Today is the British monarch’s 90th birthday. She is longest reigning monarch in Great Britain’s history, and the first sovereign to reach the age of 90. I wish her all the happiness one can possibly have with a life as public as her own.
Her Royal Highness
Believe it or not, I do happen to have my own Queen Elizabeth story. A few years back I was working on a TV show for Disney called My Friends Tigger & Pooh. It was a CG (computer generated) series that ran for two seasons on the Disney Channel, and became notorious for eliminating Christopher Robin and replacing him with a little girl named Darby (voiced by a very young Chloë Moretz).
As we were preparing the first season to air, we were told that an aide to Queen Elizabeth had called the head of the Disney Channel to voice an opinion on behalf of the queen. “Queen Elizabeth understands that the new Winnie the Pooh series does not include Christopher Robin. The Queen is not amused.” Apparently Queen Elizabeth had a certain fondness for Pooh Bear because, like the queen, he had also been born in 1926 when his first book was published. Queen Elizabeth and Pooh grew up together.
So, due to that phone call, we included Christopher Robin in just a couple of episodes to appease her royal highness.
So sorry to have learned today of the passing of Doris Roberts over the weekend. I had, on several occasions, been able to chat with her just while out and about in town, and she was always patient and gracious. And to watch her work…what a privilege! I attended many tapings of Everybody Loves Raymond and no one could deliver a line with an icy stare that brought the house down like she could. (In fact, she once did bring the house down literally when she ran a car through the wall of the set for one of the episodes!)
I wrote about Doris here on my blog just last year (CLICK HERE to see that post) after I was able to share with her this painting I had done of the cast back in 2005 – a parody of Norman Rockwell’s Freedom From Want painting. She loved it, just like anyone’s grandmother would have.
“Everybody Loves Raymond” in watercolor based on Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom From Want” painting.
…and I mean that literally! Yes folks, unless this is some kind of an elaborate April Fool’s joke being played on me, the monsters that have lived in the apartment above me for the past three years, four months, five days and 18 hours have finally up and vanished into the misty night air from whence they came.
You may recall these folks. I have mentioned them several times here on my blog, along with the random comment on Facebook and Twitter. Here is a photo I secretly took of them after the first year of sleep deprived nights.
When they get home, I’m convinced that my neighbors’ front door is a mystical portal that returns them to their natural forms seen here.
Here’s to all the foot stomping, toilet seat slamming, hammering after 10pm, hour and a half to two hour long showers, two flooding mishaps, music loud enough to understand the lyrics, listening to their movies while trying to watch mine, slumber parties, chalk drawings on my doorstep, bed jumping, Olympic gymnastics practice, track meets in the living room, door slamming, shot-put throwing, bowling, peasant whippings, chains scraping, and I’m pretty sure dragon feeding.
May the new tenants be kind and gentle souls sensitive to those around them.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
Isaiah 53:5
The Messiah
Today is what we call here in the States “Good Friday.” It is traditionally the day set aside to remember the death of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. In a country that continues to turn its back on God, it is amazing that we have a national holiday for this event where banks and government offices are closed, and most people have the day off from work. It is called “Good” because the Son of God’s sacrifice for mankind, in which He took upon Himself the sins of the world, made a way for those who believe to enter into heaven one day.
Isaiah 53 predicted the coming of the Messiah and what He would do for us, and Matthew 27 gives a full account of what happened that fateful day so many years ago when the Messiah did come and fulfill the prophesy. Matthew 28 continues the history of those days by telling us of Christ’s resurrection, which is what Easter celebrates.
The particular moment of this drawing comes from Matthew 27:32 which says, “And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.” Simon, a man from the crowd, was called out to carry Christ’s cross to the hill where Jesus would be crucified.
This drawing was one of a half dozen or so new drawings recently added to the Generations of Grace Sunday school curriculum for kids. It comes in black and white for the kids to color when they learn this lesson in church. To learn more about Generations of Grace and if you think it would be a good program for your church to use, feel free to CLICK HERE.
Quite a few years ago I began drawing what turned out to be over 500 coloring book style pages of accounts from the Bible that became the Generations of Grace Sunday school curriculum. They crafted a three year curriculum for kids where not a single piece of art was used twice in that time, and it was designed for several age groups in the elementary grades so that all the kids in a family would learn the same lesson on their level each Sunday. It was a pretty neat approach.
Two years ago, those behind the curriculum wanted to colorize all my drawings for a new published version of the curriculum they intended to do. Some other artists began coloring them, but with so many drawings and a tight deadline, the task was great. So, I was invited back in to color my art as well, having to now follow the coloring style established by other artists. I managed to get about 20 or so pieces colored in-between other jobs I was working on last year, but to even get those done, I was so glad to get my pal and fellow artist Andy Heckathorneto help me.
Andy would first prep the drawings to prepare them for color, then he would go in and lay in all the flat base colors in Photoshop from his studio in Pennsylvania. He would hand them off to me here in California, and I’d add in all the shading. We were a good team!
All that being said, since this week many thoughts are turned to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross with it being Easter here in the United States, I wanted to share with you the one piece Andy and I colored from that account of Christ’s life – the moment when Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus in the garden that led to the Roman soldiers taking Him away to what would eventually be his crucifixion.
The kiss was Judas’ sign to the soldiers that this was Jesus.
If you are interested in this art for your own church, or even for use in your own home, I recommend you check out all the different formats Generations of Grace has to offer for sale on their website. They have teacher lesson books, craft books, activity books, coloring books, and even a family devotional book so the whole family can keep up with the lessons together each day. CLICK HERE to go to their website.
I was saddened to learn of former First Lady Nancy Reagan’s passing yesterday. President Ronald Reagan and Nancy graced the White House with an elegance and charm during their stay in the 1980s. Unlike any United States president in my lifetime did I ever see so many Democrats and Republicans working together and seeming to enjoy each other’s company as much.
I never did meet Mrs. Reagan, but was pleased on one occasion to have met her husband, though he was in the early stages of his Alzheimer’s. Even in that moment well past his presidency, Mr. Reagan cut an imposing figure in person, and had my earned respect for the public office he once held.
The following is a drawing I did a few years ago for President Reagan’s 100th birthday (which you can read by clicking here). I tweaked it a little last night, and felt in light of Mrs. Reagan’s passing (whom I had never drawn), I would post this piece once again of her husband in her honor.
Welcome to the final step-by-step explanation of the Abigail & John Adams illustration that appears in this month’s issue of Clubhouse Magazine. Today we will look at the last digital methods to add some color to the art and to age it a bit.
First, I start with the traditionally painted image, and scan it into Photoshop. The rest of the steps are all completed in that program. Hopefully you have a decent working knowledge of Photoshop for the rest of what you will read to make sense to you. If not, then just enjoy the visual progression!
So we begin where we left off yesterday with the completely traditionally created ink-washed art.I begin in Photoshop by creating a layer and dropping in a brown color with the paint bucket across the whole image, making sure the layer is set to Overlay. This tints the whole picture, then I adjust the opacity percentage to suit my taste.I don’t want the tint to affect most other areas where color will go, so I erased the brown from over most of our happy couple.I begin to lay in colors now on the windows, the hearts on the letters, and the stamps. Each set of colors is on their own Overlay or Multiply layers so opacities can be adjusted independently.Abigail Adams gets some color with many layers (10), each set for Overlay or Multiply, whichever looked better. Both those settings allow the original art to come through the color in different ways.John Adams joins Abby in the land of color. You can see I even gave a bit of a purple tint to his dark jacket.Now some aging techniques come into play. I have a set of splatter brushes in Photoshop. I used several of them on 11 layers, manipulating each in different ways to make it look like this “photograph” has been affected by the 240 years or so it has been passed down through history. You can see the spots on the wall, windows, characters, borders – everywhere!In this image, I painted in a bit of a dark shadow around the edge of the image area. Helps to look older, and maybe the result of John’s camera having a flash on it.And last, using some plug-in filters, I was able to put in some surface scratches, and some fold marks to complete the aging process!
So, there you go! Now you can go and make your own presidential selfie! Thanks for following along in this little exercise. Hope you are off creating great things on your own!
Yesterday I began sharing with you the preliminary steps in coming up with the composition and overall drawing for the John & Abigail Adams illustration published this month in Clubhouse Magazine. Today I will share with you the next step in the process in which the traditional art supplies come out of the drawer to breathe some life into this piece.
Once the art director was pleased with the drawing, as was I, it was time to do the final art. I printed out my line-art drawing (without all the tones in it) onto a thin Layout Bond paper (I use the Strathmore brand). Then using homemade graphite paper under the print out, I traced the drawing onto thick watercolor paper.
Homemade graphite paper made by rubbing a woodless pencil onto one side of tracing paper.Taping down the layout bond paper with the drawing, I put the graphite paper face down on the watercolor paper, then trace the art with a pencil. It leaves a decent graphite image on the watercolor paper that you can continue to tweak with pencil & eraser if needed.
I use the watercolor block paper that either Strathmore or Arches makes. Arches is better (I have more control over my paint on it), but it also is waaaaay more expensive. If you are a newbie, try the cheaper Strathmore first. The block paper is nice because it is a thick pad glued together on the edges like a block (thus the name). This means if you paint very wet, the paper can’t curl up and warp. When it is all dried, you peel the top sheet off the pad and you have a nice flat painting.
This is a pad of watercolor block paper made by Arches. You can see how the sides are glued together.
Using a watercolor technique, I painted the whole piece with black ink. Yep, black ink. I used a non-waterproof ink, and mixed four shades of black by taking little plastic condiment cups, putting a few drops of ink into each, and then adding various amounts of water. This process takes a bit of time to finesse because each cup needs to be slightly darker than the last one. I actually paint with 5 shades, but #5 is the black ink right out of the bottle. I use non-waterproof ink because it is malleable. You can still work it with water after it dries. I tend to not touch it after it dries completely, but even while it is still slightly wet, I can push it around, or add more to it and it blends in nicely together.
I use Higgins Non-waterproof Drawing Ink for pieces like this, mixing various watered down levels of ink in 1 oz condiment cups.
If you are not accustomed to working with watercolors, do note that this process is not as easy as it sounds. I’ve been doing this for years, and there’s a lot to be said about the experience of trial and error of manipulating paint that I couldn’t possibly put into words. You just have to practice.
When the painting process is done, I put some finishing touches on it with gray colored pencils, and maybe some white highlights with white gouache paint and white colored pencils. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of this piece before the pencils were put on it, but trust me, it tightens up the piece a LOT when the pencils are added.
Here’s a close-up of the finished art. I love having the texture of the paper in there to emphasize that it is handmade art, and it helps give a nostalgic look to nostalgic subject matter.
So, now you can see the finished traditional piece of art that physically is sitting in my studio right now. It is just a black ink washed painting with some colored pencil lines added for good measure. It doesn’t quite look like the final illustration I posted two days ago, does it?
Here’s the final piece of traditional art. The ink is black, the paper is white. It still will go through another few digital steps before it is complete, such as adding a sepia tone to it, and other colors and effects.
Come back tomorrow when I will show you the final digital steps I used to add some color and to make this resemble something from the past!
