Caricature for Newsletter - Doug Lucas

As we send out monthly newsletters, we include a note from the president of Team Expansion, Doug Lucas.  He shares from a big picture perspective about missions as a whole within our organization.  Since I had just reformated our entire newsletter design, I thought it only fitting that I "reformat" the image that I used for Doug's note.  See the original pic and the new stylized caricature to fit in with the rest of our newsletter design.

You can see the whole newsletter design and read it too if you want at http://bit.ly/crossersnews201007.  We hope you enjoy it!

Girl Sock Monkey

So, here's another attempt at a sock monkey.  This time I went more modern with bright girly colors.  I made this one for my niece Taylor.

Toy Story 3 Inspiration!

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

Sock Monkeys

So, growing up my brothers and I loved stuffed animals.  Most of our stuffed animals were monkeys, either sock monkeys or the chimpanzee looking ones, based after Zippy the monkey on the Howdy Doody Show.  Since we played rough with our toys, they would rip them or their seams would burst, so Mom taught us how to repair them.  I remember early in my childhood, doing "surgery" to repair the gaping wounds that my animals came to recieve.  Later as I got older, I made puppets for use in Children's ministry and would just create projects by hand, alongside all the other mediums I would use.  Along the way, I even made a few sock monkeys, getting better each time I made one.  We were at Hobby Lobby last month, and I saw the package of Red Heel socks that you use to make sock monkeys, and I thought I would give it a go.  I was going for the vintage look, these toys have been around since the early 1900's.  I was real happy with how it turned out and a few people have asked me to make them one.  So, meet my latest creation.  Ollie the sock monkey:

Here's what he started as! A pair of socks!

My Books - New Page!

Using Blogger's new tools, I created a page for some of my books listed.  It shows where you can buy them and "like" them on Facebook!  On the blog, you can click the link at the top that says "Books" or follow this link - http://mattsketchpad.blogspot.com/p/books.html.

New Book: The Wisdom of Pixar

A Reasonable Imagination: It's here! The Wisdom of Pixar

So, I am ordering a new book about the philosophical values found in the films of Pixar. Since Pixar is all about telling stories, what is found in those stories? There are actually many spiritual conotations in the stories of Pixar. Can't wait to read this book and tell you what I think.

Strata Via logo

Here is a logo I have been working on for Team Expansion.  It is program for college students to get experience cross culturally for a year while living in the states! Great step towards overseas missions.

You can read more about it at: http://teamexpansion.org/blogs/stratavia/

Gone Camping

Here is a background scene that I made.  Click on it to see the full picture, it is apparently too wide to view on the main blog page.  I saw something the other day with a similar scene, so later that day I sketched in my moleskin sketchbook then worked on it CorelDraw.  After I finished it, I thought it might make a good Father's Day card.  So I made it into one, converted that to a pdf and am including that here so that other's can print it out and use it.  If you use cardstock it will even look better.  Let me know if you use it!!

Get your printable Father's Day card version by following this link: http://www.thecrossers.com/projects/happy_fathers_day_card_2010.pdf

Elderly Woman with Walker

This image came to mind, and I worked on it after a few weeks of thinking of it.  It turned out pretty close to what I was thinking.  Rarely does a piece look exactly like what is in my head.  But this is pretty close.

Golfer

Here's a new graphic I made recently while I was practicing.....