I spent a lot of time thinking about (and researching) the word “nerd” as I prepared for the Port Angeles Fine Art Center’s “Obsessed: The Art of Nerd-Dom” exhibition. When the Nerds mascot popped into my brain, it took me a few days to realize it would pair perfectly with the lyrics to Mandy Moore’s 1999 hit single “Candy”.

Beyond this song’s bubblegum pop sheen, there’s a dark tale of unhealthy obsession. “I’m so addicted to the loving that you’re feeding to me,” Moore sings on the first verse, before continuing later that her, “Body’s in withdrawal, every time you take it away.” It’s almost alarming until you realize it’s the type of melodramatic metaphor you’d expect from a teenager.

Ultimately, this is a piece about Nerds and obsession, rather than a piece about nerdy obsessions.

To complete this piece, I began by doing sketches of the Nerds mascot. Once I got the color and shape right, I cut out the drawing with an X-acto knife and traced the outline onto a 5x5 inch square of paper. I penciled in a quarter inch border of white space on the edges.

Next, I replicated the drawing, then filled in the tongue and body with different shades of pink colored pencil. Once blended, I opted to outline the drawing in black colored pencil, rather than ink pen. This emphasized the cartoony quality of the image and made it pop a bit more on the paper.

From there, I sprayed the drawing with a matte fixative to prevent smudging. Once dry, I rotated the paper and began repeating the lyrics to “Candy” until the full square was full. I decided to go with a more uniform, simple text style to avoid upstaging the drawing.

It was then framed, and shipped off to be displayed at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center from January 11 to March 15, 2020.

Is this piece available?

“Candy” is available as a print on INPRNT, Society6, and Redbubble.

The original is still available. Please contact me if you’re interested.

I wasn’t very far into my research for the Port Angeles Fine Art Center’s “Obsessed: The Art of Nerd-Dom” exhibition when I realized that I had to do a piece inspired by the origins of the word “nerd”.

The first known English-language usage of the word “nerd” was in the 1950 Dr. Seuss children’s book If I Ran The Zoo. It had nothing to do with the definition we know today. A “nerd” was merely a creature that lived in the zoo. It resembles the Grinch (and predates him by seven years).

I chose to pair the nerd creature with a quote attributed to lifestyle blogger Mandy Hale. There was an extremely Seussian quality to a phrase she uses in one of her posts:

“Better to be a nerd than one of the herd”.

To complete this piece, I began with several drawings of the nerd creature in my sketchpad. This character was surprisingly difficult to draw, despite appearing quite simple. My final drawing was a bit clumsier than I would have liked, but I reasoned to myself that it didn’t have to look exactly like the original. It just had to look like a nerd.

Once completed, I cut out the drawing with an X-acto knife, traced it onto a piece of watercolor paper, and lightly penciled in an outline. I added the yellow portions in colored pencil, then followed it with the red parts. The black portions were drawn with a Micron Sakura ink pen. To make the white parts pop, I highlighted them carefully with a conté crayon.

The completed drawing was sprayed with a matte fixative to prevent smudging. Once dry, I rotated the paper and repeated the above quote, using a relatively uniform style of text to avoid clutter on the page. I continued until the page was full. In total, this piece took about two to three days to complete (while simultaneously working on other pieces for the show).

It was then framed, and shipped off to be displayed at the Port Angeles Main Library from January 11 to March 15, 2020.

Is this piece available?

The original is still available. Please contact me if you’re interested.