After painting sneakers for two weeks, I was jonesin to DRAW something. Something on 80lb, my walls, arms, toilet paper,... something! I was all out of sketchbook pages and I literally couldn't believe it. For the first time in my life, I completed every random sketch pad I had laying around. What was I to do????

Then, out of no where, a beautiful white cardboard box, sitting in the middle of the room, started glowing like the heavens, demanding my attention.. It was the same box my cousin Patty had sent the sneakers in. I couldn't believe how perfect it was. There where barely any markings, besides my address and a few stamps and stickers, which could make a perfectly suitable material to create something on. I almost couldn't beleive that it was shipped from Texas and made it here without any cuts and/or bruises. It was so perfect that it began to whispered sweet nothings into BOTH of my ears.. So I got out my razerblade, cut off it's flaps, and heard it scream. boom boom cchhh

All jokes but we're having fun right? Anyway, I had nothing in mind but I did have a camera in my hand. I scoured my visual aids and found a picture of Natalie from Moonlite Beach that seemed pretty interesting. At first, it was difficult to sketch on the material thanks to the corregation sandwiched between the cardboard, but that ended up being the easy part compared to using the marker. It was pretty difficult to maintain the same weight of line throughout the entire outline. After outlining the sketch, I colored with art stix and colored pencils to finish it off.

Coloring over the corregation created a unigue texture/idea remeiniscent of the Lincoln-Wilson Effect created by the Cubo-Futurist Marceel Ducahmp's in his piece entitled Large Glass. Actually it's nothing like it but it reminded me of this. I was lucky enough to see this piece in person at The Philadelphia Museum of Art while attending the only American venue to host the major centennial retrospective exhibition devoted to Salvador Dalí in 2005. Amazing is the only word that comes to mind, but that's another story for another day.. To finish this story, I named this piece Ten Dollar Mistake because I didn't know that you can send mail in boxes that made postal stuff already on it. For some reason I thought it had to be a fresh box. I brought the box back to the post office to send the sneakers and the gentleman asked if he should try to salvage the box or get a new one. I didn't want to risk the sneakers getting damaged so I got a new box and it cost me.. You guessed, ten bucks.