi driving as the industry tanked), my family flew me to North Carolina.  I'd never lived there, and I lost all my video footage, video masters, poems I'd written, and everything else.  I was deeply depressed, unable to find a job in NC, and started blogging just to vent.  My first blog was called FREESTYLIN' Mag Tales, and I wrote over 200 posts about my short stint at FREESTYLIN' magazine, the bible 80's BMX freestyle, in 1986.  I was laid off there, mostly because I didn't like the band Skinny Puppy.  Then they replaced me with some East Coast biker/skater kid named Spike Jonze.  He fared much better there.

Writing the FREESTYLIN' blog, I reconnected with many of my old friends from BMX freestyle in the 80's, and I started another blog, Freestyle BMX Tales, to continue telling my stories from those early days in the BMX freestyle world.  I wrote over 700 posts on that blog.

Shortly after my dad died in 2012, I went into a real dark period in my life, and I took down all my blogs, the two freestyle memoir blogs, Make Money Panhandling, my blog about homeless and panhandling that got over 60,000 page views, and several other blogs where I tried out different ideas.

Later I started Freestyle BMX Tales again in a somewhat nicer version on blogpress, but I faded on that one.  I finally re-started Freestyle BMX Tales on blogger again, and that's the version I'm still adding to today.  This is the blog I'm best know for.  I still have several years worth of stories that I haven't shared.

Steve Emig Art blog- It's a long story, but in 2005 I came up with a unique way to draw using markers, Sharpie markers in particular.  I draw an outline of the picture in black marker, and then color and shade using scribbles of several colors of ultra-fine Sharpies over each other.  So every color in my drawings is actually 3 to 8 colors scribbles over each other.  Now, 12 years after coming up with the technique, I'm still the only one I know using this style, and I've found drawing athletes and musicians from photographs is a great way to use my technique.  I've been selling my drawings (cheap!) for over a year now, but it's nowhere near a full time living.  I started this blog as a place to house my work online.  But not I've decided to being my drawing, blogging, writing, and everything (except the old BMX stories) into a single blog.  So I'll be putting my newer drawings in this blog from now on, as well as on Facebook.

Slash and Janis Joplin drawings

 If you're a Facebook friend of mine, you know I draw pictures in a weird, unique way with Sharpie markers.  These are my latest two, both by request.  The photos are kind of sketchy because our 10 year old camera is dying.  And I don't have a phone right now.  ANYHOW...  both drawings were done from photos, I transfer the outline is pencil, ink with with a typical black Sharpie fine point, and then color with Sharpie ultra fine points and sometimes highlighters.  Every color is scribbles of 3 to 8 colors over each other.  I developed this technique in 2005, and I've been doing different styles of drawings ever since.  Both are 18" X 24" and take 22 to 25 hours each, on average.  I also like to listen to the person's music and interviews while drawing to try and get a better feel of their personality.  Contact me on Facebook if interested in a drawing.