new symbol

This was recently presented (and accepted) to the brand new foundation established in this school district to raise funds and provide grants for programs etc. to enrich the educational experience for students in the area. The school's colors are blue and gold--so the color scheme for this has been flipped to being gold and blue...with an emphasis on the gold (one, to differentiate;two, to emphasize quality/excellence--"golden").This will go on the standards (letterhead, stationery, website, thank you card)-- and be complemented by photographs of the kids etc. (black and white). You know the drill.

More work on the winery logotype. Will post my favorites after my meeting with the client.

Need to get back on the SF pictures...or maybe start a protest picture. Sorry I have been so slow in getting you all new material. Life has been spinning by!

Gray day


Kinky Boots was a good movie all about an unexpected friendship that becomes a business relationship to save a failing shoe company. Kind of a little Cinderella story. A nice way to while away an hour or so. Was rainy and pseudo tropical yesterday on the big plateau. Today, as I look out the window, it promises to be the same. Am working along on this pair of houses from SF. Am surprisingly learning something about how the shadows come together and how the color can shift and change. Its pretty fun.Maybe some watercolors today. Also need to do the revisions on the sun face approach that I've committed to for next Wednesday. Hope this gray weather gives you the excuse you need to read a book, watch a movie, bake a giant cake or something else you might not do if the sun was beating down.

a present from a micologist friend!


Our friend, Steve has many diverse hobbies from hunting, wine making, dog training, cooking, fishing and much more. His most engaging and interesting is mushroom hunting. He does it on his own and with a group of fellow hunters in the Binghamton area. Last weekend, he was on the lookout for morels with the Binghamton group--all of them fanned out, combing an area. A member of the group, an older lady, is known for her ability to always surface a bag of morels or two. She proved her skills again, coming back with several baskets. Steve, I guess, took this as a challenge.

So, on his way back from the hunt, looking under dead Elm trees (which the lady let on was her technique)--Steve found his own basket or two. And we are the recipients of his bounty.

Arent they beautiful?

Kinky Bootswas great. Not a heavy movie, but sweet and lasting. If you don't catch it in the movie theatre, it will be a good rental.

Tonight, a concert with Princess Kitty singing. 2300˚ in Corning so Rob will be running around for this. Big doings there with Ken Butler (a wonderful artist we saw at Light in Winter this January, and also artist in residence with MassMoca), Big Leg Emma playing music and tons of food for the regular crowd, but also for the LPGA guests. Should be fun.

my apologies

Your friend has been a bit busy with making pictures and graphics for work to keep up with daily chat etc. However, the attached is a beginning of an image of 2 of the San Francisco Painted Ladies on Alamo Square(?) Park(?)--that will be rendered (hopefully) with a western meadowlark--a birdhouse idea. Working with architecture is interesting...I'm not so sure about the success of it. From yesterday, you can see that I am doing a little research into dodo birds--for political reference, for bird reference etc. I've learned quite a bit about them...too dumb to flee from invaders bringing disease, dogs and pigs...and their teeny little silly wings, incapable of lifting them off the ground. And what about that wispy toufta that is the tail?

Gotta go. Going to see (on a school night!!) the last night of "Kinky Boots".

new fowl in the works


Now...what to add to this guy? A wine glass? a fortune cookie? the golden gate bridge?the exploratorium? another bird? an egg? a skull??

Will probably work on this heron--simplifying etc. They are very primordial looking--and the idea of it devouring one of the key skyscrapers in SF is very Kongular, but also links to a bird consuming/subsuming a city...back to the theme of the year....can you guess? Avian Flu.

How does this happen that many, if not all roads lead to Avian Flu? Is it all meant to be?

Black Headed Night Heron

Hi. Just got started on this night heron. Did a little thumbnail for fun before getting into cutting one in illustrator. Not much happening here. Grass is growing, promise of rain, Princess Kitty is away, R. is working late--so A. and I have plans for tonight.

Freerange boys going to be the first box wine(BIB)shown at the Nantucket Wine Festival. They are pumped and planning private tastings with the food biggies in the Boston area (chefs, restauranteurs etc.) Meeting with big wigs at the end of the month. I cannot wait to hear about the reaction to the wine and the packaging. It is always amusing to hear the knock-out punch that the boys deliver when it looks good and tastes just as good!

Ouch!

Up this morning at 3:30 to get Princess Kitty to the bus for a wonderful, museum packed 3 days, 2 nights in Washington, D.C. Yipes! Very exciting.The school did a wonderful job of organizing, planning and getting all the kids in one place, focused all going in the same direction. A. did a good job with baseball (no rainout)--hit a few, caught a few, had a brush with a ball and is the hero of the day with the younger set. They hang on every word he utters. Did a few drawings yesterday. Need to jump on the SF bandwagon a little later this week. Ordered a slew of bulbs from Van Engelen this morning. Hundreds! Scented narcissis, some littler allium, a zillion daffodils, amaryllis (to give away @ Christmas)--red and white striped, and the same with paperwhites. YAY! Its so terrific to order them now as the buzz around having a kabillion bulb (many of them dying away) is still alive, which any later might fade with all the richness summer gives us. Gonna check out Mr. Klehm and his gorgeous peonies to shop for that too! Check 'em out!

Rain....and probably a little more


Beautiful weekend with lots of sunshine and friends. Working busily on new illustration project...the above is a reject but here for you. Still working on the chicken feet.The boys got their go ahead to submit all of our winebox graphics for federal approval yesterday. So we move forward.

Today is R's birthday. Kitty goes to Washington DC tomorrow in the wee hours. Baseball was cancelled (to my delight!).

no rain!

Another sunny day in the Republic. Bought some coral bells and hosta yesterday at that reviled discount place--and a gardenia and a fab (Mother's day present to me from ME) pale, blue purple, semi baroque looking clematis. Now, time to get em in.

The new illustration client has other desires--so I think I will generate a bunch of sketches in anticipation of a July need. Animals. Any and all...preferably symbolic or illustrative. So, as soon as our little chat finishes, I am off to be a good google monkey--to look for pix and fables. They like the online monkeys...which are not the friendliest. And they like the line work...(So I bought my new tool of choice, the precision Precise V5 from Pilot, with the "needle point"--and am ready to go). They even liked the teacup...so maybe some sketches in paint(!). For those of you who care, the Precise V5 will take water...and do a little watercolor thing too.

where's the rain?


They promised us rain. Buckets of it. Day and night--7x24 deluge. And what do we have? Another day in paradise! High blue skies. Shapey clouds. Green grass...I give up. Just got a for real, paying illustration job drawing a picture of a sunface. So, you all may get a gander either here...or somewhere else. Tburg Foundation just approved their new logo/symbol--which looks nice. Will post next few postings. School dance tonight for the young'ens...to their delight. Almost like Christmas or Birthday levels of excitement. Nice.

These dudes are part of the watercolor pottering. They are more sketches to get to the one and only Google Monkey. Unfortunately, they look like people I know. Either unflattering to the people...or the monkeys.

tea? anyone?


Thinking about having a little mid-afternoon party for Princess Kitty and her pals to celebrate the moving up from Middle School. With that thinking, this little person teacup was part of the watercolor noodling during our baseball evenings this week. The thought is iced tea, lemonade, cakes, petit fours, and maybe some iced cream plus games outside like bocci, badminton, croquet, kickball...Could be fun. Low impact for me, and something with a limited timeframe for the guests. Thoughts?

come and get it!

not sure about the feet. Going to relook at that. Also, plan on lifting the bird and putting into a less "graphic design" environment. I do like the way this background makes it look like the bird is endorsing breakfast cereal etc. except he should be cock-a-doodling instead of placidly standing there with small minded rage brewing on his demeanor.

chicken is still baking, so more monkeys!

Another day, another opportunity to do something fun! Spent a couple of hours yesterday watching Alex's baseball practice with Kittycat--piddling around with watercolors. Fun. We have more baseball today, therefore....(you fill in the blanks... I'll give you a hint...therefore, more time piddling with watercolors1). Am listening to two way divergent albums/cds--the new Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris "in the Running" and an old fave, gospel group Marvin Winans and the Perfected Praise Choir, "Friends"-- Its rockin'--but all over the map. No news about all over the map here.The chicken is in the final basting...shadows, tweaks etc.Later today or tomorrow for posting. Finally licked the technique I was griping about yesterday. Cool way to use the transform tool and the opacity mask in illustrator. Man, this tool just keeps going. Later.

domesticated fowl



More on this bird. The Freeranger is about to take flight...awkward and
a bit halting albeit it is action! So, I figured as I have birds on the brain, that I would do some domesticated fowl to compliment (?) the west coast,wild specimens. So, a goose or two, a chicken or ten, and maybe a duck or turkey? From my digital pen to your table...def low fat, high carbs. No calories!

Did I tell you about Layers magazine?Its a great adobe CS related pub with tons of tricks and tips...pretty straightforward. They sponsor a nice Mac event--that had a cool trick having to do with the opacity mask in Illustrator that rocks...only problem is this old bird is having a heck of a time making it go...It only takes 100 tries and we will have it.

What? No monkeys?

I promised chickens. Here goes. Much more in the hopper that you poor devils get to get subjected to. Cheers!

messing around

Tried doing some sort of architectural look for the San Francisco pictures and got bored. Tired and bored. My usual approach to "projects" is that you don't start a new one until you dog the other one to death and finish it...whether you like it or not...but I am, in my old age going to do what I want to do--and put the pains aside.Much healthier and much more fun. And, not so damned puritanical. So, more birds to come. I can't decide whether I should do more San Francisco birds, do "cross over birds" (ones that we get here "back east"), or domestic birds like chickens and geese...But I am on it. I figure if I can get enough bird work done, I will have 1) a bird body of work, 2)a thesis in the bag (if I want it), 3) 26 birds and 26 letters of the alphabet make a type of alphabetical bestiary that could be worked up into a book, or 4) 12 birds/12 months equal a calendar. You get the idea.

Want to do some chickens for Freerange. Freerange news is that they will be at the Nantucket Wine Festival at the end of the month. Very swanky and elite.They will be the first "box wine" shown there. The boys are psyched. More happening in the world of distribution etc.

Kitty and Alex were in high spirits this morning as Kitty is going to a choral judging that she has been working very hard on and Alex was going to spend the day on a field trip. Kitty looked beautiful and Alex had an orange shirt that made him look like a dreamsicle creamsicle. (As an aside, my younger friends do not know what a creamsicle is...I guess this dates me!).

The unhappy fellow shown above is a wandering sketch from yesterday. Still working with monkeys...am fascinated by the shapes in their faces. I want to understand them a little better. You may see more of them.

Monkeying around

Fiddling around with watercolor and a sharpie during the continuing documentary film festival we are sponsoring for Kitty and Alex. Last night's showing (partial--it got too late and school is tomorrow/today) was of "Farenheit 911". Good to see it, and particularly good to see it through their eyes. It's funny how much they really love this approach to movies--I guess because it's real, it's edgy (the more point of view for those two, the better)and they actually learn something. They are begging to see "Brokeback Mountain" but I am not sure about it.

We are good to go on the skate park work from yesterday. The crowd seems to like it.

Wine man, my new client, weighed in....action on that soon.

The big wine project is moving along...with some distribution deals happening as we speak.

The day is short. Onward!