Who or What is a Spicy Donut?

I’ll take you back on a journey to the early days of the internet, The year was probably 1998. A young Devin Lawson was first becoming interested in girls. He needed a catchy moniker to AOL chat with these nebulous girls, likely robots desiring credit cards in reality. And so a name was plucked from an obscure anime reference (trigun) as was popular tradition for nerds of the time. So clever! The girls will fall in line! None did for at least 4 years...

Still Spicy Donut seemed a fitting description for much of the art I want to create. A metaphor for the spicy dark side and donut for the sweet silly side. And in the tradition of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth the name stuck, and for the next 20+ years I have been making Spicy Donut art.

Have you ever actually tried a Spicy Donut?

Yes. I do not recommend it.

Have you ever looked at Spicy Donut on Urban Dictionary?

Yes. I do not recommend it.

What are you into right now?

I jump from obsessions but I am ever obsessed. Usually things I want to do with my own art are things I get inspired by. I have a very real love affair with retro art. I like taking something classic and figuring out how it was done then trying something new with it.

I recently took a trip down the west coast and hit every tiki bar I could find. I really want to create my own tiki mug. So I’ve been really inspired by artist like Big Toe, Shag, Shawn Dickinson, and all those Munktiki sculpts are incredible.

I love old school pinup and of course admire the grand masters like Gil Elvgren, George Petty and Alberto Vargas. I also really enjoy what I believe are some of today's best pinup artists like Shane Glines, Chris Sanders, Rockin’ Jelly Bean and Serge Birault.

What do you use to draw all those girls... and occasionally other things?

I mostly paint digitally on a wacom Cintiq 21ux. I find the invention of the undo button the world’s greatest gift to artists like myself. I do enjoy the simplicity of a good brush pen though. With media, much like my drinking habits, I don’t limit myself to just one. Lately I’ve really been wanting an excuse to use some spray paint. Someone give me an excuse!

What are you doing now?

Too much. I am doing posters for the burlesque troupe, Bat City Bombshells. Look ‘em up, they are sexy as hell! I am doing T-shirts for Ratrodz N Pinups, a bad ass Kustom apparel company. A couple mystery projects I can’t talk about yet. And finally I am super excited to be building my own Spicy Donut pinup cocktail book called 31 spirits. It’s a sort of spooky recipe book with lots of sexy girls and booze!

Where do I find you?

spicydonut.com