Taking some time to study the greats

Between work and the ever enticing summer weather, I have found myself doing more and more studying. I know that sounds a bit strange, but it has been a really relaxing and beneficial activity. In particular, I have been looking at a lot of 18th and 19th century drawings. After looking at many a line work, it is amazing to see each individuals expressiveness come through in the simple line. To see how that simple drawing becomes a complex dance between paper and pencil, is mind numbing sometimes. From predetermined paths to the erratic and unexpected. Drawings, though often overlooked, can become a wealth of information and inspiration.

With that, I will leave you with happy wishes for your July 4th celebrations. I will be enjoying my holiday out at the lake and hope you find some fun activities yourselves. See you after the 4th!

Art Soup Street Painting in Elk River

Well, another successful street painting occurred this weekend in Elk River, Mn at the Annual Art Soup Festival. Since the festival happens on the banks of the Mississippi River, I thought it would only be fitting to create a street painting of one of the rivers paddle boats. Below you will find some of the shots and the finished images.

Twin Cities Live and Art Soup

Hello everyone. Here's hoping all of you have a great weekend planned. I know it will be a busy one here with Art Soup tomorrow in Elk River. So as you know in the previous post, I was fortunate enough to have been featured on "Twin Cities Live" yesterday. It was definitely a great experience and really appreciated the hospitalityof both the producer Christian Unser and reporter Melissa Specken. Also a big thank you goes out to Allison Dent who helped set up the segment in conjunction with "Art Soup" this saturday in Elk River. So below are the results of the taping that went on yesterday. They are the two main segments that were on the program yesterday. Just click and enjoy! Below them are the two images that were created as well.

twincitieslive.com - Sidewalk Chalk

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twincitieslive.com - Sidewalk Art Results!

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This is the one that I created during the segment


Here is Melissa Specken and her "Henry"

A first for everything and a free drawing class

Just when I thought I didn't have to get too nervous or anxious about what I do as an artist anymore, I got a call the beginning of the week to appear live on Channel 5's "Twin Cities Live". With a little bit of luck for nice weather, I will be appearing tomorrow at 3pm on the show. Scary I know! I usually do pretty good with groups and such, but that is because i have done similar things before that I knew what to expect. But with the show tomorrow, it will be an entirely new experience. If the weather holds out, it will be an interview in the studio sometime at the beginning of the show and then I am to go outside and do a quick 40 minute street painting that they will keep checking in on. It shouldn't be too bad, but what happens if I freeze when the cameras go live!!!!! Anyways, if you happen to be bored tomorrow around the 3-4 pm timeframe, feel free to check out the show and let me know what you think.

In other fun news, tomorrow night I will be teaching a free drop in drawing class at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts from 6-9pm. In conjunction with "Third Thursday", we will be having a night of free drawing. No need to worry about paper, pencils or anything, just come on down and visit the Wells Fargo room and say hi. We will also be having a couple of 30 minute excursions to draw in the galleries as well. Hope to see you there!


PS, this is a little study I did to see how large the boy on the high dive would be if I were to make it an 8' x 9' streetpainting or Rockwell's image. Even though I think this could be a great one to do, I think I have found a different one that I will be posting about when I am at the event on Saturday.

Decisions, decisions

Coming up this Saturday the 20th, I am going to be creating a large street painting for the Art Soup festival in Elk River. After many many weeks of going back and forth about what to recreate for this event, I am still at the same stalemate that I was at before. At question is the image I am going to work on over the course of the 10 hours. Currently it is between Norman Rockwell's "High Dive" and a couple of other images. I have attached them for your viewing and would love to see what you think. The only thing I worry about with the Norman Rockwell image is its two color domination of blue and gray. Anyways, what do you guys think?

A new book has arrived!

After many many months of hard work and then waiting, I am excited to share with you a new book that I illustrated titled "Come Sign with Us: The Adventures of Potts and Friends". Written by Marsha Peterson, "Come Sign with Us" is a teaching resource for young kids to learn the skill of sign language through stories. As Marsha states:

"My son was born with Down Syndrome and later diagnosed with Autism. He started special education services at 7 weeks of age. When he was a year old, his teacher told me that we may need to learn sign language. As a single parent, I had no time to attend classes and I didn't want to use videos. I started reading to my son and found it to be a wonderful experience. He would snuggle next to me and give me his full attention. I decided that teaching sign language through stories would be an excellent way to learn and to teach him. It also provides an activity that teaches others that care for him so they too can communicate. Today my son knows over a 1000 signs and behaviors are controlled without speaking a word. I hope you will love Talking with Baby."

Having worked with Marsha over the course of the last year, I have really come to respect and love what she is doing and I really hope that you will pass this great book onto people in your lives that may have difficulty communicating with their little ones or who simply want to teach their kids sign language. This first book is actually two stories in one. The first story deals with Breakfast time and the second story deals with Bath time, two of the most important aspects of your little ones day! So with that, I will leave you with a couple of images and hope that you will try Talking with Baby when the book launches on June 28th!

Illustration Friday: "Craving"

This is an illustration from my upcoming children's book titled "Come Sign with Us" where baby is learning the signs for the activities surrounding breakfast. Here, baby definitely has a craving for some cereal!