Friday, April 29, 2005

Foggy Fishing

Example

Shot this at Ramona Park (Portage, MI) on my way to work.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Blue Face Painting

Example

This was painted on an 18"x24" piece of artist's masonite. Masonite can be found at most lumberyards. It's used in many kitchen cabinets. However, artist's masonite is processed differently than the lumberyard variety. Something to do with the oils used in the development process. Apparently artist's masonite will avoid yellowing over the years. Most artist's masonite can be bought pre-gessoed for acrylic or oil paints.

Early on I bought a 4'x8' sheet of masonite from a local lumberyard in the hopes of doing some paintings. While there I decided to have them cut it down to workable sizes. They cut it down to my requested sizes but, the panels were completely crooked and slightly damaged. I started to complain to the cutter and realized he had a form of mental retardation. Needless to say I kept the panels. They're currently being used as lumberyard masonite was inteneded... as shelves.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Roll Over

Example

This accident happened at the crossroads of Sprinkle Rd. and E. Centre Ave. The two individuals looking in the truck were actually the driver and passenger. I believe they were trying to retrieve a lucky rabbit's foot keychain and four leaf clover air freshener.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Rejected Micro-Behemoth Logo

Example

I make my living creating logos for companies. I rarely come up short implementing ideas. However, when it comes to creating my own logos my "creative well" is much like eating paper towels in a Saltine Cracker factory...DRY! This is one of a handful of logos that just didn't make the cut.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Video Blog - Sketch 1





Example
Completed Sketch


I'm still experimenting with video blog concepts. This was a fun experiment. I hope to do more in the future. Maybe I'll try doing a time lapse painting.

Friday, April 22, 2005

Coniferous Tree?

Example

Example

I recently stumbled upon these new species of cone bearing trees.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

False Advertising

Example

I spotted this sign on a local car detailing establishment. Maybe they should have rust proofed that piece of paper before making the claim.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Video Blog - Schoolcraft, MI Warehouse Fire





Example

As I was riding my bike I noticed heavy smoke rising into the air. I heard a few sirens but nothing to indicate something serious was happening. I thought maybe the Vicksburg F.D. was putting out a grass fire.

After my bike ride I decided to see if I could get some footage of the fire since the smoke was still rising. I thought the fire was a few blocks away. Anyway the fire was actually in Schoolcraft. About 5 miles away. There was an amazing amount of traffic and a lot of people leaving their houses to check out the fire. I took a few shortcuts to avoid traffic hoping to get closer to the "action." The video footage I took was as close as I could get without having to contend with fire crews and the cops.

Just to clarify. I shot the video footage but the still photo and news story came from wwmt.com.

SCHOOLCRAFT (NEWS 3) - A massive fire ripped through a storage company in Schoolcraft late Monday afternoon.

The fire started in on warehouse at ELC Storage and then spread to a second next door. Dozens of fire trucks from all over southern Kalamazoo County were called in to fight the blaze.

At this point firefighters do not have a cause for the fire. No one was injured in the incident.

Two of ELC's five warehouses are a total loss.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Video Blog - Ring-necked Ducks



I shot these clips at the Kellogg's Bird Sanctuary in Richland, MI.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Video Blog-Carp Pond


After a tremendous amount of effort I now have a general idea how to post video blogs. Ideally I'd like to post one per week. Stay Tuned.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Urban Syrup?

Example

I've always had a glamorized view of where my maple syrup comes from. I've always pitured some farmer in his overalls loading wooden barrels full of syrup onto his horse drawn wagon. Not anymore. Apparently a guy wearing khaki pants, a polo shirt and a Taylor Made Golf cap loads up blue plastic barrels of maple syrup from his front yard and puts them in his SUV.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Curves for Men?

Example
Example

We've all heard of Powerhouse Gym, Gold's Gym, Curves for Women but, Larkin's Gym? Looks like another fitness franchise looking for your monthly membership dollars.

I love their "old school" logo of the muscle man. What guy wouldn't want a handlebar mustache and club feet.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Experimental Painting

Example


This too was a practice painting. I like the way it turned out. It's a very different illustrative style than my usual drawings/paintings.

Monday, April 11, 2005

Practice Painting

Example

This is another 30"x40" practice painting. I probably won't paint over this one.

Friday, April 08, 2005

Green Girl Painting

Example


This is one of my practice paintings. The canvas size is 30"x40." I tend to paint over practice paintings. So I'm not sure if this one will survive.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Dee-lish-us

Example

I know most of you are saying "mmmm that looks tasty!" Not me, I don't like ham smothered in gravy.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Healthy Self Image

Example

****Before we go too far, here's the results from yesterday's $1000.00 gift certificate giveaway: Nobody won. Apparently no one else thought the gift certificate was worth anything either. Contest over.******


Recently my co-workers and I went to a local buffet for lunch. As we were getting ready to eat, a heavy-set man and his family arrived. This man was heavy enough that other heavy-set people also took notice. Here's the cool part. On his shirt it read, in big, bold letters "I'M BIG, YOU'RE SMALL...HAVE A NICE DAY." Followed by an image of a smiley face.

What an excellent way to address the obvious, divert people's attention, and put them at ease with some humor. I couldn't help but think there's a guy with a seemingly healthy self image. At least that's my take on the encounter.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

When is $1000.00 not a $1000.00???

Example

This is going to be an odd post. First off, this is completely real. I’ll be giving away a $1000.00 gift certificate to selectyourgifts.com to the first person who emails me.

If you’ve read a few of my other blogs you can gather I like making up stuff to write about. (Everyone knows I don’t mind women school bus drivers). Anyway, this is different. Real life is always better than fiction.

Here goes. On Tuesday (3/29) I received a yellow envelope addressed to Account Holder with my address on it. Despite that it looked like junk mail I opened it anyway. Enclosed was a brochure advertising a 5 day used car tent event for a specific Auto Group. (I don't know anything about being sued for libel/slander so I'm going to keep the dealership anonymous.)In addition to the brochure there was a scratch off lottery ticket kind of thing and a fake check with a pay to the order of: Future Satisfied Customer for $1000.00.

Do you smell something?

I admit to being a sucker for scratching lottery ticket looking things (when they come in the mail). So like a Pavlovian dog I scratched. Low and behold I scratched 2 sets of numbers that were identical. This meant I won something. The only way to see what I won was to go to the used car event and check the “big board.”

Oddly enough, I had a really strong feeling I was going to match the numbers. Reason being, there were no rules and regulations printed on the card. Usually these kinds of promotions have their odds of winning printed somewhere on them. This card had nothing. That lead me to believe all the cards were going to be winners.

I’m never one to get sucked into these kind of promotions. But, I’m trying to be more spontaneous. The car lot was only 10 or so miles away. I could be done with the ordeal in less than a half hour. So I went.

I arrived at this tiny strip of land on US 131 that used to house some kind of flea market business. At least that’s what it looked like to me. The only parking spots available were taken by the used cars. I finally parked, got out and looked for a sleezman. I mean salesman. I decided to be somewhat cocky. I may be a sucker for scratching lottery ticket looking things but, generally I’m not a sucker. Especially for things involving used cars. I flippantly asked to see the “big board” to view what I won. I deliberately memorized the winning number because I didn’t want to show a salesman my scratch card, have him review it then say I’m sorry you didn’t win. When maybe I did. I wanted to see the board for myself.

Long story short, I got bounced to three separate salesman all of whom knew nothing about a “big board.” Finally one salesman knew the “big board” was in the tent. Escorted into the huge white tent, I checked the board for my number and what I had won. It was a vacation or a $1000.00 online shopping spree. I wasn‘t real big on having a used car dealership book my vacation so I chose the $1000.00 shopping spree. To finalize my winning, the salesman only jotted my name and address down. That was it. Just give my name and address. No congratulations! How exciting for you! Nothing.

Next he motions me to follow him to this nasty old pole barn to claim my prize. Housed within this nasty old pole barn are a couple used car salesman types with their laptops on a folding table. Nonchalantly, the sales guy I’ve been dealing with walks over to this monster stack of gift certificates and hands me one. Again no applause, no congratulations, no nothing.

According to the prize instructions on the brochure the only gift certificates you can win are for $1000.00. Judging from that stack of certificates there had to have been a couple million dollars worth. I kept thinking, shouldn’t those be in a safe.

Then I remembered, the rules state they’ll be giving away gift certificates to the first 50 winners each day. OK, do the math. That’s $50,000 given away per day, over the course of 5 days. That’s $250,000.00. That doesn’t even factor in the other prizes given away.

I saw the cars. If the entire car lot sold out I find it hard to believe they’d clear $250,000.00. Either they’re really bad business men or I just stepped in something. The odor was really bad. I definitely stepped in something.

So after the handoff of my $1000.00 gift certificate the salesman and I had an enlightening conversation about Christianity and sand bags.(See reality is much more interesting than fiction. Christianity? Sandbags?) At that time I warmed up to him a bit. Nice guy. Not like a used car salesman. During the course of the conversation he mentioned his pastor was one of the general managers standing near the tent. In all fairness I don’t know if he (the pastor) had anything to do with planning this event. But...????

Anyway, I took the gift certificate home. Got online, went to www.selectyourgifts.com and typed in the certificate and password numbers . I admit to being somewhat excited. Everyone loves a mystery. Who knows what cool items they’d have. Ipods, TVs, Laptops, Video Cameras, Still Cameras, Software. After all, the brochure showed images of pool tables, grandfather clocks, suede jackets.

Excitement soon turned to utter boredom as I went through their different gift classifications. This certainly wasn’t Amazon.com. No Ipods, No computer systems, No Tvs, No MP3 players. Nothing like that. It was more like outdated computer software, cheapo web cameras, lame magazine subscriptions. What's more, each of these gifts requires you to pay the shipping and handling, plus a one time $5 processing fee. That $1000.00 just doesn’t seem like a $1000.00 anymore does it?

I vaguely remember an ugly suede jacket costing around $28 s/h.

For me personally, the only thing that caught my eye was a MacAddict magazine subscription. I certainly don’t need a thousand subscriptions to that. So in my hands this $1000.00 gift certificate is completely worthless. That’s not to say one of you reading this may not find $1000.00 worth of useful things (and $2000.00 worth of shipping and handling fees).. So if you’re curious, the first person to email me gets the passwords. Worse case scenario you can always give it away as a gift. Or best case scenario, give it to your boss and get a promotion. (Most bosses can be bought for $1000.00. So I’ve found).

Unfortunately you can’t browse the merchandise without the codes. I thought about posting the codes so you folks could browse. However, whoever would get the codes and started buying stuff by credit card could potentially have people logging on and making purchases in their name. Obviously I decided against that idea.

So who’s gonna be the lucky winner? Email me.... First person gets the codes!!!

I’ll post if anyone won tomorrow. I promise whoever wins, your identity will remain anonymous.

Ironically, a coworker of mine also got the same promo envelope. He scratched and matched the same numbers I did. He too was a $1000.00 shopping spree winner! Unfortunately, the event was over. But, I made sure to congratulate him in a big loud voice. It’s more than I ever got.
(This is true. He really won. Isn’t reality much more interesting than fiction?)

Monday, April 04, 2005

It Depends

Example


I apologize for the non-artistic photo above. I had someone else take the photo for me. You’ll soon know why I didn’t take the photo myself.


Where to start? I guess I should jump right in and state it. I BOUGHT SOME ADULT DIAPERS. THEY WEREN’T FOR ME AND IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. Don’t laugh at the “accident” statement. This isn’t funny nor will it ever be. Not even if I get to my golden years and actually have to wear them. If you‘ve read my previous blogs, it’s obvious the aneurysm fairy will get me well before my golden years do.

Here’s how it went down. On the celestial level, some random stars and black holes aligned. The ionic pull from this event caused the moon to writhe in pain from a gravitational spasm. This gravitational charley horse made its way to earth. Thus knocking my box of perfectly baked Cheese Nips to the floor. The entire box, all 212 perfectly baked Nips lay at my feet as the “5 second rule” took affect. I froze in horror. Gravity had never been this violent to me before. Not even when I jumped off the garage roof in my parachute pants.

Despite the shock of the event and having just cleaned up the 212 Nips, I was still in the mood.. (Yes I counted them. It’s so rare to find a box of un-burnt Cheese Nips that I took note). So off to the grocery store I went. Got there, grabbed a new box of Cheese Nips. Since I hate only buying a single item I remembered I should get some toilet paper. I Got the toilet paper and realized this Cheese Nip, toilet paper combination looked kinda stupid. So I also bought a pack of double A batteries and a small potted plant.

I always try and buy completely random and separate items. I do this because, one time I went to Sam’s Club and bought a chain saw and a large sausage. The cashier, thinking she was funny, said “wouldn’t a knife be easier?” It wasn’t funny. So now I try to avoid awkward check-out episodes.

Anyway my shopping was now done. I made my way to the check-out lines. Unfortunately there was only one register open and it was experiencing a rush of people. What made things worse, it was being run by a girl named Trainee. As I stood watching her TRY and ring up people, my heart went out to her. People were getting really agitated and taking it out on her. The manager was getting red-faced. Because on nearly every transaction he had to come out of his office with the key to void a transaction on her register.

After nearly 15 minutes of waiting, it was now my turn. So I strolled up to the counter, placed my four items neatly together and said to Trainee “Aren’t you glad you have only 10 minutes until closing time?” Without looking up, she said “It’s been like this all day.” There, we bonded, I thought. Just then, that celestial domino affect kicked in again. My keys violently dropped from my pocket to the floor. So as I bent down to grab them Trainee began scanning the items. As I grabbed the keys and made my slow ascent upwards I heard the beep!….. Beep! … then in rapid succession beep! beep! beep! Five beeps? I straightened just in time to see her scanning an enormous package of Depend Undergarments. “Those aren’t mine.” I calmly stated. Laughingly I finished with “Don’t need those, my bladder is good to go.” Witty and charming, that’s me. At that moment she freaked out a little bit. Apparently the Depends were supposed to be re-shelved. Along with a lot of other items inhabiting the counter. She informed me she would have to get the manager to void the transaction. Ok, no big deal. Get the manager, void the transaction. Before I knew it, I’d be sitting on the couch with a fresh box of Cheese Nips watching reruns of Designing Women.

Here’s where the story gets real bad. She pleaded with me to just pay for my items, as well as the Depends. She said the manager was already extremely mad at her. Requesting he come out with the void key would probably get her fired. But I didn’t want the Depends! She said just come back tomorrow with the Depends and the receipt, then I‘ll get a full refund. I felt bad for her. Fine, that’s what I was going to do. So I requested she put the Depends in the biggest bag they had. She, in her first moment of retail competency, motioned to the plastic handles on the Depends. They didn’t have bags big enough.

“Oh Crap!!!” (still not funny) Good thing I parked close to the building. So I began my way to the exit. I also noticed it was getting a bit dark. The cover of darkness is always a good thing. I was beginning to feel home free. However, just as I turned the blind corner to the exit, the automatic IN door swung open. Thus knocking the enormous bag of Depends out of my hands toward the opposite set of IN OUT doors. I froze, arm outstretched. At that same moment the adult diapers were in flight the local college’s girls’ soccer team were streaming in both entrances. I suppose to buy some after game snacks. Before the diapers hit the floor, one team member had already instinctively Pele bicycle kicked the Depends to another team member. Who then “headed” it to my stunned outstretched hand. It spun on my wrist four times before coming to a stop.

At that moment I realized I had just been introduced to the aneurysm fairy.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Product Illustration #4 - Ice Cream Cone

Example


Believe it or not, this illustration was deemed to be too perfect. So perfect in fact, I had to redo it and make it look bad. The manufacturer claimed they could never get their cones to look that good.