And on a Positive Note… RUN

I had to work Sunday. Sometimes th new job requires that. But it was enjoyable work. We hosted a community art project in the park across the street from the Museum where I work. The event was called Sunday in the Park with George. We loosely based the idea on the musical of the same name. We started with an illustration that I did of Marilyn (for the Andy Warhol aspect) and had everyone paint it in a pointillist style (for Georges Seurat). We also let people do oil pastels mini portraits that they could take home or add to our collage. The kids were great and had loads of fun. It's amazing to see everyone's different portraits. It was hot but we sure did have fun.

So, where does "run" come into play? Well, look closely at the painting. There's plenty of running going on there.

Run

Why is it that we are always in such a hurry to grow up? As a child, I saw everything with much clearer vision. The world was a much happier place. I didn't care what was happening half way around the world much less who killed who across town. I look at my childdren and they are worried about those things. My younger daughter worries about the things in the world constantly as well as the homeless people in the park at the end of our street… and not the good kind of worry. Our children have been forced to grow up quicker. The onslaught of marketing starts at birth and nothing they do in their lives isn't watched and recorded. They want to be taller, prettier or the best. Nothing is that bad about these things but when you add them all together… you realize… that childhood is a thing of the past and the world is out there waiting to eat you up if you give it the chance… where are the simpler things in life?

Illustration Friday - Match

OK so I was back for a couple of weeks. They jsut seem to keep finding things for me to do so I dusted off an old image and here you go.

There is a bit of a tie-in with the previous posts as this does seem to show a bit of the underbelly of society. I went through a phase where I painted in this splatter style watercolor. They were quick and fun and left many a thumbnail stained with pigment.

It is amazing how stream of thought or serendipity has a place in life. I had an old painting with a match and I just drew one at work for a project. I'll add that quick sketch later. And maybe, just maybe, I'll find the time to try something completely new.

Thanks for stopping by.

330 Miles Per Gallon!

It can be done… at least that's what the builder says. Even if it doesn't make it all the way to 330 mph whatver it does will be better than what we have now. The manufacturer's website is interesting but the discussion on Wired's Autopia blog poses a lot to think about beyond this one vehicle.

We can only dream.

Illustration Friday - Play

it's playtime and since i was having so much fun last week, i decided to stick with the series… so, it isn't as much fun as catching rain with a butterfly net but you haven't seen where he plans to set sail…

and sailing is probably the best idea for travel these days anyway… what with the gas prices the way they are and flying is a bit scary right now… gas-guzzling SUVs, manned by crazed, gun-toting fools with cell phone permanently attached to their heads kind of makes driving anywhere some kind of loopy… so… time to set sail…

night all…

Illustration Friday – Capture

Capture can get a person to thinking about all sorts of dark and scary images. The citizens of my lovely city are enduring somewhat of a murder spree, Jacksonville has surpassed Miami for bragging rights in the state of Florida and will probably make the top ten in the country. The neighbors on my street has been plagued by recent thefts and breakins, and I have had to deal with attempts.

So it would have been easy to just dust off my long unused pencils or watercolors and drawn some kind of criminal capture with a bit of police brutality thrown in for good measure. BUT I couldn't. I chose instead to look to the lighter side of lifeÂ… at things that make me happy. And children most certainly do that. My own children are such a joy.

I like the way their logic works and that's what got me to thinking about this weeks word. If a child wanted to catch some rain drops what better thing to use than the butterfly net that he used only minutes before to capture a butterfly?

Oh yeah, and if any of the thugs in this city get near any of my kids, they better HOPE and PRAY that the police catch them before I do. There. Now you get a little bit of darkness from me.

It feels good to be back.

Illustration Friday – Skyline

so… i made it back… just barely…

this is part of a job for a friend… he owns a great comic book and toy shop called gotham city limits… yes, i'm a bit of geek, but i'm not quite a mouthbreather…

the logo should count for the skyline… it is one of three logos that i have designed with skylines in them… the FridayFest logo is the other of the award winning logos… the remaining one is actually for Skyline Realty and the client dictated the look to me and every time i see it, my skin crawls… ah well… who said the client is always right…

Questions…

my girls never ceas to amaze me… i am the only male in my household and so i have gotten used to being in tough with the feminine quite a bit but my wife and daughters are all so different… i can see little bits of my pesonality… interests… in both of my girls… as well as my wife's and i guess that is only natural but as i said earlier… they never cease to amaze me… for instance my oldest always comes up with the most amazing and off-the-wall/out-of-the-blue questions (and an answer to this would be welcome… speculation is great too) she just came in and asked me why men's t-shirts are so long? any ideas? anyone?

Still Here… But Mostly, Still There

Moved in. There is just so much work. The museum is relly diggin having an artist on staff and taking full advantage of irt. Deadlines are killing me. BUT… I'm still loving it… as they say in the Mickey D commercials.

The new job is great. The rest of the new crew will be in by the end of the week. Then, the work will really begin.

So, anyway, apologies for being quiet. More to come as I settle in.

Illustration Friday - Dance

when the world has grown weary of me and my ways…
don’t walk away teary for halcyon days…

look to the sky… on the leaf by the path…
and open your eyes… remember my laugh.

when you have the choice, don’t miss the chance…
to raise a glass… to do a dance…

but i’m not gone… i still walk this earth…
for many years… and for all it’s worth…

i’ll give what I can … probably more…
and never pass by that unopened door…

i’ll laugh… i’ll cry… and i’ll hold your hand…
and do the unexpected and all that i planned…

life may be hard, but i’ll have fun…
and the world will grow weary of all that i’ve done…

so until then… i shall dance…

i figured I'd better get a jump on it this week… i start a new job monday… settin up shop at one of the largest museaums of modern art in the south… maybe i'll be able to sneak a painting or two on the wall when no one is looking…

Illustration Friday - Jungle

"Why are senseless slayings so assaulting to the senses?"

As soon as I heard this week's topic, I thought of the concrete jungle. But, "concrete" just doesn't say enough. It has become an urban jungle where only the strongest survive. In business and life on the streets it is the same. It seems man cannot tolerate the earthly jungle of trees and animals…not as a species. We seem to have to dig and destroy and build our own temples to and for ourselves. I would almost say that we are like ants. We build our communities and they spill over into the surrounding landscape. We wage war against the neighboring communities, making raids and stealing food. But that would not be fair to ants.

I just read that Tim Hildebrandt died this past Sunday. For those of you who aren't familiar with his work, he and his twin brother, Greg, were giants in the fantasy illustration field. I first came across their work after reading The Lord of the Rings. He and his brother were also responsible for the original Star Wars movie poster. I am sure that geeks and mouthbreathers all over the world are in mourning. I think their interpretation of Tolkien's work are, by far, the best. Their work is classic, harkening back to N.C. Wyeth's fantastic work on Treasure Island and Robin Hood. The Hildebrandts, along with Frank Frazetta, were some of the biggest influences on my career. Here's a pen and ink that I did way back in 1979.

Tim died due to complications of due to diabetes. There is a tribute to him at Spiderweb Art and more of his art can be seen here without all those messy copyright overlays.

a couple of portraits of mick

I haven't got the slightest idea why, but I found both of these in one of my old sketch books. I thought they were kind of fun so I scanned them and had some fun in Photoshop. They were done a bit later, but they bring me back to my college days, especially my last year.

Illustration Friday - Portrait

So, I am back and busy as ever. I have a few deadlines to keep so I'm just going to have to dig deep. This one is from the late eighties. It is one of my faves.

Illustration Friday

“My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far today, I have finished 2 bags of M&M's and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.”
– Dave Barry

The Cupcake
When I was eight or nine years old, my parents loaded up our '66 T-Bird and headed out for what was to be one of the most amazing trips I would ever take. Some day, I need to sit down with my mother and my sister and write it all down before all of it is lost forever.

To make a very long story short, we took a three week trip across country. The year was 1968 or 69. We left Florida in June and headed west with stops in assorted campgrounds along the way. No, we didn't rough it, we were pulling a 13 foot Shasta camper and we had our faithful dog Peanuts to keep us company and entertain us. We made all the great spots along I-10 and just over 30 years later I find out my wife made almost the identical trip the same year. We were only a few weeks apart as we visited such places as the El Paso with a lttle juant into Mexico. At the time it cost 2¢ to leave the US but 3¢ to return from Mexico. We also visited the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Carlsbad Caverns, Disney Land and the Hoover Dam to name just a few of the spots.

Now, we didn't make the exact same trip. We stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming to visit my mother's oldest brother and his family. It was the first time I can remember meeting them although I know I met my Uncle Ray and Aunt Jean years before at a family reunion. The "Cupcake Story" actually comes a fews years later when I next saw my cousins. My Uncle Ray had two daughters, Janet and Cindy. Janet is the older sister and had a prothestic leg from the knee down. And for her sixteenth birthday, her younger sister Cindy, decided to play a practical joke on her. She made her an chocolate cupcake laced with Exlax so all night long she heard her sister hopping down the hall to the bathroom. Now it sounds a bit cruel, but siblings will do such things to one another. So that is my cup cake story.

On a side note. My cousin Janet's first husband died in a freak accident not long after the birth of their third child. And just like most young couples, they weren't prepaed for such a loss. The taxes from the estate were mounting and Janet just couldn't keep up. But the IRS can be harsh and demanding, so she turn to her congressman, Dick Cheney for help. He worked with her on her case but before everything was cleared up, in frustration, she removed her leg and wrote her "check" out for the amount owed and sent it to Uncle Sam. Both she and the future VP got a lot of press out of it and Janet actually recieved the "cancelled check" and wore it proudly for many years afterward.

I'm off for vacation now. I won't be back until next week. Be procductive and have fun.

An Anonymous Plea

You know those little signs you see stuck on the side of the road? Most of them are pretty self-serving – slumlords looking to "help you stave off foreclosure" or "Make $5000 a Week from Home".

This one was probably the most selfless signs I have ever seen. It was posted in a place where "homeless" people generally stand and ask for money because they have cancer, or lost their job or met some other wild tale. Now, I'm not a cold-hearted person. I have been known to take some of those unfortunate souls to dinner on occasion or to just listen to their story. This, however, was something special. It was at the bottom of the off-ramp from I-95 near my house. Every time I came home I said a prayer. How could I not?

A few weeks ago, my wife asked me to take a picture of it so she could send it out and add to the prayers for David. Yesterday, I finally made the time to do it and when I got to the spot, I found this simple sign torn into pieces and left on the side of the road.

Someone is going to have some bad mojo for that.

If you are the praying type, please offer one up for David and all the Davids out there. And for the special someone who has so much love that she would ask strangers to pray for her loved one.

Illustration Friday - Sorry

I started out with a new illustration but I ended up thinking about the death of my father and the words just started flowing. And I thought about the last time I saw my father alive. I was young, but not as young as the self-portrait I did almost thirty years ago. But it seemed to fit because I drew that when I was seventeen after having one of those run-ins seventeen-year-old boys inevitably have with their fathers. And how does this all tie in to this week's Illustration Friday topic? I'm just sorry I didn't appreciate him more when he was here.

Graveside…the photo

Some of you wanted to know just what that photo was in last weeks Illustration Friday collage so I figured I would share it with you. Please don't ask me the details, I have no idea where it came from. I have quite an extensive collection of vintage photos.

Illustration Friday - Angels and Devils

So, I made it back… barely. I'm glad all of you have been able to keep up with it. While I haven't had the time to get pencil to the paper as often as I would have liked, I did manage a quick look at a few of my friend's work. Fantastic as usual. You should visit Illustration Friday and see for yourself.

This is a quick pencil sketch that I scanned in and used it as the main subject of a Photoshop collage… much fun was had…

Thanks for stopping by…

Illustration Friday - Under The Sea

My illustrations are from the award winning Reef Set series by Ned DeLoach and Paul Humann. They are just a few of the books that I have had the pleasure to work on with these two incredible underwater photographers. You should buy their books if you are into anything under the sea. Since the late 1980's I have drawn about 80% of all the species that are found on reefs from Alaska to the Galapagos and from Florida to Brazil. These drawings are more for reference and ID so are not specifically anatomically correct. If you want to see the good stuff, my super friend, Frank Hilzerman has a great illustration of a Dragonet up.

I will be doing something more for Illustration Friday in the next day or so, so please do check back.