House Portrait Done at Last (157-158)

I have been working on this drawing on and off for about two weeks. Typically, it takes me about 8 hours to complete a house portrait. This one took longer for a couple of reasons. First it is much larger than my usual 8 x 10 image (17 x 22). Second, it is a fairly complicated image with lots of shifts in tone. It is a white stone and white clapboard surface, which can be difficult to get in light and shade. Finally, I wanted this to be special because it is a gift for some people who have lots of great artwork in their home and I didn't want to pale by comparison.

I am pleased with the result, although it probably isn't the best photo here. I hope they enjoy it. Click on the picture to see more detail.

IF: Hatch (159-165)

This is General Edward Hatch. For the sake of this drawing, I used a great deal of crossHATCHING.

"Edward Hatch (December 22, 1832 – April 11, 1889) was a career American soldier who served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war he became the first commander of the 9th Cavalry Regiment, a Buffalo soldier regiment with African-American troops commanded by white officers." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hatch)

His biography on that site continued, "Hatch was born in Bangor, Maine, and educated at the Norwich Military Academy in Vermont. He volunteered for service as a private in the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War. He assisted in raising the 2nd Iowa Cavalry, of which he became colonel in June, 1862. He served under General Ulysses S. Grant in the South. After commanding the entire cavalry division in the Army of the Tennessee, he was made brigadier general in early 1864. His gallantry in the field caused his further promotion to the rank of brevet Major General (1864)

After the war, he transferred from the volunteer to the Regular Army as colonel of the 9th Cavalry Regiment (1866). He succeeded General Gordon Granger as commander of the Department of Arizona (which included New Mexico Territory) in 1876, negotiated a treaty with the Ute Indians in 1880, and became widely known as an Indian fighter.
He died in Fort Robinson, Nebraska April 11, 1889 and is buried in Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery Fort Leavenworth Kansas. "

IF: Crunchy (166-171)

The Illustration Friday theme for the week is Crunchy. I thought about things that are crunchy and saw that most of them were being rendered already. I thought of my dog when she has a bone or cookie. She makes a lot of noise and crunchy sounds. There is nothing that makes her life better than a steak bone.

Holiday Card(172-173)

Each year I get the opportunity to create a holiday card for our company. This is the background illustration I created this year. It was created in Photoshop.

This prompted an interesting conversation with my creative partner Dwayne. I posed to him the issue that the term "digital painting" is not an accurate description of this medium. There isn't any paint and I have long had a problem with that characterization of this type of artwork. Guru of Glib that Dwayne is, he resolved the issue with a new term--pixeling. I like it!

So this is a Photoshop pixeling. I am happy with the outcome and have to manipulate the image to work for the various elements (name tags, invitations, electronic, and print cards).

Happy Holidays!

IF: Entangled (174-179)

Here's my Illustration Friday submission for Entangled. Every once in a while I get to go fishing and I think anyone who has fished from an embankment has either been victim to this or seen the evidence of someone else's misfortune.

In my drawing, the limbs are entangled and the lure has found its way into the mess.

I've been working on a new painting and continue to work on a very large house drawing. Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving.

IF: Music--Chinese Violin (180-186)

When they say, "you don't really know what you've lost 'til it's gone", I imagine they were not talking about computer technology. But it is just as true.

Last Thursday we began a move to a new office building that needed to happen before the fiber optic connection could be made. We are currently running a full office of 5 people on one cable internet connection. I waited for an hour to download one graphic file yesterday afternoon.

This had a good and bad outcome. The good is that it gave me an opportunity to work on this week's IF: Music. The bad is that I was done on Monday and could only get the scanner to operate this morning. So here it is...

This is a drawing of an old gentleman that my daughter an I encountered on the streets of San Francisco a couple of years ago. I love SF! Talk about a town that gets it from a design sense. We spent the day at the DeYoung museum, the Japanese Garden, Lucas Films, and just enjoying the beautiful city. We also visited the SFMoMA. My daughter will be heading out to California in a month to USC for graduate film study. I'm sure she will visit the City by the Bay again.

Enjoy.

Chevy Truck (187-188)

Started working on a big house drawing that is a gift for some very generous people we know yesterday. It will take a couple of days to get through.

In the mean time, I did a sketch of a 1948 Chevy Pickup Truck that is parked near my Mom's house in town.