Avengers Week Drawing 01

today i had an idea to draw up some of the Avengers for everyday leading up to the movie coming out this week. i'm sure every artist out there has the same idea, so to make mine a little different, i envisioned the way my friends and i would play them when we were kids. today i felt it fitting to start with Marvel's first avenger: Captain America... as a kid. "Kid Cap" if you will! hope ya dig:

Ace Grizzle piece

hey ya'allz! workin on a piece of "press art" of sorts for Ace. a blogger has asked to feature the Ace Grizzle blog on his own, but needed an image he could use to link with. here's what i've come up with so far, but obviously not finished yet. just thought i'd share as i move along..

the magic

before he regained the magic, he'd lost it. for more years than i'd been alive, cartoons were not for my dad. he'd rather watch ANYTHING else than watch "kid stuff". as you can imagine, growing up wanting to be in animation, we were often at odds. he always wanted me to be in medicine, but i just wanted to draw cartoons. we could hardly even watch television together on the weekends. he wanted to watch boring, old, black & white cowboy stuff and i wanted to watch brightly colored, fast-paced cartoons with funny sound effects. after some time, i finally gave in to his well-intensioned wishes and steered my educational path toward psychology. this was acceptable to him. as excited as he was about my decision, there came a time where i thought it would break his heart to tell him that it's no longer his decision for me, but i needed to set my own career path and it was to be in animation. by that time though, he agreed that i was old enough to make my own informed decision. through college, he saw my childhood passion (ever so slowly) blossom into a fully-functioning set of artistic skills. he was amazed at what i could do. even though i knew i had miles and miles of drawing to go before i was career-ready, in his eyes i was there. he began to grow an interest in what could be done with an art career, so he started to ask questions and spark up conversations about the industry. he was often times way off in his observations about movies coming out or the latest trends in animation, but i was just happy that a stubborn old man could have such a change of heart and was actually making effort. then, imagine his face when i told him the day i was offered a job at my dream animation studio working on one of the biggest shows in existence. it was an expression i'll certainly never forget. one day, my mind was blown even more when he'd told me about the different cartoon shows he started watching. most of them were prime time shows, but still, he was watching and enjoying. he had rediscovered the magic that i had defended for so many years. i knew he'd remember the joys of animation that he loved as a kid if he'd taken the time to watch good stuff. it was just hard to get him to sit down and see how far along animation has come since The Flintstones and Top Cat. These were his two childhood favorites.

unfortunately, there was one thing in our conversations that we didn't get to discuss. i didn't get to tell him that a large part of the magic started for me when i was about four years old. somehow, he'd managed to find a drawing that he had done when he was a kid. he showed it to me and i was amazed. he was very into the bible when he was younger, and he'd drawn Moses. i thought he looked familiar, and later i came to realize he'd used the design of Fred Flintstone and altered it for the look he wanted, but as a kid i was thoroughly impressed. i never got to tell him that i wanted to draw as good as that drawing was to me, but the pride he grew to have in my abilities is a huge payoff.

some of you already know that i lost my dad a couple weeks ago. i really miss him. it's been pretty hard to draw anything, which is the explanation for my lack of posts lately. so, i thought for today in an attempt to regain some of the magic, i'd throw down a Fred Flintstone for my father. i'm sure he would've loved this drawing despite my design tweaks. here's to a great father!

no drawings today..

an excerpt from a conversation with someone very important to me:

"the thing i think people forget is that we move through our daily routines with many, many meetings and partings with other people. those interactions shape who we are individually and the role we play in society. much of our outlook on others comes from our interactions with people everyday: someone wouldn’t let you get over in traffic, a lady behind you at the cashier gave you the 17 cents that you needed, someone answered a phone call in a movie theater, a guy in his BMW let you have the parking spot you waited 7 minutes for someone to back out of (even though he could’ve swiped it). one of two things happens from meetings like this: we loose a little more faith in humanity, or we discover there’s still small doses of good out there. but what’s more important is realizing that WE have that same responsibility in everyone’s life around us at all times."

so here’s my thought for the day: what if we spend today keeping this idea in mind and acting on it accordingly? maybe remember to look behind us after walking through the door to see if someone is coming in after so that the door doesn't slam on them. how about NOT posting a rant on facebook about how someone supremely wronged us to see how many people side with us? what if we wait for someone to get all the way onto the curb before flying around the corner through the crosswalk? it’s true that small things like this might not make an immediate difference, but maybe they will. realize that not putting someone in a bad mood unintentionally can be just as effective as putting them into a good mood intentionally. once we've effected one person with our mood, IT WILL SPREAD. i feel like we should try to be conscious of what we emanate because it directly correlates to how people view each other. sure misery loves company, but company does NOT love misery.

i think that more often than not, effecting someone's day/mood/perception of humanity takes only seconds out of our life, but will contribute to a ripple effect larger than we can imagine.