A day out in NYC and a stop off at F.A.O. Schwarz back in 2011 was when I picked up this little purple guy.
His name is Trunko - just one of the characters from the Uglydoll brand. Now, I’m no impulse buyer, but Tunko met all the criteria for all my plush doll purchases:
He was small;
He was purple;
He was on sale!!!
Plus, because Uglydoll was doing a special U.S. Open promotion thingy, Trunko’s left arm “resembles” a tennis racket.
Afterwards, when I returned back to work in Australia, I decided I needed a useless, stupid gimmick… even if it was as simple as Trunko poking out from my carry bag.
Every morning and midday, 5 days a week, for 6 months, Trunko and I would have a large mocaccino (with soy, hold the sugar) at a nearby café.
Eventually, they honored the li’l purple racket-appendaged critter with his own “branded” deverage.
He even appeared in some of his own character-driven paintings - see below.
In this piece, I got in early to work one morning (c.late 2011) and, for no reason, just painted a close-up study of Trunko. At the time, I really just needed an excuse to be creative and then post said creative to facebook. Because I crave attention. But I don’t. But, yes, I do. But, seriously, nope. Nope. Nope.
And below was inspired by my routine mocaccino runs with Trunko… again, painted before another workday commenced.
Nowadays, Trunko only appears sporadically in my creative stuff - slight cameos and such. In the physical reality, he’s retired from café-hopping with me and now sits at my desk in my home office.