17- Early "Lover" Series, 1982

Ok ok, i know I said that these Lover pieces would be great, well I guess not all of them can be great. 1982 was a defining year for me as my style started one way and blossomed towards the end of 82, the pieces are so different only 9-12 months apart! I also started playing with different colors for the outline part like here, using Marvy fine point markers really allowed me to create some really fun color combinations which really helped later when piecing since everyone was using black to outline(well, not everyone, but many for sure).
I dont have a name for the heavy darker blue offsetting pieces floating near the corners through the fill in but I know they gave the piece some weight helping balance it otherwise, my outline would have been too light and the piece would appear unfinished, or definitely missing something.
I love the simple little Newave at the bottom, simple 3D with red bars, some little brown floating ovals ( i looooove flaoting ovals, they can be used to accomplish almost any design need, cover rogue drips, add color where needed, I still use them these days!)
Also again, the disappearance of any straight lines, this was not a conscious thought, this was just happening to my style, with no rhyme or reason, just forming and only now can I look back and appreciate the growth because back then I had no idea this was going on, just a powerful desire to keep exploring!

16- Lover "series" circa 1982

Oh I can already tell the amount of fun I'm going to have while describing these "Lover" pieces. I'm being sarcastic and I hope that's not lost with anyone. Even still, this is still a really nice piece, I had started playing with the concept of a transparent cloud floating in front of the regular cloud for the background and in this case that cloud was black. i added very little black to the piece and foreground because if I did the foreground may have gotten too heavy and i wanted the background to be the only heavy part. using a repeating outline as the fill in, red to orange to yellow to white or page white is a really easy and simple way to create a dramatic fill in, I used this technique several times and it always works well the trick as always is to keep the balance with the background. I also added a really heavy, long 3D dropping down to give the piece a sense of monster heaviness. I don't know why i did these things, but here it really worked well. Sometimes the most important thing about creating art is realizing when the piece is done and not over do-ing it, i wrote oops down near the lower right because after nearly completing the piece i got lazy and dropped that line for the 3D at the wrong angle which I knew immediately would ruin the piece, at least to me it would, I was always a stickler about correct dimensions and since the line was there i had to account for it or start redrawing a whole new concept, I chose to fess up instead. i never said i was perfect, just said I try to be!
Once again though, the letters of this particular word flow so nicely, semi leaning left, all upper case, super thick 3D and a black cloud behind it. Still works for me!

15-Lover 82, 1982.

I knew I had to get to the Lover pieces sooner or later. First I will explain, choosing the name Lover was at first an affirmation, if you believe, it will be. Looking back I cant help but laugh, not only was I not a lover, when I was I don't think I was particularly good at it. Lets call it wishful thinking. I did many Lover pieces though and the reason for that is these letters actually go really well together and offered many design possibilities while at the same time my style was becoming more my own, individualistic and unique so after choosing a silly name to piece I ended up creating many really neat outlines for it, so lets just call this the Lover series, sheesh!
The letters L and O are perfect together because the bottom stem of the L will always cradle or nest the O on it. The O is a free letter meaning it can be replaced with an image or character and will always be read as an O. Those 2 letters alone open a world of options, the V then represents a new beginning because the L and O can stand alone or join into the piece. The L and O will always dictate what the V will do. In this outline I decided that all letters would be stand alone letters (nothing connecting them to each other) and the "82" over the O because as I mentioned, you can do anything you want to the O.
The style of these letters is influenced by Chinese bamboo styled fonts which are curved like a samurai's sword, thin on one end and thick on the other and always sharp.
The colors reflect when the Design Marker company first released a series of natural toned colors which became all the rage, they muted the palette some but after 3 years of bright colors I was ready for something different and these colors blended so well with each other. I really loved the serenity of them especially in this piece. And as mentioned earlier I had already stopped tagging around the page, making my piece cleaner and more refined, I was respecting the piece as art more and more from here.

10-Pep 101, 1980

 Even when i was first developing my style I already showed signs of being A.D.D. i just couldn't piece my tag, Paze all the time, i would get bored, also because i was doing these pieces all day long, at least 1 and sometimes as many as 3 or 4 per day. that's dedication! one of the reasons for dropping the Paze tag to Erni was i knew even if i got tired of Erni i knew i couldn't get rid of it. i recently began tagging Party Paze and doing classic PZ throws in peoples blackbooks, i been feeling quite nostalgic you could say.
Pep 101 was one of those names that i cant even remember the reason why i wrote it, i may have only done in total 2 or 3 outlines for it so it wasn't a favorite by any means but this outline, still using the heavy connected base to anchor the piece is pretty nice. The "E" starts showing signs of a more curvy style and a breakaway from using any straight lines at all in any of my pieces. i believe graffiti should curve and sway, like a dance, lines are too constricting to me.
The 101 is not colored, i did this often because i was more interested in beginning a new outline than finishing the color on the piece before.

9-Where's Rush? 1981

Since i am feeling productive today i thought i would share another (also since i missed yesterdays blog catching up makes me feel good). As an artist in general, i always have hundreds of open projects, i think its super important to finish as many as possible before creating more or you can get into a bad habit of not being able to complete something, which as an artist is ok i guess but if you are doing a project for a client, im thinking not so ok.
But i digress, this is one of those rare outlines that actually made it to a train, i made plans to piece at Morris Park with my cousin Rush but he didnt show up, it may have been my 2nd or 3rd time painting trains and although the train piece wasnt very good, i was still adjusting to the massive scale of it all, i was officially bitten by the graff bug, this piece marks when all i wanted from here was to paint trains and get my style better and better. i wish i had a photo of the train piece to show the differences and alikenesses (is that even a word) but like most graffiti the photo is but a memory now.
It took a lot of scrutiny to choose what outline (out of maybe 100) to deem worthy of putting on a train, remember, it was always showtime, best foot forward kind of thing, this piece i have to assume was the best piece i had done to that date(i know, scary huh?) but i got better. it may have been over a year past this point that things really started clicking style wise. i will get to those later, promise. I wish Rush had shone up, I never got to paint with him and he's solely responsible for getting me into graffiti in the first place! Newaveart!

8- Erni blue outline, circa 1979

Here is a really old piece, I dont even think I was down with any crews yet when I did this outline and I was using a red marker to indicate highlights which in my right mind i would never do today, i also started in lower case (e) and finished in upper case (r,n,i) which is another thing i wouldnt do today although not for any reason except my own preference, i think its the Virgo nature in me that is bothered by non matching cases in graffiti. i type these days in mostly lower case but thats because i type so slow its ridiculous.
either way i think the lack of fill in works, its a simple neat early piece, letters all leaning left and a decent flow going right. Sometimes not filling in pieces only meant that i didnt have any markers to fill them in with, graffiti back then was a poor mans game, i dont remember any wealthy graff artists at all, certainly not me.

6-Erni Alone, circa 1981

Here is just a really simple script Erni piece, back then when i wasnt tagging my actual penmanship was actually very good, my mom always wrote in a perfect script and i always wanted to to write well like she did, i guess a love for the shape of letters and alphabets was always in my being. i called this piece "alone" part 1, there was a part 2 i think, back then as know pieces reflected real life and not having a girlfriend could consume many thoughts and i remember i was not excluded from the occasional broken hearts club! Looking back its i laugh at how important i thought things were at the time, thank goodness for age since thats where wisdom comes from!