Mass Media Market Strategists

The inspiration for the hybrid of watercolor, pen & ink I do, goes back to a Tootsie Pop commercial from the 1970’s. I was taking a beginning watercolor class at Boise State University in 2006. We were given the assignment of doing an abstract. I loved it! Painting pictures of barns was not doing it for me. The finished piece was to be cut up into 5”X 7” splotches. From there, we picked our favorite one and reproduced its abstract qualities on a larger paper. I finish the assignment and the class, and had all of these beautiful splotches leftover. That’s when I remembered the commercial. It’s amazing what sticks in our minds, and even more amazing how it comes out. The commercial took Plain Jane pen & ink and married it with a psychedelic backdrop. That idea and Photoshop gave me permission to go crazy! So I would like to thank the mass media market strategists for plaguing my Saturday morning cartoons with their relentless assault of propaganda, for without you cramming this image in my brain, I would not be the person I am today.