My first love...

I love to draw. Let me say it again... I love to draw. As you can see from the photo above, I have a decent stack of would-be illustrations from the 2+ years I dedicated to becoming a children's illustrator. Every time I look at them, as small voice inside me screams, and I wonder where I would be had I not stopped. But, I digress.

Without getting too long and drawn out (no pun intended), let me say that I know who I am now. I am an artist--not a bookstore owner, or a baker, or a pastor, or a teacher, etc, etc... I am an artist. I have sat too long thinking that my calling was something else, and whatever I was meant to do would happen soon. But the truth is, anything worth doing takes practice; it takes time! I could never get that through my head for a long time. No creative person is born ready to paint the Mona Lisa. Stuff like that comes after much practice, and failure. Failure is one of the best tools for improvement. My problem was I kept comparing my work to others, getting discouraged, and then losing the confidence I had when I started. No more...

My goal in returning to my first love and to this blog is not the pursuit of childrens illustration, but to just draw. Dust of my tools, and just draw. I miss it.
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That is my goal for the next year. Just draw. No agenda, no portfolio, no rules.What happens on March 27, 2015. God only knows that.

IF - Egg

As mentioned below, I have missed drawing, so here is my first sketch in a long while... over 2 years for IF. Just a quick pencil rough of the first thing that came to me for this prompt.

Hello, again!

I am amazed that it has been over 2 years since my last post here. Boy does time fly. Though I have not been drawing much (if at all), I do swing by this old blog to reflect, and occasionally check in on my favorite illustrators from the list in the right column.

Each time I come, I realize how much I miss drawing and the connections to other artists I made thru this blog. Though I do not think I will become the professional childrens illustrator that was the impetus for this blog, I do want to begin drawing again, if only for the satisfaction of completing what I started 5 years ago.

Five years... wow!

I am still at the same job I have ranted about a few times here, designing magazines. It pays the bills, and offers many personal benefits that keep me here (and not seeking an office job outside of home). But it is not my career, my calling; not what I want to retire from. So yet I continue the search.

I am the proud father of a new baby girl (now 6 months old), along with my 9 year-old daughter, and 11 year-old son. Though she was not planned, she is a true gift from God, and I would not have it any other way (except that she sleep through the night!).

My comic strip has been an on again, off again project. I love doing it, and often look at the 20 strips I have completed, laugh at each one again, and tell myself to "send the dang thing to a syndicate already!" (I only need 4 more strips to have the required 24.)


It is interesting how much of an impact my interests have on my son. When I started drawing, he drew. When I started my comic strip, he started doing some. When I stopped, he, too, stopped, and that bothered me. So I hope that my getting back into it will ignite the fire in him again.


In my search to find my "calling", I discovered letterpress printing. Being a graphic designer by trade, I never considered printing as an option to pursue. I created the designs, was I supposed to print them as well? Well, with letterpress, I can, and it will provide me with a much sought after reprieve from the digital world I am immersed in every day. Though I have not yet begun any printing, I have acquired a press, some lead type, and other supplies, and hope to begin learning this dying yet reborn craft very soon.

Hope all is well in your world.

Update

Been a long time since I posted anything here. You may remember from my previous post my desire to get more into gardening, and my online comic strip going. Well, I am proud to announce that I have reached both those goals!

I would like to present Head of the House, my new web comic. I spent a lot of time working on this and getting a "buffer" of strips ready, and am excited to have it to a point where I can present it to the public.

My initial schedule will be once a week, posting a new strip each Thursday morning. However, I do want to get to a point where I can do more strips per week.

As for gardening, I planted what I termed an "experimental" garden, with the intention of using it to learn more than to get a large amount of produce. And I feel I achieved that as well, and am ready to go all out next spring. I created a blog to document my progress.

As a result of my gardening, I have become increasingly interested in the slow food/local food movement (though I don't really like the term "movement", as it makes the efforts of everyone involved sound more like a temporary trend than something to be embraced long term).

Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well.

Thanks for checking back in!

Calling it quits... for now.

Over the past 2 years, I have made a point of creating art in the hopes that one day I might be good enough to go professional as an illustrator. Over the past few weeks, I have come to realize that my interests have changed, and it is becoming more and more of a struggle (mentally, not artistically) to create the art I thought I wanted to do.

For the past 3 years, I have been really wishy washy about what I want to do for a career—art teacher, restauranteur, book store owner, hot dog seller, wedding photographer, start my own magazine, and yes, even looked into starting my own theme park (this just after returning from Disney)!! My intentions are good, but most of my ventures start with the idea of great financial benefits or filling a "need" in my community (I honestly believe a theme park would do well here). That being said, I thankfully do a lot of research on each idea, spend hours looking at websites, reading articles, etc, etc. (hours I could have been doing something more productive) only to realize that I have no business or desire to do any of these things fulltime. And I am adamant about not starting something solely based on the financial light at the end of the tunnel. But, I digress.

One thing I do know is I love being outdoors. While my thumbs are not all that green, I do love gardening. I have had a few vegetable gardens over the years with mixed results, but I plan to learn more to increase my yield. I have three small (1.5 feet tall) oak trees that I, myself, started from acorns I collected. I have gathered about 7 other oak saplings from my yard (acorns that sprouted on the ground after they fell from the tree), along with about 5 red maple saplings I got from another yard, and put them in pots. I have many more acorns I plan to propagate. I am planning to get some FL apple trees and blueberry bushes and create the beginnings of what I hope to be my own orchard/tree farm. Not large mind you, but we have 3 acres here, with plenty of room for such a venture. I have no plans to make this a full time gig; just a hobby that hopefully will pay for itself over the years. (Heck, I won't see any "fruits" of my labor for about 5 years, so this definitely ain't about the cash!)

Another venture I am seeing come to fruition is my online comic strip. Like the orchard, I have been wanting to create a comic strip for many, many years. I have a title, the characters drawn, and the basic story behind each. I feel really good about it. Check back here in the coming weeks and I will post a link to the new site.

As far as this blog goes, I will keep it online for a while longer, perhaps taking it down eventually. I do plan to start a new blog more on the lines of personal stories and commentaries.

Thank you to all who have visited over the years. It was a joy to have met each of you. I wish each of you continued success. God bless!

12WC - Wk5

Well, week 5 was a total bust. Well, not totally... I did manage to get some rough sketches done of a character series for my portfolio. But these past few weeks have been super busy, and this week we are headed to the happiest place on earth (the kids' first time). I plan to take a sketchbook, but if this is like all our other vacations, I won't get any drawing done!

Anyway, I did do a bit of artwork for my son's birthday this past weekend. He is really into the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books (we've seen the movie, too). So he asked for Greg on his cake, and below is what I came up with.


Hope all of my fellow 12 week challengers are making progress. I am going to try and discipline myself to limit my time online so that I can get some illustrations done.

Good luck to everyone.

12 Week Challenge - Week 3

Our task this week was to think about the business model we want to set up as illustrators, and also compile a list of 10 publishers we would like to work with.

As far as a business model, I will most likely keep it as a sole proprietorship in the beginning for simplicity. However, there are benefits to incorporating yourself in the future. One is that should anything happen with the "company", your personal assets are safe from seizure. There are tax benefits as well. I doubt I will ever put myself under an umbrella name, though.

And for my wish list of clients, they are as follows:

Book Publishers
Igloo Books
Parragon Books
Penguin Group (Dutton, Dial, and G.P. Putnam imprints)
Scholastic
Holiday House
Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
Hyperion Books for Children
Bethany House Publishers (Christian publisher)

Magazines
Highlights (no brainer)
Clubhouse, Jr. (from Focus on the Family)
US Kids (Humpty Dumpty, Turtle, and Jack & Jill magazines)

Some of the publishers I picked through my research at the bookstore, others by their website and listing in my 2006 copy of the CWIM. There are others I may target in the future, but I think this is a pretty good start. (I will also mention that I am a bit disappointed in the 2010 CWIM. I went to the store to get it, and upon reviewing it, was surprised to see how little illustrator info was included compared to previous issues. I did not buy it.)

I have to give mucho kudos to Jonathan Woodward for starting the 12 Week Challenge. I have never been so motivated and inspired and excited about this process until now. While I don't expect to be a full fledged working illustrator, or even have my first job, this process is proving to be a step in the right direction!