Captain America Inspiration

This weekend the new Captain America movie comes out.  I find inspiration for creating art from toys, comics and animation. One of my favorite comic book heroes is Captain America. Wearing red, white and blue also displays his intense patriotism, which I also admire, like a true soldier. So far, the previews for the movie have been amazing and I'm really looking forward to seeing it. Here's a photo of some of the Cap toys on my shelf.

Camel Work for Exodus Curriculum

Here's my first camel for the new curriculum series I'm working on.

Here's the reference photo that I used in making the camel.

Working on a new curriculum package for Team Expansion missionaries to use.  This will be a study of the book of Exodus.  Here is the first images from the new study.  As usual, I used CorelDraw, now on version 15. Not sure how many weeks the study will include.  That is one of the details that I have to hammer out.  As a general rule, I do at least one per chapter, and then add in additional weeks when a chapter is packed.  Probably for instance, each of the plagues will get their own study, even if there are multiple in a chapter.  Our church has been studying Exodus and it has given me many ideas to think about that could be used in a kids' curriculum.

Toy Story 3 Inspiration!

Here is what provides me artistic inspiration!!!! Can you see the little green army men in the houseplant?

Wimpy the Pizza Man

Wimpy from Popeye fame, has apparently moved to Ancona, Italy and set up a Pizzeria. You would have thought he would have stuck to burgers. Anyway, here is a pic. I'm not sure about copyright laws in Italy, but it seems there are many ripoffs of licensed characters all the time over here.

Speaking of Popeye, here is a photo of my Popeye collection. Too bad I don't have Wimpy!

In Honor of Football Season Starting

I was inspired by the upcoming football season, that starts this weekend. First, is my original sketch scanned, then the colored pencil version. I don't use colored pencil that often, but I always like it when I do.

Hairstyles: Women

One of the things that I have always had the most difficulty drawing is women's hairstyles. First of all, there are tons of them, and being a man, I am not privy to dressing my hair in any of their styles. So, when I found myself standing alone at the airport while we were taking our summer interns to fly out, I pulled out my trusty moleskin and started to sketch. The bad thing about getting up at 4:30 AM to go to the airport is that it is at 4:30 in the morning, enough said. The good thing is that the airport is packed and everyone is dressed nice, ready to go to wherever they are going. So, noticing all the different hairstyles, I thought it an ideal time to sketch some of what I was seeing. Here is the scanned page out of my moleskin.

Quotes - Either directly or indirectly referential to art

"Nothing contributes to so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye." - Mary Shelley
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"Fall down seven times, stand up eight." - old Japanese proverb
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"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." - Henry Ford
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"The most important part of what art does is search for, capture, and offer up to view the three verities: Goodness, Beauty, and Truth."
- Stephen Lawhead; p 43; "The Classics We've Read, The Difference They've Made"
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"The way I came to see it, the freedom of implicitly slogan goes something like this: Art, when conscientiously following the high quest, reveals more of God implicitly than it could any other way - even more than if it had set out to reveal God in the first place!

"There is a paradox of sorts at work here. How to explain it? Perhaps, it is like a painter who sets out to paint a portrait of God...So he begins to paint with great religious fervor and zeal.

"But he doesn't get very far before he discovers that since no one alive has even seen the face of the Almighty there are no suitable references - no photographs, no sketches, no graven images of any kind. How then does he paint a portrait of a subject who refuses to give a studio sitting? That is the question: How does one illustrate the invisible?

"It cannot be done. At least, it cannot be done explicitly. But an artist can achieve a satisfactory, even extraordinary, result with an implicit approach. That is, he does not paint God directly. Instead, the artist paints the Creator's reflected glory - paints the objects God has touched, the invisible trail, of his passing, the footprints he leaves behind."
- Stephen Lawhead; pp 44-45; "The Classics We've Read, The Difference They've Made"

What I Am Reading

Ok, I finished the book titled, "The Complete Animation Course." It was good, but towards the end it was focusing on Computer 3D animation which I am not into doing. I like it, I just haven't been interested in that medium.

So, now I am reading another book called "Animating Culture". It is all about the sociological impact of cartoons on society and of society on cartoons. I just started it, but it looks good so far.

What I'm Reading

I am reading through a good book right now. It is called "The Complete Animation Course." Each chapter is like a lesson of sorts. Some of the material does not really fit to my direction of art/animation but has some great principles.

Christmas Figurines Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

And from the perennial "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" comes these great figurines that are extremely well molded.

Christmas Figurines Peanuts

Here are my Peanuts Christmas figurines. Merry Christmas Charlie Brown.

Christmas Figurines Disney

Here are some of my seasonal figurines. Most of these Disney figurines are from "A Christmas Carol"