The Chad Frye - Illustration GuyI hope you find your own pot of “gold” at the end of the rainbow today, whatever that means for you during this age of the Coronavirus.
With the whole world shutting down, does the Wuhan Virus really care all that much? It’s gonna do what it’s gonna do….
With everything shutting down here in the United States, and from what I hear, in other countries, too, the plight of the Griswold family from National Lampoon’s Vacation seemed like a natural fit. That poor Coronavirus has travelled all the way from Wuhan, China to come to America, only to find the country closed. Nothing is going to stop it from having some fun.
Here’s hoping it doesn’t get a BB gun at a sporting goods store and start having too much fun at our expense.
At the stroke of midnight last night, 2019 ended, and 2020 has begun. In an effort to achieve 2020 vision (pun intended), one should reflect upon the past year.
Over on Instagram, they do a thing called “Top Nine” where they show the top nine posts of the year. It was interesting to me that five of the top nine of 2019 were things I posted just in the past two months. Seems that folks can’t get enough Green Eggs & Ham, and they seemed to like lots of my doodles of other people’s characters. Thankfully, they showed some love to one of my originals (dog doodles), as well as a photo of me taken by my pal Brian Joseph Ochab to promote my upcoming appearance at the first ever Bakersfield Mouse Con (a Disney fan convention happening on January 26).
Here’s hoping more fun and exciting projects come across my plate in 2020!
And if you’d like to see my Instagram page, here’s the link: https://www.instagram.com/chadfrye_illustrationguy/
How about a silly Goofy watercolor with which to wave goodbye to 2019?
For me, it’s been an interesting year of professional achievements and personal loss. Looking forward to what hopefully will be a fun new year. I always look forward to seeing what new projects come across my desk. Hope you enjoy seeing them once I’m able to share them here.
One fun thing coming up is that I will be a guest at the Bakersfield, CA Mouse-Con convention on January 26th. It’s a fan run Disney convention, and I just might have this original available for sale. Come on out and say “hello” if you can. CLICK HERE for details!
Have a happy new year!
I really enjoyed Netflix’s Klaus film from director Sergio Pablos. Sergio was the brilliant animator behind Disney characters Tantor the elephant in Tarzan, and Dr. Doppler in Treasure Planet. Klaus has some delightful hand-drawn animation with gorgeous lighting – every frame is a beautiful illustration.
While not exactly their Santa, the day after I saw Klaus, I felt the urge to draw a beefy Santa that is clearly influenced by theirs. Inked in my sketchbook, colored in Photoshop.
As we enter into Christmas week, I wanted to wish all of you a merry Christmas, with the hope that you will appreciate the season from a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ having come as a baby all those years ago to sacrifice himself for you on the cross. He was born to die. Very sobering, and humbling.
And yes, while I made a little joke about the title of the Christmas carol I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, few recall that the lyrics were from a poem by American author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called Christmas Bells that dealt with his personal conflicted feelings about the tragedy that was the American Civil War. Look it up, it’s a fascinating tale!
Merry Christmas!
As we head into this final weekend before Christmas, just thought I’d share this little colored pencil and watercolor piece I did for the back of my Christmas card this year. It was such a pleasure working on Warner Bros.’ Green Eggs & Ham show earlier this year (currently showing on Netflix), that I wanted to do a little winter piece of Sam I Am and Guy Am I.
I hope you all have a wonderful time over the holidays with family and friends. If you take a road trip with a good buddy, though, leave the Chickeraffe at home.
One exciting thing that helps the Green Eggs & Ham show leap from the screen is the magnificent music of composer David Newman, a veteran composer of many movie scores over the years (Galaxy Quest, The Sandlot, Hoffa, Ice Age, etc.). I had the pleasure of watching him work his magic with an orchestra in the recording studio one day, and afterwards felt the urge to Seussify him.
Later in the year, I snapped this second image of David onstage at The Hollywood Bowl where he conducted a concert of John Williams’ music. Film music royalty.
