Several years ago, I drew a large, abstract piece. I showed it to a friend. My friend said, "I like it. What's it called?"
Feeling glib, I just answered, "Fred". What the hell? Fred's a nice name....
A little while after that, I did a second large, abstract piece. Too lazy to think of a proper title, I called it "Fred Two".
The name kinda stuck...
I painted a lot of "Freds" in my youth. Then in the late nineties, weary of doing large pieces all the time, I switched to a much smaller format, the one that first made my name i.e. "Cartoons Drawn On The Back of Business Cards". I cranked out thousands of them, literally.
Then about a year ago, after decades of living big cities, I moved out to the Far West Texas Desert. The sudden change of scene [and the huge, magnificent cloudscapes that fill the sky] made we want to start doing large pieces again. Fred 44 was my first real attempt.
It's probably one of my Top Ten favorite drawings of all time...