The Chad Frye - Illustration GuyBack in 2009, I did a little series of watercolor paintings of characters I had become familiar with having worked on three seasons of the My Friends Tigger & Pooh television show.
Lumpy the heffalump, introduced in The Heffalump Movie, was a sweet character and was friends with Roo. The paintings weren’t done for anything official for Disney – just something on my own.
I’ve enjoyed drawing the Pooh characters ever since that show, and still get requests from kids from time to time.
Thanks to my friend Judy Soemer Gracie who I have known since we were kids, earlier this summer I was reacquainted with this old drawing of mine that I did when I was in high school for our church’s member cookbook. I don’t even remember drawing it, and yet it is familiar all at the same time.
A fun detail that I can tell is in the background is a portrait of large celebrity chef of the day Paul Prudhomme, having “him” sign the picture “Pig Prudhomme.”
Earlier this year, I created this piece for the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society, otherwise known as The Order of Cornelius (OOC). It features the mascot of the OOC, Cornelius the Bear, who we hold in VERY high regard.
I’ll have more to say about the OOC in my next post when I show you a medallion I designed for them, but for now, if you are interested, I encourage you to visit the OOC’s website by CLICKING HERE!
While a lot of schools may have started already, that doesn’t mean summer is over. It’s still pretty hot out there, and that heat can really slow down a superhero. There’s a reason Batman only goes out at night.
About that topic of schools starting in August – bleah! School started in my adopted town of Los Angeles back on August 13!!! When I was a kid, I’d still be splashing around in a pool, lake, or lawn sprinkler at that time of year! For me, school always started after Labor Day. (For you folks in other countries, Labor Day is a holiday we have here in the USA in early September.) I’m not sure what the rationale was for starting later, except maybe because most of our schools where I grew up in New Jersey did NOT have air conditioning. Even in early September, it could be toasty, but it would soon cool down as fall encroached upon our summer.
Of course, now I don’t go to school at all. So there!
In this case, perhaps obeying the signs is the best plan for self-preservation.
I had some doodle time last month and started out drawing this bear with his mouth wide open without a real plan as to what the scene would really be. It began as an exploration of big curvy shapes with the bear, but then his ravenous appetite needed to be justified. So, thinking back to a bear/rabbit piece I did last year (which you can see by CLICKING HERE), why not revisit that idea in a different way this time, too? So, voila. There you go. A big hulking hungry bear, a poor defenseless rabbit, and a sign to bring it all together in one humorous moment.
My doctor retired last month. After all the years of his great care, thought I’d do a little drawing for him to mark the occasion (name redacted for privacy sake). He deserves the time away, but man, I’m not looking forward to having to seek out a replacement for him. He was one of the good ones.
Today there will be a big beach volleyball tournament in Playa del Rey, California called King of the Jungle. I designed the T-shirts for this year’s big event!
One of the organizers of the tournament is a friend of mine, Paul Carrera, who works as an editor in the animation business. He asked me for a black and white design, and let me do whatever I wanted for it.
It was fun just doing a simple action pose of this guy wailing on the volleyball. However, I thought that it might be fun to see this in full color. So, this past week, I decided to add some hue to improve the view!
Here in the States, today is our Independence Day! In 1776, our country’s founding father’s sent a little ol’ letter off to our landlord, King George III of England, stating that we didn’t want to pay him rent anymore. Back then they “celebrated” with a war. Today, we celebrate with parades, barbecues, and fireworks with friends and family.
