Be Still and Know the Way

Prometheus

2006-07-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

This is a mural I just finished in the commons of a new high school near Glenwood Springs, Colorado. It represents Prometheus, the Titan who presented fire (and wisdom and knowledge) to mankind. Needless to say, it shows heavy influence from my recent trip to Italy to view the work of the REAL artists!

Penny Man

2006-03-18T06:28:00.000-08:00

I have been doing some research lately on Abraham Lincoln, and the man fills me with awe. Here are some cool quotes:

“Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal except negroes.’ When the Knownothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.’ When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.”

“If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions.”

“Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subject of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.”

"Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them."

Surprising how applicable these are today, 150 years later!

Illo Friday -- Insect

2006-03-05T07:11:00.000-08:00

This is part of a mural I painted awhile ago in a Birthday Party room at a family fun center in town. This guy ended up being about five feet long. I'm sorry it's not a new illo, but seriously, insect? How many of those does a normal person illustrate in a lifetime?

Illo Friday--Song

2006-02-20T07:54:00.000-08:00

A quick and dirty pencil sketch of what I think of when I consider the word "song."

Illo Friday--Simple

2006-02-13T18:44:00.000-08:00

Well, sitting in my department meeting this morning, I looked around and this was the simplest thing I could see: my eraser.

Illustration, um, Monday--Anti-glamour

2006-02-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

I found a photo online of this cool old dude, so I had to get my sketch on.

Illustration Friday -- Glamour

2006-01-29T06:03:00.000-08:00

#2 pencil from Walmart.

The Tattle Box

2006-01-28T06:35:00.000-08:00

Having taken all she could stand of her First Graders tattling on each other, Tracey produced a shoebox, festooned it with colored paper and assorted decorative elements, labeled it "The Tattle Box," and placed it on her desk accompanied by a pad of paper. Here is a sampling, recorded faithfully as written in the original:

1. "Lteaseau (Leticia) is beang mean to me. --This is Emily."
2. "Ryin is toking with AJ. --Amad"
3. "Alana was tockean. --this is Emily."
4. "Emily was ridenin a papre."
5. "Roman put his jrms on my eresr."
6. "Grace was tocen to me."
7. "Grase stuck hr tung at me. --this is Emily."
8. "Billy mad a fase."
9. "Colin stuk hes tug at me. --thes is Emily."
10. "I thek that Dustin is hrdin Ryin."
11. "Roman colde me a dom hede to times. --Blake"
12. "Nowu (Noah) is misean with the dog pilow. --thes is Emily"
13. "Adam is makin me laf."
14. "Alan is tokin whth Anna! --Leticia"
15. "Billeay wus tockean with Hannah. --thi is Emily"
16. "Kaci."
(Editor's note: #16's attention span apparently flamed out on the way to the box)

2006-01-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

A better (scanned) version. 6x8 oil on canvas.

Illustration Friday -- Sea

2006-01-09T17:49:00.000-08:00

2006-01-09T17:29:00.000-08:00

A really bad photo of oil on canvas (6x8).

Some of My Feeble Art

2006-01-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

I'm trying . . . really, I am. Please don't judge me.

2006-01-05T21:10:00.000-08:00

crappy oranges (6x8 oil on canvas)

2006-01-05T21:09:00.000-08:00

pepper (6x8 oil on board)

2006-01-05T21:08:00.000-08:00

apple (6x8 oil on board)

Another List

2005-12-24T07:09:00.000-08:00

Things I ThoughtAbout Telling MyHusband I Was ThinkingAbout When He AskedWhat I Was ThinkingAbout While I WasActually ThinkingAbout Having Babies.
BY MEG FREEBERN
- - - -
Nothing
Cabbages
How to derive the Pythagorean theorem

See more lists here.

Treat Yourself to Some Light Reading

2005-12-20T18:59:00.000-08:00

Take a quick look at the latest McSweeney's contribution: "Short Imagined Monologues--Thak, the Most Organized Memberof the Party of Roughly 70 People Who Originally Settled North America." Click here.

Illustration Friday - Imagine!

2005-12-16T16:54:00.000-08:00

I had to scan a t-shirt I designed last year--that's why this is all jibbied up (and my sincere apologies to Picasso :).

Illustration Friday - Surprise

2005-12-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

I took a painting class this summer, and the assignment was to bring a favorite photo to paint. This little guy's excitement upon seeing the pool struck me, so I had to pop the photo, and then I had to paint it. So here it is: my first oil painting!

List o' the Week

2005-12-11T07:06:00.000-08:00

Okay kids, it's time to help me with our newest list! Since folks genarally get their new calendars around this time of year, here's this week's topic: Failed Calendar Ideas
Here are a couple to get you started...

1. Extreme Gardening
2. Girls of the DMV

"Musee des Beaux Arts" by W.H. Auden

2005-08-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Crash and Burn, Part 1

2005-08-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

Here are two paintings, both done in the mid 1500s and both with the same title: “Landscape and the Fall of Icarus.” The one by Hans Bol (Flemish) shows Icarus to be the clear focal point of the piece, while the one by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (Dutch) is much more compelling to me because it speaks an entirely different message. You really have to hunt Waldo style to find him in this one, and his untimely end feels rather more inglorious. Raises some fun discussion prospects!

2005-08-04T17:49:00.000-07:00

Hans Bol, Flemish, 1534-1593

2005-08-04T17:48:00.000-07:00

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Dutch 1520-1569

Interpretations anyone?

2005-07-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

Since Joseph isn't here with his multi-colored dreamcoat, maybe you can have a crack at this:

My daughter Molly had a dream last night in which she stood in front of a series of terraced platforms. Each platform had bathtubs on it, and she very much wanted to be in the highest one, so she climbed up into it. Suddenly, however, she found herself back at the bottom again, so she started climbing again, only this time she was dismayed to discover that she had skis on, which significantly hampered her efforts. She kept thinking to herself, "This would be so much easier if I didn't have these dumb skis on!" Then she became aware that the tub she was resting on was 0n top of and squishing some random guy, who kept yelling at her to get off.

I got nothin' (except the certainty that there must be some serious symbolism here)...

2005-07-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

A 30-second film shows six people playing basketball, three in white shirts and three in black. Volunteers are asked to count the number of times the white shirt team pass the ball. At the end of the film, they are asked if they saw anything unusual. Most do not. The unusual thing is: halfway through the film, a man wearing a gorilla suit walks through the players, beats his chest to the camera, then walks off.
When shown the film again, people are utterly amazed to see this, to the extent that they often believe a different film has been substituted for the original one. Their focus on one task has blinded them to a truth.
The film illustrates a simple fact--that if we are only looking for one thing, we do not usually see anything different. This forms the basis of Professor Richard Wiseman's new book:
Did You Spot The Gorilla:
How to Recognise Hidden Opportunities
R Wiseman
Arrow Books (London)
ISBN 0-09-946643-0
The point at which people finally see the unexpected is what he calls a 'gorilla moment'.

2005-06-21T06:26:00.000-07:00

The moment he walked into the courtyard of the pool with the other dancers, all eyes were on him. But this little man had eyes for something else: "Agua, agua, Mama! Agua!"

2005-06-19T07:11:00.000-07:00

View From the Oven (my newest nephew)

2005-06-18T06:44:00.000-07:00

Safest way to travel...

2005-06-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

Is anything nicer than a sweet pair of boots that fit perfectly?

2005-06-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

A picture I took in Westcliffe (southwest Colorado) last summer.

In we go!

2005-06-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

The sun is newly up, but there is still a moist chill in the thick and delicious air. I have stepped lightly down the bank, unfolded and inflated my little raft in the weeds and mud along the shore, plopped it on the water at the edge, and gingerly stepped in. A little shifting of the weight, a securing of loose items, a dig of the paddle deeply into water, and a strong pull, making authoritative and opposing little eddies on either side of my paddle--out we go into the vast and mysterious lake of Blogdom. Can't wait to see what there is to see!