Thanks to Netflix my kids have discovered Godzilla, and the big guy has become the subject of much vigorous symbolic play. Even 1 year old Natie likes to stomp his feet and go "Grrrrrr" when we pretend to smash Tokyo.

OK. I'm back. While I haven't been blogging in awhile I have been busy with lots of projects... and I really DID finish that ant painting! Here it is.

I took a break from it to do a couple of portfolio pieces, and to work on some non-illustration freelance projects related to my interaction-designer life. And oh yeah... the holidays. Nice to be in a little less frantic mode now.

I found the phone! We have a patch of "scrub" that I let go natural in our front yard. Its interesting to see what wild flowers appear. At certain points in the year its quite lovely, but most of the time its hideous ;-)

I was doing some weeding in there last Saturday and I guess it fell out of my pocket. I kind of suspected my phone was in there but just couldn't find it - so during lunch I attacked the patch with a pair of hand clippers and after about 4 wheelbarrows full of crap I found it. We had a couple of days of rain during the last week, but amazingly the phone still works. Not sure if the battery will hold a charge, we'll see.

Incidentally, this morning when I asked my daughter Clara if she had seen my phone she matter of factly explained that she had seen it in my backpack on the back porch. A rabbit had taken it and hopped into the woods. I'm glad she was mistaken.

If I haven't returned your phone calls its not because I no longer care. The last I remember feeling it in my pocket I was doing yard work. There was a frantic rush to get Max to the potty before we experienced an "Exxon Valdeze". When I went to make a call the next day I realized I had completely misplaced the phone.

What's a decent amount of mourning before I go out and buy a new phone with a better camera and mp3 player? ;-)

I finished one of two sample pieces for a revised version of my "I Saw" story. I'll also use this for the Tugeau2 Fall mailing and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I'm doing color studies for the second sample piece in Photoshop. In the past I haven't done a lot in the way of color studies. I've liked to work things out on the actual piece and once I have the drawing down I usually can't wait to get at the actual painting but in the long run it takes longer to do. For the girl in bed I went through 3 different versions for the wall - a cool yellow, a warm pink, and finally the toasty orange I settled on.

Sent the job out Tuesday and got the OK from the art buyer. Turned out to take a LOT more time to complete than I thought - did roughs using quick drying alkyds and finished in Photoshop and my scans needed a lot mor retouching than I had anticipated. Anyway, I'm almost caught up now on the lost sleep ;-)

Taking a break from the commission. We did our yearly week in Ogunquit ME - nobody lost an eye so it counts as a great trip. When I got back I had another weekly reader assignment for Harcout and its been all hands on deck to get that done. Its kind of a fun assignment - group of kids on a field trip - I'm having some fun playing around with the kids expressions.

More on the ants painting. I've switched over to oils, which is how I'll finish it. More refinement of outside contour and building up color in my shapes...

More progress on the ants painting. I tried something new for me, laying the first coat of color down using just my hand - no brush (I wore a rubber glove so it wasn't TO icky). I like the immediacy a lot and I actually like how a lot of the line drawing was obscured. I'm using a thickly applied acrylic to do this and it just feels nice and squishy.



After that its back to a brush and more acrylic to bring back some of the shapes I lost. I do love my outside contours!

Tony the Magician entertains at Max and Clara's birthday party (4 years young!) Thankfully there was no rain, so we could host the affair in our own backyard.

Finally making headway on a commission I've had in the queue - a line of leaf cutter ants marching along an acacia branch. Everyone has a branch except for one, who's picked a cluster of flowers.

The initital drawing is fairly loose. I worked the composition out on trace, then transferred the broad outlines using graphite paper. The drawing was further refined using colored pencil and brush pen, all sealed with a layer of workable fix.

Next step will be to block in initial colors with acrylic, then finish with oils.

I recently finished my first text book illustrations - a series of spots for Harcourt's "Just Like..." series. Coincidentally the subject was Arnold Lobel. Max and Clara just love the Frog and Toad books. I'm fairly happy with how they turned out - much sketchier and (I think) more like a child's drawing than work I've done in the past. I started them out using oils, then scanned them in and finished in Photoshop - a technique I'm really liking a lot.

So, I've just finished a refresh of clshafer.com - the old look was a little dated and frankly the method I'd put in place to update my portfolo turned out to be a lot more trouble than it was worth. I tried to get clever by coding an XML driven mini-app in Coldfusion, but since I'm hand coding the XML it just got to be an exercise in scrolling text. And anyway - when it comes to programming I'm definitely a weekend duffer.

This version is MUCH simpler - just good old fasioned "old school" includes.