section of final art for book.....

Cover for book

This is a scan of a print out for the drawing prior to finished art...the color really sucks...need to find a way to reproduce this better....

Possible illo for magazine...more to follow.

Boat picture

This is the final version of the painting. I'm not sure I like as well as the one I posted before...evidently the lone juror of the art show at the local museum wasn't all that fond of it either. The picture here is a little grainy... it is actually a little more crisp in real life.

WaWe banner

This the banner for Watercolor Wednesdays...I'm having a little trouble getting it to reproduce but it is supposed to be up today so I guess this will have to do. I wanted to post it here first so I might get an idea how it's going to look on the WaWe blog.

sketch for borderlines

I would like to get a couple of illos in Borderlines next month...this is a preliminary sketch. I know they like color but will I have time to do that? Hopefully...we'll see.

More Signwork

This is a sign painted on a brick wall. Painting on bricks is no picnic but I like the way it turned out. Sadly, this building burned a few years ago.
And, why couldn't my wife tell me how ridiculous I looked in these running shorts.

Done enough

Well, it's not totally done but the art show started last week....I'm stickin it in a frame and takin it in tomorrow...God, I'm glad I don't have a real job. I'd get fired for procrastination.

This is Thanh, a girl I knew in Vietnam. I hope to write a story about the war and how we Marines may have appeared through her eyes. It won't be easy to write.

The boat picture is coming along...I hope to have it done for our local library art show April 5th.
I included an older watercolor below to keep it company.....

Paper Angel

One of the themes on WaWe is New Medium...this is an entirely computer generated piece I did with some free software. Some of the lines from the underlaying sketch are still there and when I figure out how, I'll remove them.

random sketch

este illo enviare' a SCBWI bulletin...espero que lo gustan. I did this sketch to send to the SCBWI bulletin for a spot illustration. Hope they use it.

Watercolor Wednesday Painting Finally Done.........

Lot of changes but finally it's finished...

Pen and Ink version of Santa's list for Wa We

It's time to start making the watercolor.....

Earlier Aspirations

Old photo that I found yesterday...I thought it was lost. This was in the mid-seventies when I couldn't imagine that I would not be making a living as a drummer someday. Thank goodness, reality set in. For art work, scroll on down.

Watercolor Wednesday

First Watercolor Wednesday post.....

More old signwork (Scroll Down for Artwork)

I did this 4x8 sign a few years ago for the entrance to the town I live in. It's all hand painted except for the small lettering. The "Rockport" is a style I made up for this particular sign. If you're looking for my art posts, please scroll down a bit.

Thanksgiving

My son, who is running a grain elevator at the busiest time of the year, took off from his sixteen hour a day schedule to make a six hour round trip to be with the family and me (on my birthday). He made two family Thanksgiving dinners then went back to Northern Kentucky to go straight back to work tonight.

While I'm waiting to finish the boat and the Tom Tilly cover, here's an old watercolor from fifteen years ago...

COLOR COMP BEFORE THE FINAL....

got a little way to go on this...

Tom Tilly pencil sketch for cover

I think I'm going to go with the more realistic Tom...gonna transfer it to illustration board or 300 pound Arches and then get busy.

Anoche voy a hacer un commentario en espanol...trascurrido mucho tiempo y no espanoles del hombre que digo "algo cada dia en espanol." Asi, voy a tomar una cerveza (o mas) y escribir.

Well, the post seems a little less askew now (see below) so I guess I can continue working on the foreground...

I have only been working on my illustrations for my books lately neglecting any attempts at fine art. A very gifted cyber-friend of mine who is a great illustrator as well as a blossoming fine artist suggested that I could do both. So...this is a watercolor painting that I started and messed up a lot of stuff half way through it. I am going to try to resurrect it as a mixed media painting. I'll post progress (if there is any). The friggin post is leaning and don't know whether to adjust it or not...posts on an old dock do lean but this one is so dominant that I think it makes the whole composition askew...we'll see.

Some spanish so I don't completely give up.

Hoy hable con mi amigo, Santiago. Que ha estado aprendiendo ingles y el esta hablando en ingles mas bueno que la ultima vez nos conocimos.

Tom Tilly cover

I added this one after the ones below...just to make myself a little crazier about how to represent this character. If anyone has any thoughts as to which style is preferable, feel free....

I'm going to try to post a step by step for Tom Tilly's cover.
Here is the pencil sketch for the cover...

I've added some color in Inkscape...

Some linework to see how it's gonna look...Next will be color in the bottom part then ink it....hopefully, soon.

More miscellaneous art...

Semi comp sketch for dummy book

Es un pintura por un libro que estoy escribiendo. Espero que estara acabo en una semano mas o menos.

Eagle Moon at Bear Cave

Stuff I Used to Do

These are products I made for a company where I was production art director/designer/painter/silk screen printer, etc. They are made of 4 to 6 inch foam board and are completely handpainted. They range in size from about 4 to 6 feet tall.

The Rest of the Year They Hop...

Artwork I did when I worked at some crappy job fifteen years ago.

cat liberal

MORE MANCHESTER

VECTOR ART for BANNER

Perdido en el Mar

REMEMBER WHAT THE DORMOUSE SAID...

sketch for Monday Art Day...thought I'd check it out here first.

Yet another stalled project....

Contribuiendo un poco mas color por el blog.

If you have two chickens and deny one to a starving stranger…you are a pig.
If you have two chickens and give one to a starving stranger..you are a good man.
If you have one chicken and you are starving but you give it to a starving stranger…you are on the right track.

Finally, I've done new roughs for the book...Manchester has just been caught reading in Great Event Class by the Grand Elder.

Manchester Lemming

En relación con el libro, ahora estoy solo estancamiento.

THEN AND NOW

This is on the porch of the house we live in now...it was 1950 and that's my PaPa (PawPaw)

Here we are in the old kitchen overtwenty years ago....

...and here we in the living room over twenty years later.