Ramblin Heads (Feb 2, '25)

sneak preview of art book series by AJB. Feb edition coming soon.

The idea for this series of sketches started when I decided to go to the bar and wanted to draw the people (customers and employees) going there. I thought the bar was the perfect place to see all sorts of diverse characters there, especially the unusual ones who stuck out to me. I loved drawing people, including their facial expressions that make these portraits have a lot of personality and life behind them. I had done observational drawing or sketches of people before, though the most recent sketches I could recall was at an Applebee’s where I observed and drew some of the people at the bar counter.

Most of the time, I had to rely on photographic memory since the people I would observe and draw wouldn’t stand still or keep moving their head or body around a lot, and hopefully capture their exact likeness in my art style. I’d usually finish drawing these portraits in around 5-10 minutes.

Originally this sketch series was called “Talking Heads,” but I changed it to “Ramblin Heads” to avoid copyright infringement when it came time to publish these sketches. At the time, I wanted to think of a different name for these series of sketches besides “Talking Heads” (obviously because the name had already been taken), but I couldn’t think of any other words that’d have that nice ring to it since all I drew were just the heads of the people at the bar, and the bar was the place where people were talking a lot and very loudly, so I thought Talking Heads was the perfect name I stuck with until I changed it to “Ramblin Heads.”

My initial plan was to mind my own business and hope no one would notice me drawing in my 6x8 sketchbook. The last thing I wanted was to gain any sort of attention or praise on my artwork because I tend to get pretty overwhelmed and anxious by people’s compliments on my drawings (not that I had any sort of negative feedback nor did I care if they thought if my sketches weren’t good), especially if they asked questions like “How long did this take you to draw?” or “How long have you been drawing for?” or “Did you go to art school to learn how to draw?” and I’d kinda have a hard time getting back to drawing in my sketchbook after making small talk with these strangers.

Unfortunately, someone (Rafae) noticed. He saw me looking at him, trying to get his appearance right, and came over to ask me what I was drawing. I told him that I was drawing people I saw at the bar and showed him the sketchbook, and he was really amazed by it. Well, “amazed” wasn’t the best word to describe Rafar’s reaction to my drawings, but he thought they were cool and was telling his friends about it and showing them the sketches I did, including Thaddeus. One thing led to another, you know, receiving the usual questions from Rafae and a few other people such as “How long have I been drawing?” and all that, and I suddenly became friends with him and Thaddeus, and I sorta became the talk of the bar (not really, more like the talk of Rafae’s social circle, or to him and some of the people at the bar he knew).

I wished it didn’t happen, but I’m glad it did because it got me the chance to interact with new people and befriend some of them like Rafae and Thaddeus.

It was the best night of my life, and I wanted to keep coming back for more of that social interaction, meeting new people, talking to them. It was like I finally found a place where I belonged; where I could meet new people, have conversations with them, make new friends, be myself.

But I told myself that tonight was just a fluke, that by the next day I wouldn’t garner this much attention or get noticed by anybody ever again, and the people I met would probably forget about me or move on to some other place or bar, and I’d go back to not existing at all as I sit there in silence by myself and draw people. Couldn’t say it never had happened to me before, but I was used to disappointment by now, so it was best that I undermined myself and distance my mind from those kinds of “unrealistic” expectations or delusions of grandeur (not that I thought myself important or cool anyway, like a narcissistic would).

But I still definitely wanted to go back to the bar despite these thoughts. It was the kind of environment I enjoyed being in, even if it’s a place filled with drunks, bikers, and milfs.