I’ve been moving stuff out of the office and into my home.  I came across two ink drawings on copy paper.  Initially they were part of a series of letters.  I started to write a friend of mine a fairy tale.  I thought that I would very much like to receive in the mail a story in sequence with illustrations, therefore, I reasoned, my friend would too.  I sent the first installment.  I heard vague remarks.  I started on the second, and here are two of the illustrations accompanying that installment.  I got the feeling that my friend did not like receiving the installments enough to justify the effort, so I never sent the second part.  The drawings found their way to a folder, and I found them as I started to go through old files.  So there you have it!  Now they’re here.

This weekend I cleaned out my car.  I found a CD that had some pictures on it from some years ago.  These are some murals that I did when I was starving and trying to make money.  I wish I could say it was easy to find work.  It wasn’t.  Here’s a shot of the middle stages of a mural for a Bookstore in Birmingham AL.

I don’t really know anything about the mechanics of murals and I just used student grade oil paint and glazes.  They’ll be such a hassle to remove whenever they decide to do that.

Here are some from Lake Murray Elementary School in Columbia SC.

The cool part about murals in an elementary school is that the kids treat you like a rock star.  That not-cool part is the finger prints in the paint after lunch.

I was going through a lot of papers on my desk today and came across this drawing on the back of a sheet of paper.

I did it back when we were working on the Presidential Prize Fight game last year.  I’d like to take this sketch to completion sometime in the near future.  We’ll see if that happens.  I kind of like the energy of the sketch, and it might be better just to leave it as it is.

Although I’m right handed, I’ve noticed that I draw with a bias toward left handed folks. I’m going to try to be a little more even handed in my drawings in the future. The three identically shaped rectangular pieces were done on 4×6 cards.

Wait!  Found one.

This could use some more finish, but I’m sick of working on it.  It looks terrible small.  If you click on the Title, or “Archives” up top you can look at the pictures bigger.  I’m trying to figure out how to get bigger images on without cutting them off in the display.  I know it’s annoying to have to click on the post in order to see the images bigger, but I haven’t yet found a way to fix it.  Also, I’m apparently endeavoring to subliminally promote left handed people everywhere.

Here’s a sketch of Eve, that I did a while back.  I think I’m going to paint it up in Photoshop.  Justin told me not to post progress before I’ve completed a piece.  That way if it goes off the tracks I won’t look stupid, but I’m trying to post once a day (excepting Sundays) for the rest of the month.  I’m putting my dignity at risk and telling you to come back for the finished piece.  Nothing is finished!  Clearly, I’m a masterful self-promoter.  The suspense is like crack!  It will keep you coming back again and again, I know it!

I sometimes leave the office late, and when I go home I often catch a little of Coast to Coast AM on the radio.  Some days ago they had a man on talking about Russia and the KGB and Vladimir Putin.  I think Putin is spooky.  Not only because he’s pressing a nuclear advantage while our President is trying to dismantle our nuclear capabilities, not only because he shares a first name with Vladimir Lenin, and Vlad the Impaler, but also and perhaps most importantly because he looks like a high school chemistry teacher.  People with heavy lidded eyes are always a little scary (Consider Ethan on Season One of Lost).  They disarm you with their sleepy look, and then when you’re not looking they nuke/and or strangle you and steal your baby.

Anyway, I did this picture of Mr. Putin today, and although I could spend some more time on it, I decided that it’s time to call it a day, get in my car, turn on the radio, and listen to people talk about conspiracy theories and ghosts.

EDIT: I also thought it might be worthwhile to appropriate this post for Illustration Friday’s “Shaky” topic, because I feel Putin makes the prospect of nuclear peace shaky.

I’ve never been a history buff, but I am beginning to enjoy it more and more.  I’m reading a biography of Napoleon by Felix Markham and I encountered something fascinating.  Apparently, as a schoolboy in Brienne France, Napoleon enthusiastically organized mock battles.  In the unusually cold winter of 1797 Napoleon designed snow fortifications to  serve as the battleground for snowball fights amongst the students.  During his exile on the Island of Saint Helena, he said, “I have fought sixty battles, and I have learnt nothing which I did not know in the beginning.”

I’m amazed to ponder the poor students that had to exchange snowballs with a military genius who conquered practically all of Europe.  After reading that bit, my mind wandered for the next ten pages.  In my imagination, I constructed some middling student who marshaled the best of his resources to lead his gang of boys against Napoleon’s snow fortress, and years later as the London Times spat imprecatory statements against the “Thief of Europe” this man–this moderate man, this shoe salesman, reminisced about his day of glory when he and his fellows defeated Napoleon on the field of snow.

Perhaps, no such thing happened.  Possibly Napoleon, stranded on Saint Helena, fallen from grace–”but yesterday a King!/ And armed with Kings to strive,” prone toward introspection–possibly he began to rehearse his greatest battles in his mind: The Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, the Battle of Austerlitz, the Battle of Lodi, and possibly amongst these great battles he remembered some bit of tactical genius he displayed during the winter of 1797 in the battles that raged between the schoolboys at Brienne.

Here is a modest tribute to the Great Emperor as a young man persisting to victory at the end of a long day.

Here’s a cleaner sketch for the piece that I’m excited to work on.

If this piece gets better and better, I’ll post more and more as it develops.  If this is the last you see of this piece, you’ll know it got worse and worse.

This is a sketch for a piece I’m excited to work on.

About 2 years ago I wrote a bit of a radio play about an adventurer named Spank Williamson.  I thought it might be fun to do a bit of a piece of him punching a man in the face.  The drawing is below.

Dinner Table Yarns and Fables

This project had a tight deadline.  I really like the idea of this book.  The goal is to have historical stories that are interesting enough and short enough to read at the dinner table.  The book is small in size.  After fretting about the cover image, I was told basically, not to worry about it, because it will be very small.  I’m not sure, but the whole book might have the cover dimensions of a mass market paperback.  Still, I hope that John Adams and Bill Potter will write a number of them.  To my understanding, that’s the plan.  Mark Bauerlein wrote the forward to this one.  He’s the author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30).  Long title, right?  [Review from the LA Times if you're interested.]  In his forward to Dinner Time Yarns and Fables he lists history scores that trumpet the failure of American education to transmit priorities from American History.  Bauerlein writes “Anybody who thinks that the poor scores signify merely an academic matter doesn’t understand the importance of history in a free republic.  For, one essential element in a vibrant democracy is precisely, the historical memory of citizens.  Their remembrance of principles of representation and liberty, of great heroes and villains, and of crucial events and transitions sustains civic life.”  So I guess the mission of this book is to provide an easy way for families to interact, and to imbed themselves in the soil of our history.

Here’s the Cover Sketch inside the frame they approved.  The cover is a little bit lush, and I struggled to fit all the characters they wanted in the frame.  I actually failed to squeeze in General Patton (sorry General), but I feel the meal still has a good turnout.

Here’s the final sketch.

I felt because the frame was so warm they might want a cooler palette.  I was wrong.

I warmed up the palette and gave Jackie Robinson some size.  I was glad to show his uniform.  Here’s the final cover image.

I also got to illustrate the inside content.  Below are a few of those.

Winston Churchill

Booker T Washington

Dolly Madison

Look for the book to come out in July.