And how was your Christmas?

Had a GREAT time this year. I got to visit my grandkids on Christmas morning and experienced that magical uncontrollable excitement that is a child's Christmas morning. Wow, it was great.

This is a children's Christmas play featuring wisemen following the star to Jesus' birth. The dog is substituting for a camel. It's all just a little something I wanted to do to show how my "children's book" style is evolving.

Elmer

                    

Elmer was a unique character I remember from my childhood. He lived down the street and drove an old pickup past our house every day as he went searching for junk to sell and barter with around town. He always wore overalls (just overalls) and a ball cap.

I remember him driving up to our house, getting out of his truck and digging around in the back. Finally, he would pull a watermelon out and lay it down in our front yard. Then he would pull out a small machete and cut off any bad places on the melon. Then he would proudly bring it up to our door and present his gift to us. Sometimes we'd get to eat it and sometimes my mom would throw it away after he left.

Elmer always had a smile on his face, though. He was one of those characters that knew everyone in town and had a story to share with each one. He would look at us kids and start talking about how the wheel of life just keeps turning and turning.

Elmer was truly a unique character. I just can't think of anyone around who lived that simple a life and enjoyed it so much.

The Secret Ingredient Is How We Mix It All Together

Here's something different. My daughter asked me to do a set of portraits of her two dogs. Not what I've been working on the past few years, but I gave it a shot anyway. Honestly, maybe one of my problems in getting noticed by the publishing industry is that I enjoy both styles of drawing: realistic and cartoon.

I've heard that you need to stick to a certain style in art so people will think of you when they want that style. That makes sense, but, you know what? We are all made up of many parts. We all have little bits of good and bad, male and female, serious and funny inside of us. Some of these traits we want to overcome. Others we mix in with who we are occasionally just to liven things up. That's what makes us truly unique. It's not that I am an older male who tries to be good. It's that I have a tendency towards dry humor and love to watch serious documentaries. It's how we combine our ingredients that makes us each an individual.

I remember a co-worker years ago laughing about her daughter's first attempt at baking. According to the mother, she gathered all the ingredients together, then plopped them all in a pan, stirred and baked. The daughter was heartbroken at the result, but her mother finished her story by laughing, "Everyone knows that baking is all about adding each ingredient at the right time."

And I've known that ever since that day.
 It really was a lot of fun to sit down and draw these. I didn't even mention the thrill of working with pencil on real paper again. I enjoyed this so much that I decided to offer it to other pet owners. So I have a new listing on Etsy! Get your pet immortalized!

Good morning

All I need in the morning is a strong cup of coffee and a little love.

Okay, I don't drink coffee, but I have a cat (I'm also not a girl if you want to get picky). I just wanted to do something for a coffee mug. You're allowed a few liberties on a coffee mug, aren't you?

The Perspective of An Old Wise and Out-of-Touch Man

This guy has been around a long time. He's seen it all. At least that's the way he sees it. And it doesn't impress him.

This guy may be wise, intuitive, insightful, whatever, but the world has moved on. It's not interested in what he thinks anymore. He's not as sexy as the Kardashians. He doesn't sing a combination of rap and disco. He doesn't make speeches insulting whole groups of people and thrilling the anti-PC crowd.

He's just an old man who doesn't understand the world he lives in anymore.

Sometimes I feel like that old man. Sometimes I'm so out of touch I can't for the life of me figure out how to talk to people anymore. Where did I make that wrong turn that took me so far from modern society? Should I just sit there like he does and contemplate the inevitable downfall of this ignorant generation?

In a better mood I realize that what made me different is my perspective on this world and what I came to value. In other words, my spiritual beliefs. I realize there is a higher purpose to life than keeping myself entertained. I believe in something more than money. I believe there is a God.

I haven't moved into a cave and ostricized myself from modern society yet. I've been known to turn up the radio and tap my fingers on the steering wheel when Taylor Swift sings about shaking it. I just find it harder and harder to feel that passion for success in this world - not when I've caught a glimpse of the next world. I've been passionate about fads that faded away. I've watched childhood relived by my children. I've been promised and betrayed more times than I can count. I've lived through the death of those I loved so much I still wish I could have died in their place. You don't look up from that and say the important thing in life is to be at the most happening parties.

Wow, this blog took a much deeper turn than I intended. All I wanted to talk about was how I'm different. But when I look into it I'm different because I live for something beyond this world. I don't sit around moping about it like the gentleman above. Maybe I do have a place in this world. Maybe it still have some usefulness for me. That is, as long as I never forget there is more to this life than what I see in front of me and there is a higher reward than the approval of people whose eyes are focused on the world in front of them. And maybe, because of my perspective, I can still offer it something as well.

Send Someone A Hug

Just want to let you know I've branched out into greeting cards. This is a card being offered by my online store "Hapy Thots" at Zazzle.com. The idea behind it all is I want to encourage people to look on the bright side of life, support each other, and smile together. That's what sending a card should be about. You can visit my store at http://www.zazzle.com/hapythots, It's just getting started so be sure and check back in a few weeks for greeting cards, mugs, t-shirts, etc.

How Do I Get Noticed?

I've always been a shy person. As a kid it was my little sister who grabbed all the attention - not a small source of embarrassment for me. In high school I enjoyed a short sprint as a local celebrity in my church youth group, but that quickly disappeared when we entered the "no man's land" of single adulthood (You might have had to have been in churches back in the 70's to understand that one, I guess).

But the key (and this is why it's taken so long for me to become a professional illustrator) to becoming successful in the commercial art world is publicity. I have to get my stuff out there, in front of thousands of other people just like me, trying to get noticed. All of this in a world that appears anyway to be losing any interest in drawn art for the photographic kind.

Not that I'm complaining. I just want to reach my goal. I just want to be a part of the illustrative environment. I just want to tell stories through my art. I love that.

And how do I do that?

1. Practice.

2. Join organizations associated with my field. Recently I became a part of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). That automatically brings me into the same room with art directors and publishers. I love what I'm getting out of this group and the great people I'm meeting there. Certainly more to come from this.

3. Practice.

4. Up my presence on Social Media. Hey, how about a blog? That's a good idea. Twitter seems to be a good connection, too. Slowly, I'm learning to open up and talk about myself and I'm trying to learn the fine art of sharing my skills without coming across as an advertisement.

5. Yeah, keep practicing.

6. Study as much of other illustrators, their work and what they have to teach you, as I can. There is no way to express how much easier this is today with the internet. Of course, one of the first things I learned is that it seems to be very popular and easy to get noticed with porn than any other subject. Okay, let's just stroll over here to option two.

7. You're not there yet. Keep practicing. (Just a side note here: you never really get to "there." Just keep practicing.)

I'm learning to ask myself what do people want to see? That gets me noticed on sites like Etsy and Zassle. I'll get there. I'll do it. I AM AN ILLUSTRATOR. Oh, that's number 8.

8. Believe in yourself.

Peace, Love and All That Stuff

I don't understand Social Media. I just don't get it. Obviously, that's the way to make the kind of contacts I need to publicize myself and what I have to offer this world. I've heard the advice of where to be posting and who to connect with, but that still leaves the greatest question ... what am I supposed to post?

For years I've looked at this as my defect. I just have this innate problem with talking about myself. My mother has always been a firm believer in the idea that everyone else should point out what great things you do. You should never tell them yourself. That would be pride. The result is that I've grown up with this feeling that no matter who else is in the room I am always the least important one. That's a bit counterproductive for an artist, don't you think?

Suddenly, it dawns on me. Combine that with this natural aversion I have to marketing - even though marketing has occupied most of my life (I've never liked the idea of selling toothpaste. The real joy in life comes from telling stories).

Yes, folks, I'm a Flower Child! A remnant of the 60s, a time when I was just a boy, but even then I absolutely identified with the concept. Let's all just forget this money thing and live for peace, love and all the real pleasures there are in life. Let's just ... .

That way of thinking just doesn't work today. Maybe it didn't really work back then. But that's the only real way someone like me can ever be happy. A job consultant once told me I was the type who wasn't motivated by money. I needed to feel that my work was contributing something to this world. That's true. Well, except for the fact that I have to keep finding money somewhere to pay the bills. I'm addicted to comfortable living. Air conditioning, food and privacy are important, too. But racking up piles of money has never made me happy.

Telling stories, now that goes back to my earliest days. I've always identified art as telling stories. I guess that will always be my motivator, my purpose. Fortune 500 just doesn't excite me.

Yes, that's me. I'm just a Flower Child.

Waking Up In A Strange Place

When I was a kid we would make annual visits to our relatives in Lousiana. I loved that world down there. The house was an old Victorian two-story place, rich in history with mysterious customs and people different from anything I'd ever known in Oklahoma and always fun to explore. Once we arrived late at night and I was placed sound asleep in a downstairs room different where I usually slept. When I awoke the next morning the maid was vacuuming in the hallway just outside my door. Now there's two things you have to know about life some fifty years ago. I was a little kid who hadn't been around too many people of the darker skin coloring. The other thing is there were a lot of darker skinned people in Louisiana. Back then they could only get the lowest jobs and were paid far less than white people. So the maid was African-American. In addition, I was just too scared to get up out of bed, change clothes in front of an open door and walk past her to the kitchen where everyone else was already eating breakfast.

I remember lying there silently quite a while thinking about how my sister had already picked out the best flavor of those little cereal boxes they used to sell in packs and how very soon she and my dad would be exiting out the back door. That first morning he always paid a visit to his old stomping grounds where he would tell us stories from his adventures as a kid there. When I couldn't stand missing all that any longer I called out for my mother. I yelled and yelled until finally EVERYONE came running into my room only to hear this little kid in his pajamas was too scared to get out of bed. My mother, born without the discrete gene polite society has, still to this day loves to tell the story of how I was so afraid of the African-American maid. Somehow everyone else missed the fact that she was a woman, I was in my pajamas and she was a stranger.

Anyway, the lesson I choose to take from this is that we all have a fear of what (or who) looks different from what we are used to. We hope that as adults we would learn to override that instinct to peer deeper beneath the surface. There we will always find the same elements of greed, grudges, ignorance and love in different quantities and mixes. But we also need to remember that, at first, our only information about someone else are those visual clues that tell our instinct this is a familiar person or an evil stranger. It would behoove us all to pause a few seconds before we react. With our neighbor that shouldn't mean require than a second or two. With a politician it may mean quite a bit longer to find those true elements within. But they're all there - the thief and the saint, just below the surface, just below our looks, just below our words.

It's Summertime

Summer is here, admittedly not my favorite season, but fun, none the less. My only problem with it is summers get too hot in Oklahoma. But, it's nice to get outside and breathe the air, watch the clouds lazily drift by and ... wait a minute! I'm regressing back to my memories of summer vacation. Oh yeah, I lived for summer vacation. Freedom. Freedom to invent new games like golf with a baseball bat or making music with coffee cans. I loved to play moon landing in the newly overturned dirt of my mother's garden. I drew comic books and created radio plays on my cheap little tape recorder, anxious to come up with a story from some genre I hadn't explored yet.

Summer was a magical time when I could do anything because the only person I had to please was me. I tended to like just about anything I did, too. Good audience, I must say. Oh yeah, I had a TV show that followed my daily life, complete with a stage audience. I loved doing the monologues. Pull that one off, reality TV!

I don't remember it being as hot, either.

Please sir, may I have another?

It's easy for some people to view trumpeting your skills as selling yourself, which, let's face it, sometimes can feel like begging. I was raised to be one of those kids who sat quietly at the table and waited to be served our ration of gruel. To share what I can do with the rest of the world sometimes I have to get up from my seat and just ask for it. Sure, you're going to get knocked down. But, I remember years ago when I was doing the local fairs. A friend told me that I may not make a lot of money (I didn't), but at every show there would be something that would happen to bless my efforts. And it did. Someone always came by to tell me my work was different from just some local hack and I should keep going.

That still happens today. Even those days when I don't make a huge splash in the world, if I'm really trying I'll always get a reassurance from someone or some event that I'm doing the right thing, I have something to offer and it's worth continuing.

Please, sir, may I have another?

Cheers for the SCBWI!

Attended my first local meeting of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). It really impressed me to be in the same room with several other illustrators. That's kind of sad, I guess, for that to be such rare thing. Hopefully, this will change all of that. Thanks, Jerry Bennett for making me feel so much at home and contributing so much to the meeting.

Elvis Is Home

I went to a wedding this weekend. It took place in a little chapel next door to Graceland. The wedding was nice, but the whole experience was something else. As you walked down the street you heard Elvis music broadcast from every shop. That's different Elvis songs. So there's a strange blur of Elvis noise constantly shifting as you walk along.

To tell the truth, Elvis fans always seemed a little odd to me. Fans usually do to anyone else. But, once you experience Graceland you can't help but feel a little more respect for him and all the people who love him. Elvis apparently was just a poor sharecropper's son from Tupelo, Mississippi, who struck gold with a great voice and a way of getting into his music that shocked TV viewers and shot him to fame. His life became something of circus, but he always retained some of that small town boy attitude. He was very generous with people and charities. He told others he really wanted to be a Gospel singer. He was a nice guy.

So here's to Elvis. This is a caricature I made several years ago.