love is love is love is love

This is a preface piece that reveals some of the symbolism and themes that I will use in future drawings. I created this after watching the documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston. The Austin, Texas legend's comic book style and heart-wrenching story prompted me to start drawing again. His iconic artwork can be viewed at his official website, HiHowAreYou.com.

Call me self-indulgent, but I like to insert a caricature of myself in my work to show that the content is a result of my own feelings and thoughts. I was actually wearing the same jacket as the character while I was drawing the picture. The title, "Love is love is love is love," are the words of Garbage front-woman, Shirley Manson. The themes of this piece are unrequited love and moving on.

The gravestones represent "laying love to rest." The names on the stones are actually characters from a script that I am working on. Fun fact: One of the names pays tribute to graphic novels. Johan is the antagonist from Monster by Naoki Urasawa and Dreiberg is Nite Owl's last name in Watchmen by Alan Moore and David Gibbons. Fallen Caelum just sounds cool. Fresh flowers decorate a new grave , while the older grave's flowers are as dead as the buried lover. The girl walks away from the cemetery unable to place her flowers on either grave, showing that she remains unable to move on.

The wings below the graveyard (sort of ironic, eh?) are taken from my favorite black hoodie. It has those wings on the back, and written in barely legible cursive is "The worst moment for any atheist is when he is feeling thankful and there is no one to thank." For the record, I think the quote completely untrue and if anything it is just a joke to me. I mainly bought the jacket for the wings and the fluer de lis zipper (which is now broken and kind of resembles a dagger).

Confession time: I have an enormous love for cats and leopard print. While wanting to portray my love for those things, I admit that I also needed to take up space on the page.

I have been drawing wilting flowers for a while. When I was ten, I saw a beautiful drawing of a daisy and have been trying to recreate it ever since. I drew the bee in reference to Charlie Kaufman's film, Adaptation, when John Laroche (played by Chris Cooper) says, "Point is, what's so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There's a certain orchid look exactly like a certain insect so the insect is drawn to this flower, its double, its soul mate, and wants nothing more than to make love to it. And after the insect flies off, spots another soul-mate flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. I mean, how could they know that because of their little dance the world lives? But it does. By simply doing what they're designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. In this sense they show us how to live - how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can't let anything get in your way." Yes, all of that went into one little bee becoming broken hearted over their withering lover.

When I doodle, I tend to draw sets of eyes. Eyes are so revealing. The flames were inspired by the Fiona Apple lyric, "Once my flame, twice my burn." I also think that it would be the most painful thing imaginable if your eyes suddenly became engulfed in flames.

The letter "M" is a reference to my name, but right now you can call me Captain Obvious. Anchors and cherry blossoms are very symbolic to me. Anchors keep something grounded. Cherry blossoms are lovely, fragile, and impermanent. Ayumi Hamasaki's lyric "Beautiful things are sometimes sad things" describes the concept that some of the most beautiful experiences in life are sometimes wistful, and learning from those things creates another beauty. It is pretty much my mantra.

I drew some waves in a similar style to Ando Hiroshige to exemplify my passion for the ocean. This image is my desktop background, but I drew this from memory. I am going to be cliche and say that I find the most peace when staring at the sea. I decided to draw Hiroshige waves to show that even the most serene things can become disturbed (keeping with my mantra).

Butterflies are so aesthetic. I drew them to show change; from larva to butterfly, as well as the act of moving forward.

Disclaimer: I use quotations and song lyrics that belong to various artists. I do not claim to own the words, I only wish to pay homage to the songwriters for their inspiration. Some of the lyrics may be wrong because I wrote them down by memory. I used lyrics from the following: Imogen Heap ("The Walk"), Fiona Apple ("Sleep To Dream" and "Shadow Boxer"), The Carpenters ("Goodbye To Love"), Ayumi Hamasaki ("Ever Free"), Garbage ("You Look So Fine").