Lil' Stuff

Here I am, once again, apologizing for not posting on this blog. I'm not sure who I'm apologizing to. I don't think anyone reads this one...which is fine. It's mainly a record for me to remember stuff..."for it is the doom of men that they forget." Wow, that was a random quote from the movie Excalbur. What a weird memory I have.
Anyway, this is a page from one of the many sketchbooks I've kept over the years. Who knows what was on my mind when I came up with this. That's what a sketchbook is for...randomness. I don't keep one anymore but I really should. There's no telling what kind of ideas might flow out at a random moment.
Man, this entry is really weird. I think I need to go to bed. G'nite lil' guys.

Punk Butch

I drew this from a photograph of my friend Butch dressed in his punk outfit. I don't know if I still have the photo and I don't know why he was dressed punk but I guess I liked the picture enough to do a drawing from it. I wasn't one to use colored pencils alot and I'm not sure why I chose that medium for this particular piece but it turned out okay. I have no idea what year this is from. Let's just call it a long time ago.

Fire Face

When I was living in SC, probably around 2000 or 2001, I started painting again. It wasn't a successful time in that I only painted sporadically. However, during that time I did have fun. I went to Lowe's and bought some plywood and just started applying things to the surface. I experimented with mediums and didn't care too much for the imagery that was emerging. On this particular painting I used acrylic paint, flourescent tempera paint, shoe polish, chalk and oil pastels, grease pencil and who knows what else. It was all about the surface, building up texture and layers of color overlaid with white and black. Like I said, fun.
As I've said before, I long to have the space to start painting again. I hope that I will be able to have a studio some day that is big enough to accommodate painting.
I wish...

Church Art?

I think I designed this back in 1997. I was working as a youth intern at my home church in Pensacola, FL. One of the events they had annually was a huge lock-in. At that point in time there were at least a couple of thousand teens showing up for the thing. It grew so big they started putting carnival rides in the parking lot. I believe we made a huge styrofoam version of this to hang as a promo piece but I don't have a picture of that. All I have is this. I used to do a lot of drawing at my church while growing up. I'll bet there's a ton of folks back home with sketches I've done on the backs of bulletins and such. I used to draw during the services and then I'd either give it or throw it away. 9 times out of 10 someone would take it from me to save it from the trash. Over the years I also worked as a custodian at my church and every once in a while one of the secretaries would have me draw up something they needed for VBS or whatever. I've designed characters for the children's ministry, VBS promo material, coloring books for the music department, and tons of clip art for the youth ministry. There's no telling how much I did for them over the years. I have some of it but I'm sure there's stuff I've forgotten. I'll try to share some of the other stuff with you all as time goes on. There's a metric buttload of it.

Dem Bones

I promised to show this picture back in February of 2007. I guess I'm a bit tardy. This entry goes with this past entry. Go there and then come back here. It will make more sense.
I took a drawing class in college (with the wonderful Sue Buck) and the assignment was to design a skeletal system for a cartoon character. Since none of the assignments ever let me show off my cartooning skills I decided to go nuts on this one. I did 2 drawings for the assignment. The Popeye drawing was done second. This one was first. It's a pretty good drawing. The only complaint I have about it is that I made the newspaper too straight. I should have had it all wrinkled and creased. I don't know why that didn't occur to me. Duh!
So this was one of my more successful drawings in college. I was right proud of it then still am today.
Click on the image to get a closer look.

Company Cartoons

When I was at seminary in the early 90's I was part of a touring drama team called the Company. As you might imagine when you travel, rehearse and perform with up to 22 people at a time you can get a bit punchy. I'm sure many of our weirdest in-jokes came from too many late night van rides or rehearsals. This particular joke started with My Pretty Marky and grew from there. Mark's hair was magnificent and all the Company girls were jealous of it. Hence, My Pretty Marky became one of his nicknames. After that, someone wondered what it would be like to have Company action figures and, well, my weird artistic imagination did the rest. This was published in the Company newletter. All in all, I probably did 4 or 5 cartoons while I was in the group but this one turned out especially nice. You can click on the image for a larger view.

Mr. Balloon Man

Back in SC, my friend Shawn is a balloon master. He started because he wanted to entertain his daughters and now he's into it big time. I created 2 different cartoon versions of himself for him to use for promotion. The first was his Chester the Clown persona. (I'll have to post that one later since it's on a disc somewhere) Later he tired of putting on the makeup so he became Mr. Balloon Man. That's the cartoon you are seeing to your left.
I haven't talked to Shawn in a long time. I hope he's still doing balloons and having a great time doing it.

Collagraphy

Collagraphy is printed collage. You build a plate pretty much the same way you put together a collage but you have to build it in a way so that it can withstand the printing process. When I was introduced to printmaking in college, I fell in love with collagraphy. (It's no wonder I am now doing collage) Collagraphy was my favorite type of printmaking. Unfortunately, all of the prints and plates I did in college burned up in an apartment fire back in SC. The only existing prints reside with friends (I hope they still have them).

The collagraph above is the second one I ever did. The first was a trial in which I glued a work glove to a piece of cardboard and tried to print it. It was a mess. After that fiasco, I figured out the limitations and proceeded to make a plate. When I brought it in and started to print it, my teacher told me that I should spend more time on the plate...that it was too early to print it. I ignored her and printed it anyway. Her reaction was pretty sweet in that she had to admit that it was a really good image. I added some color and printed a small edition. It was fun. I really wish I had an original of this or a better image. It was a pretty amazing piece. And the funny thing is that I went home and built another plate and brought it in and my teacher told me the same thing. And the next turned out even better than the second one. I think she left me alone after that. Actually, she had me teach a workshop on collagraphy later on and I had similar experiences at other schools. The teacher's asked me to teach collagraphy because I was better at it than they were.

I really miss doing collagraphy. Perhaps one of these days I will be able to take a class at Sev Shoon or somewhere else in Seattle so that I will have access to a press. Of course, I've forgotten most everything I ever learned about it. But I can still build a plate. Who knows. I might just start with that.