So the other night I took a break from cartooning and carved a piece of what most would consider scrap wood. It was about 3/4" squared piece of bass wood and about 6" long. At first I wasn't sure what to do with it so I just started carving and by the time I was done this is who was there. Now as many may know I usually carve ornaments on a corner block piece of wood yet this guy due to the size of the wood I just carved him in the round. I have to say I am pretty happy with how he came out overall. The only difference is compared to the way I usually carve them he does seem a heavier, though he hangs from my ornament stands just fine. I may have to revisit doing them in the round as I do like the overall look of the ornament. Now I have one more to paint and place in my shop in the not so distant future. I may even step out and do a full figure Santa before all is said and done, you just never know.  

as always, 
Good night and may God bless.

I haven't been carving much this week. I have spent a good portion of my time cartooning on water color paper and then adding color with my water color pencils and water brush pens. I also have tried a new pen to add the black outline I put on all my cartoons, it's a Pilot hi-Tec with an extra fine .03 tip. The fun thing about these is they are gel pens but they are ball points. I believe due to it being a gel pen you can use wet brushes to pull out some color from the lines to highlight areas. I use my water brush pens and have been experimenting with this technique. I haven't mastered it but am slowly getting the hang of it, though sometimes the water brush pens can give more water than needed if I am not paying close enough attention. Yet as I say I am just now experimenting with this technique. I have also been working with the idea of glass objects in my cartoons and how things look as you view through not only the glass but sometimes color as well but still staying true to these being cartoon objects. I will be carving soon but for now I hope you enjoy the images.

please remember that while you enjoy family and friends that this Memorial Day aka Decoration Day is about those who are no longer here with us and able to experience the same enjoyment. As the song says, " All gave some, but some gave ALL"  

as always, 

Good night and may God bless

 So this week was a down week for me but I had a few cut outs that a carver sent me so I played around with these. From what I have been told the little elf was originally done by a carver Fern Webber. I never met the woman but from what I understand she was a talented at carving and teaching carving to others. The one painted is somewhat how it is supposed to be carved as an elf. The other was just me playing around with the cutout, he will either be painted as a cowboy or a pirate, not sure yet.

The boot I don't know who originally designed this one, as I say it was a cutout given to me. These were a good no brainer pieces that I could just whittle away and not really have to think about. Sometimes it's good to do things where for the most part you can shut down a big portion of your brain and just unwind from the events of the day or the week. Hope everyone had a good week carving or otherwise.

as always, 

Good night and may God bless

what chance do I have

Years ago my youngest son saw that we got a PCH envelope in the mail and he inquired if I was going to fill it out. I told him no and that the odds of winning were astronomical and his replay was, "you can't win if you don't enter". You know what, you can't, this is true. Before anyone reads into this I am not advocating that you go out and spend your hard earned money on the lottery, which reminds me of a story;

A man prays every night, "God please allow me to win the lottery" he prays this every night for one solid year and at the end of the year he prays with a frustrated heart; "Lord God, I came to You in prayer every night for a year that You would allow me to win the lottery and never once did You answer my prayer". He sat there quiet in his room and then a voice answered him saying, "my son you prayed every night and I heard each prayer but not once in a whole year did you ever buy a lottery ticket".

Don't we do that sometimes, wonder why things haven't gone our way not thinking about how we haven't really invested the time and energy to make things happen. Or we just say to ourselves "this will never work" and with that we decide it's not worth the effort so we never take a chance because the idea of failure is too upsetting. Of course by not trying at all, we have failed already. Well I may fail in the next few months but it won't be because I didn't give myself the opportunity to fail. So hopefully in the next few months I will announce that I have a pattern book for wood carvers being published and then as a follow up I hope to have a table top book of my cartoons. Win lose or draw I will invest the time and effort to give myself every opportunity to fail and who knows maybe I won't. So stayed tuned and please be patient if my postings here are a bit sparse at times. I will still be carving but the drawing board is getting ready to get real active. I will post updates as they become available but due to the material I will be working on there won't be many images loaded here.

as always, 

"Good night and may God bless"