Ingredients and Directions for Use

These are big sheets -38 x 50 inches- of 90-pound, Stonehenge paper. I mixed acrylic paint with the gesso to mimic the manila paper that coloring books are mostly printed on, then primed each sheet with the gesso.

With a blue marker, I drew the image. 

I bought a box of fat Crayola’ s and along with the Cray-pas that were in my studio, using mostly my non-dominate hand, I started coloring, 

At certain points I’d grabbed a color without thinking about which to choose.  Other times, the choice was more deliberate. Sometimes I stayed within the lines, other times not. 

With some, I added paint.

Mostly, this was just an exercise to exorcise Frozen from my psyche!

I burned some of the sheets because visually and conceptually it added an additional raw and stinky element to the drawing. But also, because, I seem to remember seeing in a movie that you should burn something during an exorcism. 

Doing my best to think like a six year old, I was able to come up with only one title, number twenty, ‘Ooooh, They’re Gonna Kiss.’ But I couldn’t hear it through any other voice but Sam Elliot’s.  After that, I hit a wall, my mind blanked and decided to leave them untitled.

The choice to have multiple views for each drawing was to simulate walking up to the drawing from a distance. 

These are serious drawings but not to be read sternly. 

Sure, they say something about the decadence of contemporary culture, and the trash we pump into our children but they’re also just frigging funny. 

So, enjoy them (or not) because they’re funny. Maybe after baseball and bars come back, you can start on decadence, decline and how Disney is poisoning the world’s children, but for now, just enjoy the humor.

Ed Valentine is an artist, professor, and gallery director, currently dividing his time between Ohio and Jersey City, New Jersey.