“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent..."

 

Calvin Coolidge

 

I had a friend, Susan Alexander, share this with me recently. I think she noticed I was letting my mind take over and discourage my plans and she would be right. My wife and sister had said the same thing in a different way but it's funny, we get so used to our family believing in us that sometimes we think of it as blind loyalty and maybe it is. Most of the time isn't the point that we just need to try, understanding that if we give it our best and we fail those that love us will be there, just as they were the day before.

 

Remember, you have to look for a four leaf clover to find one, so was it really luck or persistence?

 

Don't take the support from friends and love ones for granted. Chase your dreams and give it your best as a way to acknowledge the love and support you are given. No matter why you try, always remember the quote above because;

 

 “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence." 

as always,

 

Carpe diem........you fill in the rest

tbt on friday déjà vu

Well yes it is Friday again and I almost forgot TBT, but as I remembered last night my head was too close to hitting the pillow so here we are, again. It has been a fun and busy week; I have been busy planning out my game plan for the next few months. A few things got decided, some wood carving based some cartoon based, and since this blog is about the 2 of them, this is the game plan that I will try to set up a schedule for and hopefully implement in the next few days to weeks.  

Starting with the cartoon portion of my world I will get back to planning out and preparing art work for the making of my book for Amazon. It will be classified as a picture book since most of the pages will have one liner cartoons on them. I will be gathering my cartoons together and researching the format as I redo each cartoon in water color. I think for folks that have a version of kindle that displays color this will make for a wonderful display and for those that don’t I believe the images will still have a pleasant display as well. I still have numerous issues and topics to decide on this but that’s ok I can think these through as I am water coloring all the images. More on this later………

As far as carving I will begin the process of carving one or two requested pieces and also carving some new pieces for my Etsy shop for the holiday season. I also will enter the CCA again this year, many may remember that last year I took a beating but after analyzing what I entered last year I believe I know where I went wrong with my entries and have a better game plan this year. One of my favorite carvings was sent out to Nebraska as a gift to my uncle but it is coming back east for a visit so it can be entered in this year’s competition. I have one or two more that I will enter and will ship them out early, hopefully saving a bit on the cost of shipping.

I will in the next few days begin to finalize and set in place a realistic schedule to get many of these things accomplished while still keeping up with my other obligations. But life is good and God has blessed me with these gifts so it is time to see how far I can go with them. This is not my ego talking but it is in my opinion that any gifts you have whether carving, cartooning or any other gifts in the form of some talent are exactly that, gifts from God. Just as all parents love seeing the joy on the faces of their children on Christmas morning, so does our Heavenly Father enjoy these same expressions of joy on the faces of His children, and wants to see these gifts used, if only to bring joy to those around us.



So with no further ado, let me present TBT, on Friday……………

tbt on friday oops!

Many people that cartoon come up with their own comic strip and that is where all their efforts go, for me this is not the case. In a way I do, back when I worked in computer graphics, I began to take inanimate objects and illustrate them. From that point on this has been one of my favorite things to do, after all there are inanimate objects every where so there is always something to illustrate.

Once I became a stay home dad like every other time in my life I illustrate the things I come in contact with so today I am sharing a few of my more recent cartoons.

I pack lunches for the boys every school year and we have found that the little thermoses work great for drinks. Both the boys have their favorite drinks but for the longest time as boys do my youngest loved his chocolate milk.





As most parents I used to get in the car pool line and park next to the safety cones waiting for the boys to come out. Like many possibly, I started to wonder what good the cones were doing with some of these drivers, I mean man this isn't NASCAR this is carpool.





Carpool is always interesting as you watch the parents try and entertain themselves while they wait for their kids, many read or talk on their phones but I would just simply look around and try to imagine who would be the next best object to illustrate. So yeah there are street lights and poles lining an area of the parking lot.

With these two the joke was the first pole saying "wow what is this one of those NASCAR races? Are these pit stops?" and the other pole simply says "No this is afternoon carpool" then the first pole simply says "WOW"


ok well that is it for my tbt, on Friday, oops.

 

So as always happy trails

and

Carpe diem cartooning

pine knots

Well I haven't posted anything in a while so thought I would share my new adventure in the world of carving. I recently bought some pine knots for carving with one hitch, you really should carve these with power tools due to the density of the wood. Pine knot are from dead trees found down on the ground and where the branch is coming out you get the pine knot. There are carvers that do wonderful carvings with this wood and the wood has it's a very unique look so I just had to give it a try............ and I will as soon as the burrs that I need arrive in the mail.

I purchased my knots from the tree wiz and I have to say these are wonderful looking pieces. If you get a chance check out either Gary Burns aka the tree wiz or TJ Kleens for two of the best pine knot carvers. Each has their own style and unique look in carving these and both have a wonderful way of making the wood come alive.

When my box of knots arrived I could see why they both love carving these chunks of wood, so now a new chapter begins for me but one thing, I have no intention of moving away from carving with my knives and gouges as I still have a way to go before I feel like I have mastered that style of carving. Hopefully this will give me a new perspective and may even have me approach carving with a knife in a new direction. I will post more as this journey begins and will also be posting some new carvings hopefully in the not so distant future.

On a side note, we made some changes in our living room so this has temporarily impacted my work space. Hopefully I will have things reorganized and functioning shortly, until then as always or at least until tbt,

happy trails

and

Carpe diem 4 carving