What You Talkin' About?: Portland Studios

We want to be consumed with something beyond ourselves.

Portland Studios isn't concerned with the next big leap, the next wave, the magic bullet. We strive for a collective body of work that displays a habit of excellence.
Hopefully behind our art, people might perceive the shape of truth, the romance of order, the virtue of beauty, and the goodness of goodness.

It's a big job, but that's the plan.

Sometimes, I run across something on the interweb that just inspires me. I found the Portland Studios website through the blog of Justin Gerard, Quick Hide Here. Interested in Justin's work, I wanted to see more of it, so I followed up to the where he works, which was conveniently linked in the sidebar.

From the opening screen, I was hooked. Elegant design, with a warm brown pallette and textured background brings to mind old books, a warm kitchen, and a hot pipe. Add to that the charming "soundtrack", and it just draws you into the experience. I'm not usually a fan of music on websites, but the music for the Portland Studios site is tasteful, not overpowering, and like I said, adds to the experience. Also on the home page right now is a short animation, illustrated by Justin Gerard that was just wonderful.

The Portland Studios site is easy to navigate, with tabs for Home, People, Work and Contact. Also there are links to their blog, as well as a company store where you can purchase apparel, textures, books, and brushes.
The Work (portfolio) section is split up into the companies three main areas of expertise. Illustration, Animation, and Interactive. It displays as a pile of snapshots in a Flash interface. When you click on a picture, it enlarges into a full view. All of the work is impressive, and really puts paid to their claim of striving for a collective body of work that displays a habit of excellence. We could all take a page from that book.

Like I said, this site really invites you to explore, and explore, explore. There's just enough information to leave you wanting MORE. So, in that vein, I did... and for all you lazy people out there I have provided some links to blogs by members of the Portland Studios team. I hope you enjoy checking them out as much as I have. All in all, I was/Am very impressed with Portland Studios as a company, and as a site. I feel inspired to push with renewed resolve in my own work, and also that this is maybe another sign-post towards where I want to go in the next couple of years.

I'll be in again soon. Until then, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

Links:
Portland Studios: www.portlandsrudios.com
Blog: blog.portlandstudios.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/portlandstudios
Justin Gerard: Quick Hide Here
Cory Godbey: light night rains
Ben Kammer: Tide Is Level
Mark Johnson: WMD Boom

Fun with Banners

So I've been thinking for awhile about opening up an Etsy shop. Actually, a real long while. The problem is, most of my physical work is five to ten years old, or else just sketchbook pages, and pretty much all of the newer stuff is digital. I realize that I am totally capable of doing a high quality print of any of my digital art to sell, and that is one of the things that I am looking into doing.

Also, I did some looking around, and there are graphic designers there selling banners and avatars, business cards and logos. That's an option as well, but I worry about selling graphic design work at crafters prices. I don't mean that in a nasty way at all, but looking on there, a lot of the work is marked at 5 to 10 dollars that really should be three times that. If you crank them out, and sell a lot of "premades" I think you can do okay, but it just feels like that's devaluing a skilled labor, and that sort of thing just tends to compound on itself. So it's something that I'm thinking about, but I am just not sure about.

A third option, and I'm just not sure that this fits into the sites regulations, is doing illustration work and selling as clip-art for scrap booking and graphics supplies. That way I can get paid over and over for one piece of artwork, and it doesn't devalue the work that I did. Like I said, I'm not sure that this is something that would be allowed, but I feel like it should be. The possibilities here extend into digitizing it into embroidery files, and also using it for screen printing and custom books, etc... It's a thought, but I have more work to do before I'm ready to really pursue it.

I made a couple of banners for myself, for the etsy shop, and also I'm using the second one on my CG Hub profile.
There's things that I like about both designs, but I have to admit that the bottom one is probably stronger. The cleanliness of the text and logo in general better represent my design aesthetic. I think this is going to be a good year for me, and I'm slowly working my way towards some of my goals. I'm hoping to squeak an extra post in this week, but if things don't quiet down a little bit, I may not be able to. So, until Wednesday for sure, and maybe sooner. Take care and be good.

Your friend
Jeffrey

What You TAlkin' About?: Pose Maniacs

Well... I missed Sunday's post. Oops. It's so tempting to get down about it, and miss Wednesday too, but that's a slippery slope. I'm tired, but I'm going to get this done.

Todays post is about Pose Maniacs. Or more specifically about their 30 seconds drawing section.

Randomly displayed from 19,440 different poses and angles, the images from Pose Maniacs are both high quality, and inoffensive. That shouldn't matter I guess, but I just want you all to know (as if you couldn't tell from the sample image) that while the figures are not clothed, there is no way that they would be confused for porn. Ha-ha! Another thing that I would like to note, is that the site is mixed Asian and English text, but it dosen't take too much poking around to find what you are looking for.

This is directly from the site:

"Get ready in front of the screen with a pencil and a paper. Press the start button. The models shown will change every 30 seconds. Your skill will surely improve if you do this training every night and day, with 2 sets of 5 minutes(10 poses).


What's this training for?

The idea of thirty seconds drawing app is based on a special training method introduced in "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards."

Basically, the idea is that by observing and drawing quickly, we are able to bypass the concrete left side of our brain and access the creative right side. Effectively observing what we see, rather than interpreting it.

Another aspect of this exercise that I find useful is using it as a warm up. Sometimes in the evenings, I am uninspired, and tired... the last thing I want to do is commit to getting my sketchbook out and drawing for thirty or ninety minutes. With the Pose Maniacs 30 second drawings, I can commit to 5 minutes (six small drawings) and if I'm still "too tired" then I can quit. Often though, I find that all I really needed was to get the ball rolling. I do my five minutes of sketches and then work for another hour or more before calling it quits for the night. Sometimes we just NEED a little constructive goof off time to actually be more productive.

Okay, I hope you all had a great week, and I'll talk at you again on Sunday. Until then, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

What You Talkin' About?: Skottie Young

Maybe you'll find this a little ridiculous, but I think all week about what I'm going to post on Wednesdays. It's mostly questions like "Should I post about this artist, who I think is really cool?", or "Oh! I saw this cool technique, maybe I'll talk about that!", or even "Well I got all these bookmarked pages, maybe I'll start with my command bar, and start talking about them. I look at them every day, so Obviously I think they're worth seeing..."

Then sometimes something comes up and I get really excited about it. And that's what makes the cut.

Today, I sat down to check the e-mails, and see what's up on the inter-web, and Skottie Young posted again. Always a good time, but this time it was special. It's a video post. It's only like 15 minutes of footage of him drawing and talking, but it's always cool to see inside the process of somebody you admire. Plus Skottie's pretty funny. Double bonus.

I first heard of Skottie on a Sidebar Nation podcast, and really enjoyed his frankness, his sense of humor, and... I guess you could say general personability. He seems like the kind of guy I'd like to hang out with for awhile, have a few beers and shoot the breeze. One thing that always comes across, whether it be in his blog, his Podcast, "The Devil and Me", or his art is how much he enjoys what he's doing. I really hope that this video-casting becomes a regular thing for him.

Okay, so I'm still super busy trying to get a project out the door for a client. So until next time, take care and be good!

Your friend
Jeffrey

Links: www.skottieyoung.com
devilandme.com
www.sidebarnation.com

Abigail and the Doom Crew: A Prologue

So. Last June(ish) my buddy Mario, creator of Pagan Zoetrope called and said he was working on a comic, and had found a place to publish it. Awesome! For the entire time I've known Mario, he's been working on a few different IP's on the side, and Pagan Zoetrope is one of the ones that we'd been talking about for a few years now. It's basically a (loosly) autobiographical acount of a group of highschool and college bound people in the fictional town of Warrensville, Kansas. Obviously not where we're really from, but close enough. There comes a time when a grain silo is a grain silo, and a cow pasture is... a cow pasture. Lol!

At any rate, Mario called and told me that he had this story, and he was finally ready to go forward with it. He'd begun posting it on Drunk Duck in strip form, and had found an indy publisher and a distributer. I know, you're telling yourself "This is Sunday. Jeffreys posts are supposed to be about what's going on with him this week!" Okay, okay! Don't get all worked up about it. Jeesh!

Let me get to the point. Mario said he knew I had some stories bouncing around in my head that I'd been working on since he's known me, and maybe we could pool our resources, get some exposure together, and get both of our stories out there. How would I like to do a double feature book with him, like some of the old Marvel "back-to-back" comics with his story on one side, and mine on the other. Never being one to turn down more work, I of course agreed. So in my spare time (which seems to be ever-shrinking) I put together a four page prologue to the larger story of Abigail and the Doom Crew, along with a cover, and a page of some of the Abigail concept art.

This week, I finally got my hands on the printed version of the book, and it looks incredible. So, I thought I'd share it with you all today, and If you like what you see go to comics monkey and order a copy.


I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed working on it. Until next time, take care and be good!

Your friend
Jeffrey

Links:www.paganzoetrope.com
Pagan Zoetrope on Drunk Duck
Pagan Zoetrope on myspace
Ka-Blam
Comics Monkey

What you talkin' about?: Concept Art House

Concept Art House LLC is founded on the idea that great art does not come from an assembly line in an outsourcing factory, rather it comes from passionate individuals who truly enjoy their craft and believe in the products they produce.






Today's post is about Concept Art House. I was going to post about them in the next couple of weeks anyway, because not only do they do stellar work, but I am also a member of their team as a graphic designer. Recent events bumped them up to the top of my list. I don't know if anybody noticed, but I missed my post on Sunday. I was swamped with work, which is a good thing. Even better is that the work I was doing isn't under NDA so I can actually show it, and use it in my portfolio.

Maybe it reminds me of my days as a picture framer, or when I worked as a gallery assistant hanging shows in the Art Center Gallery, but I LOVE being a graphic designer. and I love working in print. It's really hard to describe how fun it is arranging elements and cutting out pictures and layering them to show everything off at its best. And to top it all off, getting to see and work with so much fantastic artwork is the icing on the cake.

Headed up by James Zhang, who got his as a concept artist for Lucas Arts working on titles such as Star Wars:Star Fighter, Gladius and Star Wars:Republic Commando. From there he went on to work for Factor 5 as a lead artist, and then to VP of a major game-art studio before finally breaking away to form Concept Art House.

As a company, they do high quality concept art across the full spectrum, including Fantasy, Science Fiction. They do Stunning 3d assets as well as high impact illustrations for game companies such as Wizards of the Coast and Blizzard. The website offers a good selection of artwork, as well as a consistantly updated blog. My only complaint is that the blog is in chinese, so I can't read what they have to say about the artwork, but it's straightforward to navigate, and there is a lot of great stuff to look at.

I hope you like the brochure, and I hope that all is well with you. Until next time then, take care and be good!
Your friend
Jeffrey

What You Talkin' about?: Lines and Colors

It’s my delight in that feeling of wide-eyed discovery that has prompted me to create Lines and Colors.
"Lines and Colors" is (I think) the first blog I really started paying attention to. Also, since Charley Parker updates daily, it is part of my daily routine. Get home, check e-mail, check "Lines and Colors"... In his bio, Charley says "...I’m only writing about things I like. It’s my hope that I can introduce you to some visual art gems that you may not be aware of, or perhaps tell you something you didn’t know about someone or something you’re already familiar with. (And maybe you can do the same for me.)" That's one of the great things about this blog. His interest and passion for the artists and sites always comes across in his posts.

I don't want to say that the featured artist is always one that interests me. Fairly often they don't. That being said, there are far more times when there is somebody featured that really captures my imagination. There is always a well researched, and informative body of text with the collection of one or three examples of the artists work. Also, at the end of the post, Mr. Parker is very good about providing links to more information/images by the artist. The wealth of inspiration and information contained in the "Lines and Colors" blog make it more than worth checking on a daily basis.

Okay, until next time. Take care and be good.
Your friend
Jeffrey

Links: www.linesandcolors.com
Charley Parkers web comic: Argon Zark!
Website: www.cparkerdesign.com

What I did on Vacation...

Have you ever thought it would take less time to get something done than it actually did? I went into my spring vacation with thoughts of how much stuff I was going to get done, and how nice it would be to finally have the time to do it. Ha-ha-ha! Seriously, though. I did get a few things done. I would've gotten more done, but... well I'll tell you about that in a minute.

I got a little bit of work done on the "time" drawing. Literally. Just a little bit. There were so many other things going on that I just didn't have the time and energy to start vectorizing this yet. I did talk to my friend Ryan about this illustration though, and he mentioned that he wished I had done something more with the smoke. Worked it around and integrated it into the drawing a little bit more.

It's not too late to do that (it's not finished 'til it's finished and all) and I am thinking about it. Compositionally, it might help balance it all a little more, and add another diagonal, criss-crossing with the shape of the wall. I still have at least this week to think on it, so maybe I'll at least try it and see if it works.

Okay, now here's part of why I didn't get everything I'd planned on doing done. Tuesday night I get this "Viral" activity in my mailbox on Facebook. Just in case any of you don't know what this means these are marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. Basically, any time you forward an e-mail, you are participating in viral marketing of some sort. So here were the directions:

album cover
1 - Go to "Wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random Quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.


3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop, Gimp or similar to put it all together.

Sounds kind of cool. I figured I'd at least see what came up in the randomness. Well I dipped three times, and the stuff that came up was just so cool, that I thought I'd actually try to do a couple of really nice album covers out of them. Just to note. While I DID follow the directions for getting the information, and didn't cheat, I did add to and edit the pictures a little to fit the needs of my album concepts.
On "Gene Roof", I cropped the photo, added the light and sparklies coming down from the flower, and extended the stem just a tad.
"Ekstraklasa 1972-73" got a major overhaul. The original photo is on the right, and I added all of the rest of the graphic work on the final image on the left. Over all, I think both album covers turned out really well, but they took up most of my first day just messing around and trying things. I guess I learned something though, and I don't begrudge the excersise at all.
I am pleased to be able to show the drummer for the animal band. I thought a rhino would be really cool, and it would also be neat to have this huge drummer looming over a seeming small drum set.Lastly, I have a little work in progress for this weeks Illustration Friday topic "Breezy". I also plan on using this for my blog header for the month of March. So I'll have it done in the next day or so. So keep a look out for it!

I didn't do anything at all on the computer on saturday. First off, I spent the whole day at the St. Louis Pipe show. This might sound silly, but it was REALLY cool. There are soooo many different sizes, shapes, and styles of pipes out there. Some of them are kind of clunky and ugly, but most are just beautiful and elegant. Real works of art. It's hard to explain, but I guess it's kind of like going to an art fair and checking out the ceramics. There are just so many craftsmen and artisans out there doing simply wonderful work, inspired by nature, fashion, design and culture.

The other reason, is that I was suffering from pretty bad eye strain from working on the computer, playing video games, and watching movies. Vacations can sometimes be harder on us than actually going to work, ha-ha! I hope you all had a good week, and that this one is even better. I'll talk at you again on Wednesday, if I don't sooner! Take care and be good.

Your friend,
Jeffrey Johnson

What You Talkin' about?: Paolo Rivera

Do you remember the first time you knew you wanted to be an artist?
It was right after I realized that I couldn’t be a superhero.

The first time I really "heard" about Paolo Rivera was on The Art Department blog by Tor art director, Irene Gallo. She posted a really good interview with him about the "Mythos" comic series he painted for Marvel. Unfortunately, as is often the case when tooling around on the inter-web I read the interview, went on to the next thing on mind, and Paolo Rivera was out of my head.

I got a second chance though, two months later with the Lines and Colors blog, by Charlie Parker. Charlie started off the post like this. "At one time the brief description line at the top of Paolo Rivera’s blog read: “I am a painter for Marvel Comics. Really, I am.”" How cool is that? So, interested, and read the article. Going to the follow-up links that Charlie is so good about adding at the bottom of his posts, I found Paolo's blog, The Self-Absorbing Man. Wow. He's not only extremely talented, but he does some WORK. Posting at least three times a week there's always really solid, exciting content. There's an fairly even balance between current works, Tips tricks and equiptment, and appearance announcements.

One of his segments "Wacky Reference Wednesdays" is especially entertaining, and I really look forward to it each week. In fact, it's what inspired this segment for me, and that's why he gets the dubious honor of first post. Last week, Paolo posted an example of how he uses Google Sketchup as refrence for his comic panels when he has a tricky perspective problem, or the same environment from different angles.


So, here's an example of the sketch up models, set against a backdrop of his initial layout drawing. He builds parts in the program, as well as importing elements from the sketchup warehouse.

And then here's how it all fits in with the finished page. I've given an extremely truncated version of the process here. To read more about it, go and check out his blog.

Just for fun, I thought I'd also share a handful of my sketch up models and a page that I finished recently for a personal project, I hope you enjoy them.


Well that's all for now. Until next time, take care and be good!
Your friend,
Jeffrey

Paolo Rivera: http://www.paolorivera.com/
http://paolorivera.blogspot.com/
Lines and Colors article: http://www.linesandcolors.com
Art Department Interview: http://igallo.blogspot.com

Work-In-Progress: "Time" Part 2

Boy! What an aptly titled name for this illustration! Ha-ha! So here we are, week two of this illustration. Finished up coloring the old man for the most part, and got the chess board put back together. Drawing and inking this guy by hand has perhaps turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. Going back and editing the traced lines, I ended up rebuilding a lot of it when I could have just drawn it in Illustrator in the first place.

Most of his face I kept, and the smoke, but pretty much everything else got reworked. I'm really happy with how the chess board and pieced came out. One really nice thing about working in a vector program, is how easy it is to reuse parts.


I'm taking vacation this week, so I plan on finishing up the background for next weeks post. I think I have most of it worked out, and am looking forward to seeing it finished. Also, I'm hoping to get at least two more animals done. Don't you all feel shy about holding me accountable for my workload either! Ha-ha!

Another thing that I'm planning on starting this week, and which will be an ongoing thing, is expanding my postings to Sunday and Wednesday. When I started on the new track, I mentioned wanting to put some posts in that had an added value. I've given it a lot of thought, and have decided on adding the "What'choo talkin' 'bout, Wednesdays" the basic idea is that I look at a lot of art on the interweb, as well as a lot of blogs. Some of my favorites are ones that talk about art and artists. Introducing my humble readers to (hopefully) some new ideas, or if nothing else, at least giving you all an idea of what I'm up to and in to at the moment.

I've been wondering if it's a good idea to e-mail the people I write about, just to give them a heads up, allow them to add their two cents or possibly edit misunderstandings I have, and maybe network a little. What do you guys think? Also, I'm thinking I might change my settings to allow anonymous comments. It seems like kind of a pain in the butt to have to be a member in order to say "What up?"

One last note. My good friend, the super talented Ryan Bowlin got laid off from his job as a concept artist at Simutronics last week. He worked there for over two and a half years and has experience doing textures, GUI, concept art and even low poly models! If you know of anyone looking for a solid all around artist, please pass his name along. These times are really tough, and I feel like we all need to stick together.

Until Wednesday then, take care and be good.
Your friend
Jeffrey

Work-In-Progress: "Time" Part 1

This has been a busy week. Valentines falling on a Saturday really cuts in to my working in the basement time... Ha-ha! Actually, Valentines day was great. I got almost caught up on my taped episodes of "Get Ed", did a little work in my sketch book, went and saw "Coroline" with Amy (and it was AWESOME, easily the best movie I've seen in the last two years, and I've seen some really good ones too), and I got a little bit of work done.

This week, I took a break from the animals (though I do have a nice little sketch for the next one worked out, and I'm excited to get started on him! It's the drummer, and he's going to be soooo boss!) and got fully entrenched in what has turned out to be a kind of enjoyable pain in the butt. That being said, I am not finished with it so I thought I'd share a little work in progress. Amy calls this one "Old Man Jeffrey" LOL

This started out life as a drawing for the Illustration Friday topic "Time". I didn't want it to be something silly, like a watch or spinning clocks, but rather something a little more concepty. Going back and forth with ideas, one thing that struk me was that little clock that is used in regulation chess games that times the moves. Which let me to the old man playing chess in the park idea. I started with the old man, thinking that there would be two players, and that one of them would maybe be a kid. As I got into it though, the other player got scrubbed for another idea. (I feel like I have to admit here that this was mostly out of lazyness, and that I didn't want to draw the other players back. On the other hand, that's not a very interesting illustration element anyway.) I added the monsters creeping up behind him. So this is the "High Concept" story for this image.

"Time sneaks up on us loudly, as we focus our attention on the moves of our lives." I should write fortune cookies.

I did the original drawing in blue pencil, and inked it. It looks fine, but I knew I wanted to mess with it in illustrator. It started with wanting the monsters to be a certain way. I really wanted the blue outline with the dark brown fill, and the empty, glazed eyes. So I decided to build them. This was the beginning of a weekend of general irritation on my part.

After I made my new Illustrator monsters, I started working on the old man, and was just not happy with the clunkyness of some of my inking, and of course (why would I want anything to be easy?) I wasn't happy with all of his outlines being the same (Black) so now I need to cut up the trace too. So I work his right hand over (our left) till I'm happy with it, and then I get to looking at the chessboard and pieces and am just NOT happy with them. They look totally sloppy. I wouldn't buy them, so how can I expect anyone else to. So I rebuild the whole chessboard and all its pieces from scratch.

Amy says I'm too hard on myself. But what's the point of doing it, if it's not done right? So I'm mostly done with this part of the illustration, and then I just have to decide how I want to deal with the back ground. Hopefully next week, I'll have the finished illustration to show you. Until then, Take care and be good!

Your friend
Jeffrey Johnson

More Vector Animals

Before I start getting railed about not having a decent background, or even for reusing the same one twice, I would like to assure you all that these are destined for a bigger illustration, with some sort of real background. I just wanted something to set them apart from the white square for the time being.

So, here's another animal band member. I know keytar is not most peoples first choice for a first backup instrument, but here's the story. I was thinking about where I wanted to go with this set ultimately, and thought it would be funny to have a keytar... eventually. Well, I was talking to Amy and mentioned it, wondering what animal I should have playing it. I had no ideas really, but wanted it to be funny. Well she said, "How about a goat?" Ha-ha! How awesome is that? Probably the most METAL animal you could think of, and he's playing the keytar!? Needless to say, I got really excited about the idea, and had to do the ketarist next. I hope you enjoy him.

Thanks for looking!
Your friend
Jeffrey Johnson

Some Change of Direction: Animal Vectors

Okay, so I've been putting off this post for some time now (Since around the beginning of November.). I'd been thinking about a change of direction for a while, and here's where my head is at with the whole situation. The self portraits were a great way to get some work done, and have something to post about with out having to come up with a new subject every time. They also presented a challenge when working with outside topics, because I had to fit my subject (me) with that theme.

The downsides were that each illustration of myself had little usefulness outside of the specific illustration that it was created for, and had little use even as a portfolio piece. Beyond that, there are so many things that I would like to explore and work on outside of the self portrait subject matter, and my time was starting to be eaten up by a project that I had less and less interest in. Basically, when it became a huge chore, I think it was time to stop.

So, I'm changing the overall direction of my blog to reflect my goals, and to be a little more versatile, and agile. I will be working on Professional Development, getting my portfolio updated with new work, as well as exploring the types of work that I would like to pursue futher. Also, I am working on stuff I can make a little bit of money with now, as I prepare to enter the freelance arena full time. Lastly, I would like to add some educational aspects to this blog to give it some added value as a place to visit regularly.

Here's some of the recent work, cartoon animals done in illustrator. The top two, were done totally in the computer, and the third one was hand inked, then I traced, cleaned and colored it in illustrator. I don't know if anyone is interested, but maybe I can also post some of the initial sketches and process pics for some of these in the future.

As always, thanks for looking, and taking the time to comment or message me.
Your friend
Jeffrey

Self Portrait 53 of 100: Illustration Friday, Repair

Another drawing for Illustration Friday. This weeks topic is "Repair".

A lot of my time working at Walmart was spent repairing stuff in assembly. A lot of things got broken, and I had plenty of time on my hands back there. One good way to kill time was to take things apart and put them back together again. I used to say that I hated working there, but looking back on it I think I was just bored a lot of the time.

I'm going back and forth about whether I think this is a good drawing or not. There's a bunch of things I like about it, but there are some things that are bugging me. Will there ever be a time when that's not true though? Ryan, I tried to put a little bit of effort into the background today, but it's getting late, I need to go to bed, and it's already almost another Friday (Just two more days) so I couldn't put this off any longer.

I hope you all are doing well, and I look forward to talking at you again soon!
Your friend
Jeffrey

Self Portrait 52 of 100: Illustration Friday, Strings

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet,
regardless of time, place, or circumstance.
The thread may stretch or tangle,
but it will never break."
- an ancient Chinese belief

The topic for Illustration Friday this week was "strings". One of my first thoughts was of the "Red String of Fate". I first encountered this story when I was a kid, in the comic book "Excalibur". There was a guy who could see all the strings connecting everything in the world, and kind of like using the force, he could grab and pull the strings making things happen to whatever was on the ends of that one. So I had this idea to actually have my arm unraveling as the red string, and meeting up with, and turning into my family.

Doing a little research, I came across this bit of verse on Wikipedia, and changed my mind. I remembered a photo I'd seen a couple of years ago of a young couple laying in the grass, and really liked the idea of me and my wife, hand in hand with the red string intertwined up our arms, tangled in some places, kind of loose in others, but basically tight and inextricable. I would also like to note that this is a terrible drawing of my wife... maybe I need to do 100 portraits of her. Ha-ha!

Thanks for looking, and I'll post again soon!
Your friend
Jeffrey