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IF YOU POST PICTURES OF YOUR NAKED GIRLFRIEND ON THE INTERNET, NICK GAZIN WILL TURN THEM INTO PRETTY DRAWINGS


INTERVIEW BY THOMAS MORTON

 
MORE DRAWINGS BY NICK GAZIN 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | >

Vice: How do these thingies work? Do you draw the pictures and add the color when you’re done or what?

Nick Gazin:
First I draw it, then I block in the colors in watercolor and go over the lines in charcoal.

Fascinating. How did you get into watercolors?

Because I’m impatient. Oils can take a couple of days to dry, so you do a layer of colors, then you have to wait forever before you can come back to it. Watercolor doesn’t take very long to dry, so while one’s drying I can keep working on the others. It’s more immediate. Also, I like bright colors.

If it didn’t take as long, would you rather be doing these in oil?

I used to, but there’s just something about oils—it’s like pushing around cake frosting. I find it not fun to control. You’ve got to enjoy the medium you’re working with, whatever it is. It can’t just be like jerking off in the shower—it’s got to be more like making love to yourself, where you’re rubbing your body in oils and you’re totally submitting to the full sensual experience.

Well, that’s gross. When we asked if we could use the drawing with the cop that says “See You Soon,” you were like, “Aww, really? That one?” Why don’t you like it?

Something about it doesn’t sit right with me. I like to have text and images next to each other, but that one seems too much like a New Yorker cartoon or something. Whenever anyone looks at it, I feel like they just immediately think, “Oh, that’s what the cop’s saying.” It might as well have a speech balloon around it.

Where do all your source images come from?

I take a lot of pictures and draw from those. I also hang on to old catalogs and Playboys and dig shit up on the internet. The one with all the kids is from a picture of a group of German Boy Scouts in the 70s that some guy had on his Flickr account. It was a really big, high-resolution scan, so I could get in there and get the details down.

What about the girl with the necklace in her mouth? Where’d she come from?

My roommate found her Photobucket account. It was a bunch of shots of this classy-looking Korean girl in nice clothes doing things like taking baths with her friends. Or there’s one where she’s wearing spats with a long, fancy ball gown, but then she’s got it hiked up over her head. Eventually she took the account down, but we saved all the pictures in a folder titled “Future Wife.”

Do you go to a lot of those porn-trading message boards?

Oh yeah, the “Smoke Weed and Die” picture came from one of those. I love those places. You always get a good mix of typical professional-looking porn and bad amateur stuff. But then there are some shots that are really beautiful. They don’t look like they were meant as porn. There’s one photo of this girl running naked through a hotel room with her hair blowing out behind her that I’ve been meaning to make into something.

Those are the ones that always stick with me—the ones where you can’t quite figure out whether or not you’re supposed to be beating off to them.

Yeah, like when you’re looking at a bunch of pictures of a girl and suddenly it’s her at her graduation. Or there’s some weird detail like she’s all tied up with a dildo sticking out of her, but you can see Futurama on the TV in the background.

Do you think making art is more like masturbating to web porn or having sex with a beautiful girl?

Hmm. Maybe it’s like jerking off but then you save some of the cum in your hand and wipe it on the beautiful girl’s face.

Jesus Christ, dude.

See all articles by this contributor

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Comments

Anonymous, on Dec 13, 2008 wrote:
The last one is the cover art for Savage Grace’s Master of Disguise.
Anonymous, on Dec 13, 2008 wrote:
The last one is the cover art for Savage Grace’s Master of Disguise.
Anonymous, on Dec 4, 2008 wrote:
maybe you should have had him do the fashion section. his clothes are pretty detailed.
Anonymous, on Dec 4, 2008 wrote:
penry rules. this guy is good too.
Anonymous, on Dec 4, 2008 wrote:
this is the BEST of the watercolor stuff in this issue
Anonymous, on Nov 30, 2008 wrote:
Pretty good dance moves love this man :) shakkakkaa!
Anonymous, on Nov 29, 2008 wrote:
this guy is fucking awesomeee!!
Anonymous, on Nov 26, 2008 wrote:
"if the cop isn’t saying it, who is?" Nobody is, it’s just words next to a picture.
Anonymous, on Nov 26, 2008 wrote:
"love the idea to use peoples homemade nudes for the paintings. great, and as far as i know, totally original! love it." Who forwarded this article to my grade-school art teacher?
Star Wars, on Nov 26, 2008 wrote:
What’s internet art?
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
Tube colors, wet in wet, and changing the water. If you can see the water, it’s time to change it.
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
ah...doing inter-net art is a hoot..shit homey i used to read re-search mag.
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
yeah, if the cop isn’t saying it, who is?
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
i heard hes gay he give mustache rides to men
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
the watercolor doesn’t look like the stuff penry did for the TOC, but i know what you mean. some of his other stuff is way similar to this.
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
are the 2nd and 4th boy in the first one cub scouts? check their shirts and scarf-tie thing.
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
some of the watercolor work reminds me a bit of j. penry, dude that did the table of contents page.
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
i don’t really understand the cop one
poozer, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
okay, for instance, check out photo four. look at the middle girl’s legs. so nice!
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
i don’t see how people would think the cop was saying that, its just your imagination
poozer, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
the watercolors on these are sooooo good. so contrasty for watercolors, and that is what really takes it next level for me. the drawings and charcoal are nice, but without the watercolor probably wouldn’t be worthy of a spot in the magazine.
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
love the idea to use peoples homemade nudes for the paintings. great, and as far as i know, totally original! love it.
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
i think the best thing about the first drawing is the range of facial expressions. it’s like all the kids are in a different image.
gabugabu, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
digging shit up to draw on the internet is the funnest thing in the world.
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
i wish my life looked like these drawings.
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
i’ve been trying to get colors like these for a long time... what is the secret?
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
this is the BEST stuff in this issue.
Jimmy, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
Gayzin
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
freakishly good stuff
Anonymous, on Nov 25, 2008 wrote:
I like Ray Pettibon too.

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