Organized Doodles

1st Thessalonians

2011-04-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

Our middle daughter is working on her master's degree. We actually have two daughters working on their masters. We are very proud. One of Andrea's assignments was to come up with a creative way of presenting an outline for one of the books of the Bible. She chose 1st Thessalonians. We talked about it and this was what we came up with. I was happy to draw it out for her. You should go from the bottom to the top when reading her three points about the book. It was a fun assignment.

Dear Blog

2011-04-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog,

I am sorry to have been ignoring you so much lately. It seems that every time I think about posting something on you I have very little time. Over the past four years you have given to me a great deal of fun and joy. I have been introduced to some interesting people by you, and you have also provided a good deal of income to me. You've not made me rich, by any means, but there has been a bit of coinage come my way because of your vigilance on the internet. Thank you.

I wish now to offer this bit of doodlery as a peace offering and apology for my absence. I know that it's not much but it's something simple that I can quickly post on your pages. It really is nonsense, I know, but it is something that I've enjoyed scribbling down on paper over the last few weeks. I do have a number of other pieces that I have been intending to post here. You will just have to be understanding and know that you are not forgotten—at least not completely forgotten. It really is my intent to get back to posting my organized doodles on you more often.

Can you ever forgive me?

Rick

Love's Protection

2011-02-18T13:31:00.000-08:00

I've been ignoring this blog. The last time I tried to post something it said that I was out of free memory space and directed me to where I could purchase more. That threw me off and I never came back to address the issue. In the mean time I got an e-mail from someone threaten to sue me over a drawing I did for a gentle's sewage cleaning company because he had a copyright on the name: "Sewer Hog"; remember that one? So, instead of facing litigation over a crappy drawing (pun intended), I deleted the three post related to it. Hopefully that has freed up a bit of space. I will find out as soon as I try to post this particular doodle.

I have a goal of creating enough of these "devotional doodles" to submit a book for publication. Maybe I shouldn't be posting these to the web, as people are want to just take your work, but I enjoy sharing. I want to have a total of 52 done by the year's end. I have 25 so far. Here's one that I drew just this week.

What's consuming you this week? Giving it to the Lord. Copy & Share If You Dare

The Two Shall Become One

2011-01-13T14:51:00.000-08:00

I have been ignore this blog too long. I have a back log of things that I've been meaning to post here, but I think that I've been giving so much attention to my weight lost challenge I haven't really had any desire to put something together. Today, I officially end my 6 month quest. I will be posting the final tally and a few interesting photos on Monday. So, stay "tooned."

In the mean time, I had a photography session with my youngest, Marla, and her fiancé, Chris, last Saturday. It was a perfect January day on the Oregon Coast. We took over 500 photos. Here are some of the better ones (I thought) I took that day. The wedding is in June—our last one to flee the nest. I'm not ready for this...

We did a lot of laughing that day.

Marla didn't particularly like this one. I thought it turned out well.

We're under the bridge over the Chetco River. We found a lot of interesting spots for photos down there. That's Hwy 101 running overhead.

I was laying on my back on the ground to get this shot.

One of my favorite from that day.

Mill Beach, for you locals.

We had a lot of fun with these.

Chris signs the papers on what will be their new home in a few days—quite an accomplishment for a young man. Here they are standing on their future front porch.

An old building just across the California state line.

Poor Chris. He endures a lot of teasing from his future wife. It comes from the way she was raised.

We had to make the quick trip down into California to get some photos in the Redwoods.

Driving back we saw this herd of Elk and had to stop for a photo. I just told them to walk backwards towards the fence so that they wouldn't scare them off. It worked and we got the shot.

You're all invited to the wedding. We'll give you an Oregon Welcome when you come.

There will most certain be more wedding updates in the days ahead. So, again, stay "tooned" for more.

Unrecognized

2010-12-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

The Gospel of John has it's own version of the Christmas story. Though less of a narrative, it is very powerful, nonetheless. Here is an illustration of one of the verses from John's words.

His birth is celebrated around the world, yet many do not recognize Him still.

Merry Christmas!

Copy & Share if You Dare

Giant Jim

2010-12-17T19:32:00.001-08:00

Jim is the youth pastor at our church, and a good friend. One evening I stepped in for him at the youth group while he was out of town. At one point he seem a bit concerned whether or not I would be able to handle teens. I told him, "Don't worry. I'm going to knock it out of the park." Since then that has been an inside joke between us: "Are you going to knock it out of the park?," we'll asked each other.

That's Jim and his wife Jolene to the left. They're expecting their 2nd child in August. I think "Richard" is one of the names that's being considered—at least it should be considered, don't you think?

Jim is a San Francisco Giants fan. You can imagine that he was in hog heaven when they won the Series.

For Christmas I wanted to give him something special, and so I created this caricature of him. I presented it to him at a little party we had at our house. It's always fun to have the chance to see one of my subject's reaction when they open one of my doodles. Jim like what I had created. He seemed most impressed that I got his hair right on. Half of the party was spent hunting for Eggy. He found him, but it took a while.

Nice sweater Jim.

Another One For You Wedding Gluttons Out There

2010-12-15T10:59:00.000-08:00

I know that some of you can't get enough of this wedding stuff. We're finally getting a chance to see the professional photos after my daughter started posting them on Facebook. Out of the hundreds that she posted there I picked out 25 more to share with you on this blog.

Introducing Mr. & Mrs. Mosshart

The girls seemed to have a lot of fun getting ready—must be a female thing.

Mother of the bride looks on with pride.

My first chance to see Andrea. Everyone knows that the fountain is about to start.

The ladies seem to like this shot—so I figured that I would go ahead and post it.

Evan's first chance to see his bride—the lucky guy.

All of my beautiful girls.

The bride and her party. Three of them belong to me, at least they use to.

The groom and his party.

The Mrs. and I done pretty good, don't ya think?

That's my entire clan, including the son-in-law to be on the right end.

She's looking at me knowing the tears are about to start again anytime—and they did.

The ceremony

I like this shot.

The ceremony is over and the happy couple make their exit.

Those are the smile of relief.

"Bustling" the dress. Quite an operation—so I am told.

A bit of wedding humor—check out the faces.

Of course, you know I like this shot.

Making their final exit.

She looks happy.

A wave goodbye and the girl is gone.

The next one gets hitched in June. The planning has begun.

Where My Brain Is

2010-12-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm sitting at 40 pounds down since June 12th. I have a goal of reaching 50lbs by Jan. 12th. That will mean 6 months on this "life-style change" that I've been on. At least, that's what my Son-in-law, Ben, calls it. He took on the challenge of acting as my trainer while I am on this campaign. Lately the "life-style change" has felt more like a diet. Ben has me on, what he calls, a "December to remember" program—no breads, no cereal, no chips, no pasta, none of that. The good news is that I can eat all the meat and fruit that I want. I am definitely into meat. On top of all that I have a light workout routine that I do three times a week, and I walk one hour each day—no small task. It seems to be working.

The other day I was walking down a street am I'm thinking, "My body is out on the road, but where is my mind?" I'll show you where my mind was...

That's where it was, and he (my brain) wasn't helping me out on that road one cotton-pickin' bit! Where's your brain been these days? Copy & Share If You Dare

The Umpqua River Valley

2010-11-29T22:23:00.000-08:00

When we flew back from Oklahoma we landed in Portland in a snow storm. We had to drive two hours before we could stop for the night. The night day we woke to a fresh layer of snow all around. The drive down the Umpqua River Valley, on our way back to the coast, was beautiful. Even though we had a four hour trip I took time to stop along the way to take a few photos. Here are some of the shots I got.

I think this one might be my favorite. It's either this one or the barn shot at the top. Please feel free to Copy & Share If You Date. The photos are fairly large and would make good screen saver material, I think.

A Few of My Favorite Things

2010-11-26T23:23:00.000-08:00

I couldn't tell you how many caricatures that I've done over the past four years. I've kept a copy of almost all of them. Someday I've going to lay them all out on a floor just so that I can get an idea of how many I've drawn. It will take a room larger than my living room to lay them all out next to each other—there are just too many. Even to try and show you all the one I might consider my favorite pieces would make this post far too long. Still, I want to try and show off a few of what I consider to be better examples of my work. All of these have been posted on this blog sometime before, but for your consideration here are a few of my favorite things, or rather doodles.

Drawn for a sweet girl, Christie. She used it as the header on her blog about her journey through serious illnesses.

I guess you would call Tom my step-father-in-law. He had quite a costume one halloween and I gave this to him as a Christmas gift one year.

Drawn for a client living in Arizona who's husband owns an unusual antique tractor.

Drawn for a client in Florida who's husband enjoys a good round of golf and driving their dog, Daisy, around in their golf cart.

Drawn for a client in England who's grandfather is a retired dentist and enjoyed singing hymns to his patients.

This was an anniversary gift for the son and daughter-in-law of a friend. I spent a long time studying the famous painting, American Gothic, to create this one.

This was a birthday gift for a very good friend of mine that is a minister in New Mexico.

Drawn for a longtime friend that enjoys hunting in the fields of NW Oklahoma. He and I had a successful turkey hunt together one season.

Drawn for a client in Idaho that owns a potato farm.

Drawn for a good friend that has been kind and generous to me on more than one occasion. This hangs on a wall next to his bed.

Drawn for a client who's son is a serious poker player.

Drawn for a client with a large family. They are military stationed in Japan. She wasn't sure about my suggestion of a Ninja theme, but liked the way it turned out.

Drawn for a client that has a daughter who owns an unusual pair of pants—very fancy indeed.

Drawn for a client that is quite a nature lover.

Drawn for a client who's husband is a big Lord of the Ring fan.

An illustration of my dear departed brother-in-law Jim. His daughter asked God to let her see her daddy one more time. Right after that she got her copy of this illustration from her mother. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

This was one of my few serious portraits, drawn for a good friend that loaned us her cabin in Colorado for a few days.

This is my mother-in-law. Rabbits fear her when she drives the riding lawn mower. As a matter of fact, I do too.

Drawn for a fellow blogger that has become a good friend. One of the few fellow bloggers that I've ended up having the chance to meet face to face. She sent us okra in the mail. I sent her this doodle.

Drawn for another blogging friend. She was about to order an illustration from me, then she had some difficulties which causes her to cancel the order. I enjoyed surprising her by drawing one for her anyways. She uses it as her blog header.

Drawn for a young lady that is a family friend that grew up and became a preschool teacher. I thought this turned out really well and I was especially proud of the way the lettering turned out.

It's not too late to get in an order for a caricature before Christmas. You might be surprised by my rates. If you'd like more information then e-mail me and I'll be happy to tell you what I charge for an 8x10 illustration of that loved one on your gift list—the one that you always have a hard time figuring out what to buy them.

green_rick@juno.com

Our Daughter's Wedding

2010-11-23T20:46:00.000-08:00

We made it back from Oklahoma despite winter weather storms that swept through the entire NW. We are happy to be home safe and dry. Here are a few of the many photos that I took at our daughter, Andrea's, wedding to her young man, Evan.

The wedding took place in Bethany First Church of the Nazarene. It's located right across the street from where our two oldest went to college. In fact, Marylynn and I met there. The church has a large, beautiful sanctuary. The idea of trying to put together decorations for a room like this from 2,000 miles away was a bit overwhelming for us. This is a shot from the rehearsal the night before.

The wedding coordinator had this "practice skirt" for Andrea to wear. I thought it was a bit silly at first, but it was really nice to have as there was a lot of fixing the wedding dress during the actual event.

A good friend acted as our florist and decorator. Andrea wanted a fall theme for the wedding. She painted all the pumpkins, and our friend let us use the gazebo. We picked up packages of leaves at the dollar store, but we ended up having to move them out from under the wedding attendants as they kept getting caught up by Andrea's dress. Her dress acted like a rake.

A shot of one of the isles that the wedding party walked in and out of.

I was allowed to enter the dressing room while all the ladies were getting ready. It was definitely an estrogen overload zone.

This is a shot of the reception hall. It was another large room to try and decorate. I think that my wife did an excellent job. We had a lot of help from many good friends.

Andrea wanted a candy/snack table. I think that it was a very popular spot during the reception. I missed a shot of the cookie table that had a milk fountain. It too was very popular.

This is a display of wedding photos from parents and grandparents on both sides. We saw this done at a wedding at our church here in Oregon and we stole it from them.

One of the table center pieces at the reception.

Another table center piece. There were pumpkins everywhere!

My girls—all so beautiful.

Andrea and Evan broke tradition and saw each other before the wedding. It made taking the photos a lot simpler. This was his first chance to see his bride in her dress—the lucky guy.

The grooms men.

Andrea's good friends.

Parents of the bride standing beside one of the "name thingies" that I made for the wedding. (See the previous post for further details.)

I just has to share this picture again. I forget what we were laughing about, but uur youngest snapped the camera at just the right moment.

More wedding decorations. I was trying to get a record of everything that I could because, as my experience knows, the wedding photographer never gets everything.

Evan and his brother and sister. They are a nice family.

Mom and me. Don't you just love her.

The Green side of the family.

Andrea and her grandmother.

The mothers.

The pictures is a little out of focus, but Marylynn and I had to show the kids what a real kiss looked like.

Our oldest, just got married two years ago last month. If you're a sucker for wedding photos, you can check her's out here and here.

The Mosshart side of the family. There was a whole bunch of them too.

My beautiful daughter.

She turned out not half bad.

The entire wedding party.

The cake and more decorations.

A cascade of wedding gifts—so many generous people.

The wedding seem to be well attended. I don't have a count but we think that there was over 400. What do you think?

The reception in full swing.

Cutting the cake.

Throwing the bouquet. Andrea had a very wimpy toss.

Evan going after the garter. I kept thinking, "It's okay. He can do that now."

Shooting the garter. It was a wimpy attempt too. What's wrong with these kids nows days?

Exiting the church.

I love this shot.

A final wave and they off!

Next! These two plan to get married in June—Lord help us!! After that there was no more daughters.

The Name Thingy Project

2010-11-20T20:55:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting on the living room floor of my oldest daughter's house. We've been in Oklahoma for the past week getting things together for daughter number two's wedding. The nuptials happened yesterday and everything went very well. I've been sharing on this blog my plans to create a large styrofoam cutout to help decorate the wedding reception. Here is my report of how the "Name Thingy Project" turned out.

The work actually began when I did the "dry run" back in Brookings. (See below what I did as a practice project.)

I think I drew a version of this a half of dozen times. This was the one that I chose to create. It was important to create a shape that would have stability. The sweeping lines underneath their names helped to make it strong.

I set up shop at daughter number one's church across the road from their home. They were very gracious and kind to me—letting me use up a good deal of the floor space in their sanctuary to work. A few days before the wedding it was suggested that I create a smaller version to be hung over the guest book table. That created more pressure on the use of my time.

I copied the design onto a transparency and projected the image onto a large piece of styrofoam that my (first) son-in-law picked up for me at Home Depot.

Then, while being careful not to bump the projector, I traced out the design onto two 8th foot panels.

Then I cut out the image using the lines as my guide. Back home, when I did my dry run, I tried using an electric knife, but the styrofoam I used then was a standard thickness. The panels I got in Oklahoma was a compressed foam and too hard for the knife. The youth pastor at the church was kind enough to loan me his sawzall to use instead. That worked great for the large cuts, but for the tighter spots I utilized a hot knife.

After cutting the image out I painted the back and the edges with flat black paint.

I was able to find a latex metallic gold to use on the face. Many of the metallic paints are oil based and will eat into the foam if you use it.

My father-in-law, Tom, helped me a bunch. He worked hard to clean up the edges of the cutout.

After that I outlined the letter with an olive green, which was one of my daughter's wedding colors. The image always pops whenever you get to the outlining stage.

We were able to string a cable out across the area we were trying to fill with decorations in the church's fellowship hall. Then we used fishing string to hang the name thingy and several Chinese lanterns. That's my next future son-in-law working on the ladder. My oldest daughter, Tarah, is the one holding the cutout up.

Then we hung Chinese Lanterns on either side.

The finished product. What do you think?

A view of the reception area from above.

Here is a photo of the smaller cutout hanging over the guest book table. I had a lot of people say nice things about my work. Most were wondering how I got the things from Oregon to Oklahoma. I wanted to say that we flew out a craftsman from Oregon to make the design for us, but I was enjoying hearing their complements too much to lie.

After the fun was over, it was my sad responsibility to dispose of them. After all, what does one do with a 14 foot name thingy?

So, I took them outside, popped them over my knee and dumped them in the dumpster. Isn't this a sad photo?

BUT WAIT!?! That's not entirely true...

We just couldn't destroy the entire project.

So...

We...

Snuck over to the newlywed's home and hung the smaller cutout over their bed—waiting there for their return. I guess they will have to decide it's fate.

I'll post some photos from the wedding soon. You can find several that I've already posted on my Facebook page. It was a beautiful event and my daughter looked VERY beautiful.

Sweet Uncle Roy

2010-11-13T05:34:00.000-08:00

Jodi has become a regular customer. She has request two previous caricatures from me. One of her husband, who is a chaplain in the USAF, and a second one as a Christmas gift for her mother. (Use the links to check them out.)

This time Jodi made a touching request. She wrote...

"My sweet Uncle Roy passed away this morning. He has been battling cancer for years, and even though we knew his time was near, the family is still grieving. He was still in his 50's and that just seems to young."

"You did a drawing for a family awhile back that I never forgot. Their loved one had passed away, and you drew him in angles arms flying to heaven, with Jesus awaiting with open arms."

"Do you repeat those types of drawings?"

The drawing that Jodi was referring to is one that my sister request after her husband, my dear brother-in-law, Jim, passed away. Jim was a good man and a good friend to me. I still miss him. That drawing was very personal, but of course I was willing to create something for Jodi's family.

There were some special request that went with this assignment.

Apparently, Uncle Roy was "the biggest Alabama football fan" she ever knew. She wanted me to include the hat worn by Coach Bear Bryant somewhere in the drawing.

The color yellow was his favorite. Through the years of his illness family members sent pictures of everyone wearing yellow, at the request of his wife's, Lis. At the funeral they had yellow ribbons for the family to wear.

His daughter Molly, 17 years old, went and got a tattoo in his honor. (Ouch! Right on the neck too!!)

Plus, he and his wife had a thing for dragonflies. They collected them. They gave them to each other. They have poems and songs written about them all over their house.

With all those special request in mind, I went to work and here is what I came up with.

I think this drawing turned out fairly well. I managed to work in all the little request that Jodi made. For some reason it took me quite a while to get this piece completed. Maybe because it was such an important and personal topic to me. Maybe it's because I have a few distractions in my wife, with a daughter getting married in less than a week's time. I changed this illustration from the one I did of Jim. Instead of one big angel, I drew two smaller cherubs. For some reason I felt that a larger angel would be a distraction from the central figure, Uncle Roy.

Jodi said she really liked the drawing. Unfortunately, she has yet to get the actual piece in hand. I got the envelope back in the mail today—apparently I didn't have the correct address. I feel bad because Jodi has been waiting for this for sometime. It's close enough to Christmas that it might work as a Christmas gift.

Thank you Jodi for trusting me with a very important assignment. I hope that in some way my little doodle can help heal a hurting heart.

----------------------

Speaking of Christmas!! It's just around the corner. If you're interested in me creating a special gift for a special person then drop me an e-mail. I think that you will find my prices amazingly reasonable. Apparently Jodi does. This is her third go around, after all.

green_rick@juno.com

Just DO IT!!

Gloria In Excelsis Deo!

2010-11-10T14:37:00.000-08:00

The final count down has begun. We're less than 10 days away from daughter #2 getting married. Earlier I posted a design for a large styrofoam cut out that I want to make to decorate the wedding reception area. My concern has been that I would arrive in Oklahoma, with only two days to put this thing together, I won't have enough time for any mistakes. So, then I decided to do a practice run here in Oregon. Instead of the names of the bride and groom, I wanted to create something that my church could use at Christmas. "Gloria In Excelsis Deo!" seemed like a good idea. It will be hung from the ceiling of the church's foyer over the two doors that lead to the sanctuary.

I don't remember how much time I put into making this piece, but I know that I won't have anytime to relax. I learned a lot and I will be able to avoid a lot of mistakes that I made on this one. I used a "hot-knife" to cut through the 1.5 inch styrofoam. The back and edges are painted black. The one for the wedding will be four times larger. Someone suggested that I use an electric knife. I picked one up and did a little cutting on an extra piece. It worked pretty good. Plus, there was no melted styrofoam smell floating up into my face. I'm going to take both to Oklahoma with me.

I'm not entirely happy with my choice of color. It was supposed to look more gold-like. At this point it looks more school bus-like. I will probably add some glitter, but otherwise I'm fairly happy with it.

What do you think?

Loving Deeply

2010-11-07T16:08:00.000-08:00

I call these "Devotional Doodles." Some passages of scripture draw a picture for me. This is another one of those.

What does it mean to "love deeply." If we could do that, then I think it would indeed cover a multitude of sins. Don't you?

Copy & Share If You Dare

Doodle Spontaneity

2010-11-03T11:50:00.000-07:00

I was in another long meeting yesterday, and if you follow my blog you know that means more "meeting doodles." Below are the results. I think the guy in coat turned out especially well. I never know what will come out once I put the pen to paper and start to doodle during a meeting. I kind of like the spontaneity that's involved—there's no erase option once you get started.

In other news: Our middle child gets married in Oklahoma on the 19th, but Our youngest (photo left) came home Monday evening with a ring on her finger. When it rains, it pours. That will essentially make three weddings within a three year time span for us. I think that we’re operating on wedding overload. At least all three have chosen very nice young men.

In other, other news: I'm down 37.5 lbs—just saying.

House On Rocks vs House On Sand

2010-11-01T06:14:00.000-07:00

My friend John asked if I could draw something that he hoped to use with his two sons as an instructional guide. He wanted an illustration depicting the two houses that Jesus talks about in Matthew 7:24-27. There He describes two houses—one built upon sand and the other built upon rock. A storm comes along and, of course, the house built upon the rock fares much better than the one built upon sand. The story raises the question about what we're building our lives upon—something solid, or something lacking substance?

I put this doodle together and sent it to John. He wrote, "I think you are perhaps the most gifted cartoonist I have ever known! Wow! Excellent! Thank you!" Now, I think John was a bit over the top there—just a bit, but I really appreciate the remark and just had to share it with you.

John was kind enough to allow me to post this doodle here for your viewing pleasure. Drop by his blog and tell him that you think that he is the most gifted blogger ever, or something to that effect.

Werewolf Incontinence Issues

2010-10-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

I wanted to posted something for Halloween that you could Copy & Share If You Dare. At first I was going to doodle a cat, but then I remembered my "Hair Ball of Love" illustration. Then, a jack-o-lanter, and I remember I did that some time ago. "So, what to do I draw," I'm asking myself. Frankenstein's Monster? A trick-or-treater? Nope. Been there—done that. So what? Okay! How about a werewolf? But how do I make this interesting. Do I dare drawing him going... well... "you know what. Should I?

You see the answer below. I did dared. I did should. It would be inconvenient being a werewolf if you had incontinence issues. Have a safe and happy Halloween.

Philippians 4:13

2010-10-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

It's been too long between post, but I just had nothing to share. I just finished another caricature. I should be able to post that soon. Christmas is almost upon us. If you're looking for that gift for the person that "has everything," then I'm your cartoonist.

In the mean time, I visited a website where people could type in their favorite verse and this verse from Philippians seemed to be a favorite among favorites. At first I was drawing a guy easily lifting a large dumb bell with his mere finger, while the Lord, basically, doing all of the lifting. But, then I realized that's not how the Lord does things. He will help, but He lets us do our own share of lifting so that we will grow stronger. At least, that's how I see it. What do you think?

Someday, I'd like to have 365 of these "devotional doodles"—enough to publish a book someday. Would you buy one?

Two Faces

2010-10-07T20:31:00.000-07:00

I was in a long meeting the past few days. The speaker was "yammering" on about something. If you know me, you know that I had to pull put a pen and do some doodling. This is a little something that I scribbled down. It ain't much, but it's something.

By Any Other Name Is Still...

2010-09-30T04:12:00.000-07:00

I keep producing these Name Doodles. I like doing them so much that I decided to redo one for my wife, Marylynn. Her's was basically the first one I did. I think that my technique has gotten better, plus the coloring on the first one was just in the computer. I wanted to make one she could hold in her hand. And so, that's what I did.

Her favorite color is yellow and since she's from Texas, she's the yellow rose of Texas in my life. I know, I know... "Oh Gwarsh!"

We decided to "splurge" a bit on our weight loss thing last Friday night and went out for some Chinese. On the way there we swung by the port and I took some quick photos as the fog was rolling in...

What do you think?

A Short Trip

2010-09-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

I tell people that I don't mind them making fun of my hairline, and I mean it. I'd rather them poke fun at that then at my personality. After all, it was God Who gave me the hairline. And why should I complain about the 1,000's of hours that He has saved me from daily morning hair prep time? I'm telling you that if I brush my hair more than six times it's only wishful thinking.

What I do mind is having to hear the same bald jokes over and over again. I'm telling you that I've heard them all!

"God only made a few perfect heads. The rest He covered with hair."

Yuk, Yuk

"You're not loosing hair. You're only growing more face."

Yuk, Yuk

Etc. Etc...

I try to eek out a polite chuckle, but it's getting harder. But, here's one that perhaps your bald friends have not I've heard. This is indeed what I say when people tell me they're going to get out of my hair...

Copy & Share, If you Dare. Maybe you'll get a laugh, or maybe they'll never speak to you again. Either way, it could be worth a try.

Church Logo

2010-09-22T14:59:00.000-07:00

Years ago I created this logo for my church. I wanted to try and capture the spirit of the beautiful Pacific coastline that we have here in Brookings. I was never quite happy with the concept I came up with.

Finally, for various reasons, it was time to try and create something new. Using this photo as my inspiration I ended up with the concept below.

I was just trying to reduce the image in the photo down to its basic geometric shapes. But, the only problem was that the wife and daughter didn't like. (Everyone is a critic.)

So, then I fiddle with the tree and came up with this one...

They liked the new tree (So did I—I hated to admit they were right) but the water and rock, in my opinion, needed some more detailing—plus my wife thought the rock looked like a boat or something.

So, that lead to this one...

Which lead to this one...

It's your turn to be an art critic. What do you think?

Bad Bad Bunny

2010-09-16T11:36:00.000-07:00

I colored in the Bad Bunny doodle. Don't ask me why I drew him. I just started drawing and out he came. I went a little "Big Boy" on the overalls, I guess. I always like the way red checks look in an illustration. For whatever reason, he's still a bad, bad bunny.

It's been a while since I drew something just to add to my collection. I've got a stack of doodles at home. Occasionally, I get a chance to display them, but I rarely sell anything. People mostly just like to look at them. Oh well, it's just a hobby.

Christmas is coming. If you're interested in having a character drawn, or a Name Doodle done, now is the time to get your order in. I have a wedding coming up in November. THAT'S going to require some of my attention.

In other news...

We were "Skype-ing" with our eldest daughter, and her husband (my trainer) the other night. Do you "Skype?" It's the greatest way to connect with your family when they are far, far away. I was playing with my new camera and got this shot.

Also...

The youth group at our church had a big event last night. This year they brought in a dunk tank and asked me if I would take a turn. It's a good thing for them that I had lost weight because a few months ago I would have been over the capacity. So, on a cool, overcast evening, on the Oregon coast, your's truly took a bath. Here are some shots...

My friend, Bernard, made a big announcement that I was in the tank. I would have rather preferred they ignore me.

The kids seem to attack the trigger with a vengeance. I kept wonder what did I ever do to them?

Down I go! This was actually my third or fourth dunk, but it's the best shot that my youngest was able to get. Yes, it was cold.

One Good Turn

2010-09-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

Helen, my okra giving, red dirt living, Oklahoma friend, saw the Name Doodles that I created for Alice. She commented that she really like them, and so (of course) I was happy to create one for her. One good turn deserves another, as they say.

Thank you again Helen, for the Okra treat. We enjoyed it dearly.

Bad Bunny

2010-09-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

My new camera arrive on Thursday. It's like my old Canon in many ways, but still, a much, much better camera. I've barely had it out of the box. I had been reduced to using our youngest daughter's camera, and when her sister flew into town for a wedding shower, it was all I had to take pictures with. The screen on the camera is broken and so when I took this photo before the shower we had no idea that it was set on black and white. The picture turned out pretty good still.

This is the first photo I took with the new one—a Geranium sitting on the front our porch. Not a bad photo, if I do say so myself.

The youngest snapped this photo of me. It's not my best expression, but I thought you might find it interested if you've been keeping track of my weight loss. My face looks thin, even to me, in this photo. As of this morning, I am down 28.5 pounds—that since July 12.

"What am I doing?," I hear you ask. (Yes, I can hear you all the way from here.) I am just watching what I eat and walking every day—following my son-in-law's directives. Starting Oct. 3rd he's going to have me doing some lite weight training. I say "lite," but he's had me pick up two 15lbs hand weights to do the training with. What's crazy to me is that those things are HEAVY and I've loss as nearly as much as those things weigh together.

This is a photo of a doodle that I started this morning while talking to my parents on the phone. For some reason I wanted to draw a bunny. But you know me, he couldn't be a "happy little bunny." He had to be something strange. I called him a "Bad Bunny," but maybe he's not bad. Maybe he's just "expressive." I'll be developing this illustration further. You can kind of see a mole that I've sketched out in pencil in the lower corner. AND, (apologies) You-Know-Who hasn't been added yet. Stay tuned for a bunny updates.

Completing Alice's Set

2010-09-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

Here are the two other names doodles that I created for Alice. As I said before, creating these is a real pleasure for me. I seem to have always enjoy creating art that's a bit "mindless"—that you can just sit back and do, "whiling" away the hours. It is very relaxing for me to do. (For that reason I think that I would enjoy learning how to quilt someday.) I enjoyed doing them so much that I decided to create one for me. (Check out my sidebar.)

Alice said that Mary and her partner competed at "nationals" with an interpretation they did of Finding Nemo. He was Nemo, she was Dori.

Alice said that Kali is traveling the country with a group of christian teens - teaching speech and debate in conferences for other teens. Her signature character in competition has been from Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. (You have multi-talented children Alice.)

Christmas is just around the corner. Maybe you'd like me to create a special gift for that special someone, or maybe you'd just like to see your own name all decked out. For $30 (plus $5 packaging and shipping) I'd be happy to do that very thing. Drop me a note @ green_rick@juno.com and I'll get right on it.

Papa's Got a Brand New Bag

2010-09-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

I'm back after a long hiatus from this blog—too long. It seems that summer has too many distractions. This will be another long post. I generally like to keep them short for easy reading. I'll try to break it up into parts so that you can pick and choose to read what interest you.

First: The Reddirt Woman strikes again...

Helen is the one blogging friend that I've had the chance to meet face to face. Two summers ago I came across her blog and commented on her okra garden. (If you're asking yourself, "What's okra?" then you're not from the south.) So, that summer, Helen was kind enough to mail us a box of fresh okra to us—a real treat.

Well, she did it again. Apparently this was a bummer crop season for okra—with plenty to share. Helen mailed us a bigger box of okra a few weeks ago. Now fried okra isn't on my list of diet food, but Marylynn and I could NOT ignore, or resist such a treat.

We not only had enough to fry up TWO batches, but we also (reluctantly on my part) shared some with Marylynn's mother. Doesn't that look good? Go to her blog and tell her what a nice person she is. Maybe she'll be nice to you.

THANK YOU Helen—my reddirt friend. I probably put five pounds back on because of your gift, but I loved every bit of it.

Second: More of the beauty of where we live...

Recently we had friends visit from New Mexico. One of the things we like to do when we have guest is to take them to visit the Redwoods. Jedediah Smith State Park is only 30 miles from our home. We took them on the road to Stout Grove, which winds several miles through the forrest.

The trees are always wonderful to see and give lots of opportunities for great photos. Unfortunately my camera, which has been acting up, finally died. Fortunately, I was able to get in a few shots before it met its demise.

I'm currently in the process of buying a new camera. I use mine so much I can't imagine living without one for very long. I'll probably purchase the newer version of my previous one. I can't believe how much better the cameras are these days. My previous one was 3.2 megapixels. The new ones are 12.1. I should be able to get some really big photos with that kind of capability.

Third: Trip to Washington...

Last week we took some time to visit my parents and sisters in their new home in Lacy, WA. First we had to go to Idaho to pick up our daughter's possessions in storage at her former school. She's decided not to go back for her Sophomore year and take classes at the local community college here instead. We took a trailer and loaded up her belongs, then headed up to Washington.

My parents and two of my sisters have moved into a home together and we went up there to paint walls, hang stuff, and haul stuff away. I took my camera, just in case it had a resurrection, but it was no use. I did borrow my sister's camera for the one day we went into Seattle to take a look around. My daughter's boyfriend came along. He's fairly handy with the tools and my family wanted to adopt him away from us. He's never been to Seattle, so it was a lot of fun showing him stuff. Here are some photos from our excursion...

We went to the Experience Music Project (EMP).

The building alone is something to see. I am told that it's suppose to look like a smashed guitar, but to me, it looks more like someone made a big mistake.

Inside this tower of instruments greets you. Apparently some of the instruments will play robotically, but I never heard anything.

Here is a close up shot—I thought it would make a good computer wallpaper. Copy & Share If You Dare

The girls really enjoyed looking at the collection of gowns worn by the Supremes—the guys... not so much.

But the guys really enjoy wandering through the Sci-Fi Museum, which is housed in the EMP. That's me standing in front of one of the Star Trek displays. You're looking at Captain Kirk's and Spock's uniform, AND the captain's chair. Wouldn't it be cool to own one of those! "Warp factor 6 Mr Scott!" (Okay, that was corny, but the fear of being corny has never stopped me before.)

This is a model of the Enterprise from the Next Generation series.

Do you recognize these fellows? Relatives of yours?

After the EMP, we went to went to the Science Center. They have a ton of hands on science displays—a great place to take your kids (or a guy like me).

They had dinosaurs there. I'm pretty sure this one was real. Some of the people I saw there... I'm not so sure.

I weigh 15.4 lbs on Pluto—which, as far as I'm concerned, is STILL a planet. I don't care what some no-class-astrologist says. (BTW: I'm officially down 25 lbs—on planet earth)

There was a butterfly arboretum (building). They had to check you for hitch hiking butterflies before you left.

This was a display about camouflage. Can you find me?

Marla tried out a contortionist's box that was on display in the circus exhibit. She fit in, no problem.

After the Science Center we made our way over to the Pike Place Market. If you've been there you know the crowds that you will experience. One of the fish markets is famous for the guys throwing fish. People will stand there for a long time waiting for someone to throw a fish. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what the attraction is.

Here are a few photos...

There were several street musicians. My daughter said that this is the original Starbucks. I don't drink coffee, so I wasn't terribly impressed.

Fourth (and finally): Papa's got a brand new bag...

Alice saw the Name Doodle that I did for Marylynn. She asked whether or not I would do her daughter's name. I shot her a price and apparently she liked it enough that she ordered one for all three of her daugthers.

Here's name #1. I'll save the other two for later posts. I really enjoyed doing this. It's a bit time consuming, but, to me, it's a simple task that I am able to relax while doodling it out.

Alice gave me a few ideas of little items that I could add to each daughter's doodle. That, I think, really personalizes it—makes it special for the person I'm drawing it for. And, if you look close, you'll find you-know-who.

I think that I'll post one of these name doodles on my side panel and see if there's anyone else out there interested.

What do you think?

Doodling My Love's Name

2010-08-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed drawing out the name of my daughter and her fiance so much (see previous post), I decided to just doodle out my wife's name to see what I could come up with. The more I doodle on it, the crazier it got.

I had two long conversations on the phone today, one of which was with my son-in-law, the trainer, that's helping me along with my weight loss campaign. The other call I won't go into, but they gave me some time on a crazy day to use my computer to add some color to the doodle.

This was all just for fun. What do you think? Which one do you like the best? When was the last time you doodled your love's name on a piece of paper?

Here's a shot of us standing in the Redwoods together. We took some friends to see them just last Wednesday. Don't we look skinnier? It's the vertical stripes of the redwoods that make us look thinner.

More Wedding Stuff

2010-08-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

The wedding plans for daughter number 2, Andrea, continue. The wedding is gong to be in November, in Oklahoma and so that presents some interesting logistical challenges for us. For our first daughter, Tarah's, wedding we could collect and store the "stuff" as time went along and then take the week before to get everything set. Andrea and wedding will take place 2,000 miles away from here in a large church facility. The room for the reception is large open space and we are inventing ways to fill it.

I've decided to use this design, that I've created out of their names, to make a large cut out to hang at one end of the reception room. My plan is to purchase sheets of styrofoam insulation that you can get at a hardware store. I will copy the design onto a transparency, and then use an overhead projector to draw the image onto the styrofoam. Then I will use a styrofoam hot knife to cut out the design. Then I will paint the entire thing black and then do the front in gold. The lines will be a darker color—maybe brown. Perhaps the "&" and the heart should be a different color. I'll have to experiment with that. I figure it will be approximately 5ft high and maybe 12ft long. But I've just got a couple of days to make it in. The trick will be to get it right the first time.

This is actually my second attempt at this design. The first one looks a lot like this one. I drew that one while sitting between two gentlemen on a plane while flying home from our recent trip to Oklahoma. I'm pretty sure they thought my name was Evan and I was silly in love with a girl named Andrea. At one point I decided to make it clear to one of the gentlemen what the design was for. He said, "oh."

P.S. Just in care you're wondering: As of this morning I am down 19.5 lbs. I think that I definitely look thinner, but I've still got a long ways to go.

Tanks You

2010-08-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

I wanted to send someone a quick "thank you" doodle the other day to express my appreciation. I realized that I didn't have a simple "thank you" drawing to send out and thought that maybe you would like to have one too so that you could copy and paste to your friends and neighbors. So I quickly threw this on paper this afternoon. I hope that it is obvious that the misspelling is intentional. What do you think?

I just taught myself how to do the lettering that fades from one color to another. It's probably something simple for the computer aficionados out there, but I was pretty proud of myself. There is so much more to learn in Photoshop.

Copy & Share If You Dare

Team Winner Champion

2010-08-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

I created this doodle for my daughter, Tarah, while we were in Oklahoma. She runs the children's church program at the congregation they attend. She wanted some kind of theme/mascot for the children to identify with. The name "Team Winner Champion" actually originated from my son-in-law, Ben. It's the name that he uses each year for his fantasy football. The name so over the top that we like it. The lion was my idea.

I actually think that I could do a better job at this. I might have to give it another try just to satisfy myself.

Sometime ago I posted this doodle for you people to use. Little did I know that someday I would be the one hearing the refrigeration calling to him. Both my wife and I are giving the diet life-style a try. It's not been as bad as I thought it could be. I just walking each day and trying to watch what I eat. But still, there are those moments with the frig cries out. As of today I was down 17.5lbs.

Copy & Share (the diet doodle) If You Dare

Are You a Lonely Heart?

2010-08-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

It's not a doodle, but I took this photo of our wind chime the other evening. To me it is symbolic of a love gone cold. For whatever reason, I figure that there are a few people that could use this photo to illustrate a point, or story they're are wanting to share. So... if you have a lonely heart and you want to tell the world about it, then...

Copy & Share If You Dare

America's Wild Rivers Coast

2010-08-03T11:48:00.000-07:00

You might have thought that I had forgotten about this blog. Summer has a way of keeping me busy. But, like a bad cold, I'm back.

This is a doodle I did for a friend. A few years ago the chambers of commerce in the local communities paid big bucks to some "ad-gurus" to come up with a catchy name/phrase for this part of the Pacific Coast. They came up with "America's Wild Rivers Coast."

There are several rivers in our area that have been preserved in their natural state. They cannot be dammed. The Chetco is the river runs through our community. So, the title fits well and tells people about what we have to offer. Come see us. Bring plenty of money.

My friend wanted me to create something that he could print on T-shirts. This is what I doodled for him. There are seven animals and one egg-man in this illustration. Can you find them all?

Blue Tooth

2010-07-23T15:21:00.000-07:00

This is a quick doodle that I started on the plane to Oklahoma and finished up on my computer today. I did't have time for this—too much to do after just getting back from time away, but I can't resist.

I often see those people with the strange little devices clamped on to their ear. It always looks like they are talking to themselves. Maybe they are and they're just trying to impress the rest of us "blue toothless" people out here. Who came up with the name "Blue Tooth" anyway? Some dentist living in Alaska? Sometimes I wonder about these things.

I'll have a few things to share about my adventures in wedding-dress land, but not enough time right now.

Copy & Share If You Dare.

Miss Fancy Pants

2010-07-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

This is the second time that Cynthia requested a doodle from me. Back in the summer of 2008 she had me draw an illustration of her husband riding his antique tractor. That was a challenging caricature because of the unusual shape of the tractor. Apparently they liked the illustration enough to order a second one from me.

This time Cynthia wanted a drawing of their daughter, Melanie, for her 16th birthday. She wanted her dancing in her "fancy pants"—an unusual looking pair of shorts that I have the feeling are an original creation of mother or daughter. She also requested Melanie's dog, Lexi, to be in the illustration as well.

Cynthia gave me this report and photo...

Hi Rick, Melanie LOVED your picture. She opened it and said - "Wait . . . Mom . . . How did you do this? Where did you get this? How does anyone know about my fancy pants? . . . oh and Lexi is in it too !! I LOVE IT !! THANK YOU !!"

I knew we would all love it! Thanks again, Cynthia

You're welcome Cynthia. I'm so glad Melanie liked it. I really appreciate the photo. Those are always a joy to get to see. It was a fun doodle. I had a good time putting it together for you.

Check out Cynthia's blog, and Melanie's blog as well. You could wish her a happy belated birthday, and then ask her where she got those pants.

Now You Know Everything

2010-07-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

It's been far too long between post, but these past few weeks have been crazy. I don't like to make these post too wordy, but, in case you are interested... I'll break this one down into different sections and you can pick and choose which parts you want to read. It's up to you...

Weight Loss: Last Monday I began a brand new adventure in my life. For the next six months I am trying to lose as much weight possible to raise money for a new gym/classroom building at the church I go to. It's called "Pledge Off the Pounds" (POP). So far I am worth around $212 a pound. I've had a couple of reader of this blog that were kind enough to make a pledge—every little bit helps. My ace in the hole is my professional trainer, son-in-law who is going to be guiding me each step of the way. Monday morning I weighed in at 256 lbs—the most I've ever weighed in my entire life.

It's not too late to make a pledge. I'll be happy with a 25 lbs loss. My son-in-law thinks that I can hit 50lbs. I need all the motivation I can get.

I don't want this blog to turn into a weight loss blog, but you will probably be hearing more about my adventures on the slimming side as time moves on.

Motorcycle Run: On Monday I left on the 4th annual Summer Fun Run with some of the guys in my church. We took three day to drive some of the back roads of Northern California and Southern Oregon. I had a great time as usual, but it was a little difficult sitting down to eat with a bunch of guys chowing down on big fat juicy hamburgers while looking at a grilled chicken salad. (Here I go with more diet info.) I am normally a big Dr. Pepper drinker, and my last regular DP was last Sunday night. I must admit that I am missing the good doctor right now.

Here are some photos from the ride...

Our group shot in front of our church. We had 13 bikers going this year, with 3 additional riders.

Stoping at Subway in Willow Creek, CA was a good healthy choice for me. It was also 900 degrees there.

We wondered what they were selling in Willow Creek.

After a long hot ride Reggie was there to tempt me.

I enjoyed my grill chicken salad in Weed, CA.

Charlier and grandson, Tyler getting ready for the second day's ride.

Some of the guys checking in at Crater Lake National Park.

Our group photo at the top of the mountain.

Your's truly

The classic shot of Crater Lake. The water really is that blue. You really ought to see it.

The final ride home on day three.

Doodles: I have two waiting to be posted in the wings. I was going to add one to this post, but I accidentally deleted the photos I took of it, and it will be a while before I will have a chance to photograph it again. The other doodle is a birthday gift to a young lady that I am looking forward to show you, but I'm afraid that I'll somehow spoil the surprise if I post it too soon.

Oklahoma: That's where we are at right now. Tomorrow begins the adventure of planning our middle daughter's wedding. The date is set for November 19th. We've got a lot of stuff to do, including saying "yes to the dress."

While here I am getting all kind of pointers from my son-in-law. He took me on a brisk one mile walk this evening, and we talked fitness most of the time. I am learning a lot.

That's it! Now you know everything.

Ninja Complete

2010-07-07T10:40:00.000-07:00

I finally mailed off the Ninja Family project yesterday. This was a gift that De'Etta wanted for her hubby, who is serving with our troops in Afghanistan. She has already e-mailed him a digital copy and it now hangs on his bulletin board over there. I was very proud to see a photo of one of my doodles hanging in Afghanistan. Ain't that something!?! (Click here to check it out.) Ain't the size of the family something!?!

I wasn't really sure how this project was going to turn out. Large group drawings are a challenge to make interesting, but since the rest of the family is living over in Japan at the moment, and there are a number of photos of the family dresses up in oriental attire, then I figured that the ninja theme would be appropriate. I was so glad that De'Etta went for it. I think that it makes for an interesting piece. I spent a lot of time looking for ninja illustrations and ninja weapons on the internet. If you haven't seen the previous post about this illustration, then scroll down to see some shots of the work in progress.

I'm still doodling all the time. I'm almost finished with another caricature that is laying on my drawing table right now. Then I have a list of three other illustrations a friend wants me to do. Next week I go on my annual three day motorcycle run. I think we have 15 bikes going this year—as compared to nine last year. Then it's off to Oklahoma to get some wedding prep done for daughter #2, who is getting hitched in November. I'm starting to feel the humidity.

Fireworks Over Mighty Waters

2010-07-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

The community of Brookings provides an interesting opportunity for viewing fireworks. They shot them off down at our little port over the bay. Often there is an ocean fog hanging in the air and so sometimes all you get to see is a big colored blur in the sky. But this year the weather was perfect for viewing. And, for the first time, (thanks to our daughter Marla) we took a position across the river from where they shoots the fireworks off. It was a great spot.

I took a lot of photos but it's hard to get a decent shot with my little point and shoot camera. Here a few of the better ones. The reflection of the explosions off the ocean makes for an interesting photo. I think that I like the last photo the best. What do you think?

God bless America!!

The Early Eagle

2010-07-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a little doodle that some of you might like to Copy & Share If You Dare. I wanted to draw something patriotic for the 4th. So, an eagle came to mind. One thing lead to another and I ended up with an eagle ready to pounce on this Al-Qaeda worm and do his part in the war on terror.

U.S.A!! U.S.A!! U.S.A!!

Almost Thereeeee...

2010-07-01T09:13:00.000-07:00

This is an involved project. It looks simple, but with all the faces and filling in the background has taken a lot of time. But the end is in sight. A finished copy coming soon. Scroll down to see the earlier post of the piece.

Also, today is our youngest's birthday. She is 19. Happy birthday Marla. You are a mess!!

Dumpster Diving

2010-06-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

Larry and Loraine are good friends of ours. Loraine wanted to surprise her husband for his birthday and requested a doodle from me. Larry has been accused of being a bit of a dumpster diver. I know that he supports the local schools by collecting recyclables. So, this image of him taking a dive just had to be done. This is Larry hold a big chunk of freshly caught salmon—not retrieved from a dumpster.

Loraine was going to present Larry with this masterpiece at a birthday party for him. Sadly, the party was rained out. That was really too bad because she is a great cook and I was really looking forward to sampling some more of her talents.

Unfinished Ninjas

2010-06-28T05:16:00.000-07:00

I like publishing unfinished work here on my blog. It gives me a chance to show you the steps I take to get one of my doodles done. Here is a large family project that I am in the middle of. This is a surprise gift for the father. There are so many faces I'm having to drawn it on a larger piece of paper—14x17.

These are photos that I took of the piece to give "Mrs. Ninja" updates on my progress.

This is not the best shot—just a quick click of the camera while it sits on my drawing table.

I took this one under a little better lighting conditions. I'm about 1/3 of the way done on the coloring. I have to work from the top left down to the bottom right so that I don't smear the colored pencil. It has a wax base so it will melt and make quite a mess if I lay my hand across it too long. I always like to see how the coloring really brings the image to life.

I feel bad that it's taking me so long to get this one done, but I feel good about how it's turning out. What do you think?

Embedded Furry Friend

2010-06-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'm trying something for the first time. My summer schedule is always crazy and it's hard for me to sit down and create a doodle, plus I'm working on a big family project—slowly. So, for the first time I am trying to "embed" a video onto my blog. (I hope this works.)

This is a video we shot recently—a few evenings ago. I was sitting at my drawing table in our home office, which is separated from our kitchen by the laundry room, and heard my wife make a "distressed" sound. I rushed out to find what the problem was. She said that she had just seen a mouse poke his head around the corner next to the freezer. Realizing that this might be a good opportunity for a video I told our daughter to grab the camera. So, while my daughter perched herself safely on top of the washer, she videoed the attempt of me and daughter's boyfriend's attempt to extract the furry freezer friend out from under his hiding place. My wife, who was reluctantly holding a flashlight so that I could see behind the freeze, had a couple of interesting reactions to the unfolding event.

And yes, we are planning to send a copy to AFV.

Inspiring Fatherhood

2010-06-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

Father's Day is this Sunday. I scribbled out this little doodle this afternoon just for you—in case you wanted to "Copy & Share If You Dare" it for your own blog, or color it and give to your father, or the significant man in your life.Being a father myself, there have been times when my daughters made comment on my "less-than-inspiring" attire. But, I know that, in the end, if you force them to... they will admit that I am the wind beneath their wings. Right girls!?!

(Remember the rules: If you Copy & Share this doodle I want to know about it. Especially if I can go and visit it on your blog.)

P.S. If you haven't read my personal challenge on the previous post, please do so. I need your help. I need your inspiration if I am to go through with doing the craziest thing I've ever done. (It beat the time that I tried to scare the whits out of a bunch of little campers while wearing a bear suit while in the forrest one night. That didn't work out so well for me.)

The Craziest Thing I've Ever Done

2010-06-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the church that I am a part of has this dream of building a new facility that would have a gym and some classrooms, etc, etc. As a way of raising a few start up funds we're having a pledge campaign that would raise money for the building and promote fitness at the same time. The idea is to get people to pledge dollars per pound for anyone willing to try and lose weight for six months. The campaign is called: Pledge Off the Pounds! Or, POP! This is the craziest thing that I have ever done, because not only did I draw the doodle for the campaign, I am participating in it. (This is crazy!!)

My family has been after me for some time to lose weight, but I am severally lacking in motivation. I want to see this building happen at our church and so I am making a very public commitment to lose some excess "baggage." Therefore, beginning July 12, I am on a 6 month mission to lose weight and get as many people as I can to "pop" with their dough to get me motivated.

You wanna' POP for me? My athletic trainer son-in-law says that "wow" figure for me would be 50lbs. I'm hoping to lose at least 25lbs. What would you pledge per pound to my church to see me pop?

Leave a comment with an e-mail address or contact me at green_rick@juno.com and I can get you plugged, or popped in. (This is crazy!)

You Wanna Be a Rock Star?

2010-06-11T13:33:00.000-07:00

This is the beginning of a doodle that I've been working on in my spare time. I'm not sure why I went with this guitar guy—just thought he would make an interesting drawing. It's actually on a larger piece of paper than I normally draw on—17x14. That's part of the motivation—having room to draw in a bunch of stuff. I'll see where it goes. I have a drawing of a LARGE family that I started on last night. Plus I have a finished caricature waiting to be picked up that I can't publish because it is for a friend that might look at this blog sometime. You can expect me to be updating this doodle from time to time.

Blogger has a new way to customize your template, so I fiddled with that a bit.

The wedding plans continue. We'll be making a trip to Oklahoma in July. I'm sure that the ladies will fill my time with all the "stuff" that they have to do to make this wedding come off.

Speaking of weddings... June 9th marked 31 years for Marylynn and I. I posted these to Facebook Wednesday and thought that I might share them here with you.

The just pronounced Mr. and Mrs. Richard Green. Some things have changed.

I'm telling you, the stars were real!

Let's get out of here!!!

Having my cake and eating it too.

It's off to Colorado for the honeymoon! This is back when they still used rice.

Let's Go Camping

2010-06-04T15:02:00.000-07:00

My friend Scott is the pastor of a church in Coquille, Oregon. He wanted a doodle to advertise a family camp that they have coming up. He wanted a van that was packed with people, packed with equipment, and ready to go camping.

Scott called me yesterday evening to ask how the doodling was coming. I had to confess that I had forgotten his request. So, I got to work on it right away and e-mailed this creation to him just this afternoon. He said that it was "amazing." (I like it when people say that about my art.)

Unfortunately, this seems to have become a pattern with me when dealing with Scott. Last January we had a lunch engagement at a little port town one hour away from the both of us. He showed up. I didn't. I got a call. We rescheduled. I felt so bad that I bought the lunch AND took some really nice photos of him for him to use. (He looks so casual and happy.)

My apologies Scott. I guess I've got some kind of metal block when it come to dealing with you. Were you mean to me one time and I've somehow blocked it out of my mind? I want to lay the blame on you, if I can.

The Whole Big Bite

2010-06-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

Back on April 19th I posted half of this illustration. Basically I hadn't scanned it correctly and half the of the drawing didn't come out right. He now, for your viewing pleasure, is the whole "ding dong" thing. Was it worth the wait?

Copy & Share If You Dare

In other news: Let the wedding planning begin. There have been a ton of phone calls going back and forth between here and Oklahoma. This is daughter number two getting hitched. This wedding is a bit more tricky than when our oldest got married. We live 2,000 miles away and the wedding will be there, where the wind come sweeping down the plains—lots of logistics to plot out. But I married Mrs. Logistics. I am confident that this event will come off in style. As for me, I'm sure that it will kill me.

Lizard in Living Color

2010-05-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

This is kind of a repeat of an earlier post, except that I took time to color it. There was a young man that asked me to draw a lizard for him. I think that he has some kind of science display about lizards that he was working on. I remembered that I had this drawing of an iguana and told him that I would print it out for him. That seem to make him happy enough, but I did decide to put on the splash of color on it just so that his report would have that extra "zing" to it. (I like "zing." Don't you?) There is a bit of an interesting story as to why I drew this lizard in the first place. Go here to read the rest of the story.

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In other news: Our middle daughter, Andrea, became engaged last Sunday evening. My now future son-in-law, Evan, surprised her as she arrived back from a mission trip to Haiti. He was kind enough to have a talented friend put together a video of the event. It's been getting a lot of attention on Facebook and the ladies especially have been giving reports about tearing up watching the thing. I'm not telling you how many times I've teared up watching the thing—a dad likes seeing the smile of love on his daughter's face.

If you love a love story I invite you to click over here to watch.

The Math Wizard

2010-05-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

Back in 2008, Kim requested that I make a doodle of her daughter's entire school class to be auctioned off as a fund raiser. Two years later she's back with another request to create an end-of-the-year gift for her daughter's math teach—Mr. Hill. He's also a baseball coach. Kim wanted an illustration that might incorporate both of those aspects of his life. After thinking about it, I requested that I be able to focus on just one of them. Kim allowed that and said the math part would be best. I was happy for that because she described him as a "math wiz," and the idea of drawing a wizard intrigued me.

I downed loaded a few images of wizards from the net and went to town—actually I just went to my drawing table, but you know what I mean. So, here is Mr. Hill the Math Wizard. He hasn't actually seen this yet. Chances are he doesn't visit my blog, but if you know Mr. Hill, don't tell him that I just posted his face on my blog.

What do you think?

Chemistry

2010-05-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

I just finished a caricature last night. I have another one to do soon. Then I have an illustration of a large family to put together. I've been spending so much of my doodling time on getting these request done I haven't had any normal/fun doodling time. Still, I wanted to have something to post so I threw this little tidbit on paper this morning—just for you.

I dedicate this doodle to my wife, Marylynn. We have such chem-is-try!!

In the meantime... Copy & Share If You Dare.

Featured Photos

2010-05-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

Webshots is a popular web site which host 1,000's of photos that both pro and amateur photographers post there. I've been posting photos there over the past five years. Recently I received a comment congratulating me on having one have one of my photos featured in their US Travel section.

It was this photo that I took down in Crescent City, CA of the Battery Point Lighthouse. Naturally I looked to see where the photo was feature. When I saw it I also discovered that another one of my photos was featured as one of the most viewed in the US Travel section. You can see it posted below the lighthouse pic.

This photo was taken at a state park on the north side of our town—Harris State Beach.

Now I've got to admit that I was pretty proud to see two of my photographs featured there. There has to be thousands posted on that web site, and two of my shots are featured. What do you think about that?

I've often told people that the secret of my photography is that digital camera has made it possible to take tons of photos in one setting. One of them is bound to turn out.

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Overcoming Evil

2010-05-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

Just do it.

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Not Quite a Dragon Slayer

2010-05-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

My cousin Lily contacted me about creating something for her husband. She saw my recent dragon doodle that I posted several updates on this blog about. Apparent she liked what she saw and then wrote me saying..

"Here is a picture of my husband. He tells a story to all little children he meets that ask him what he does for a living. He says that he is a dragon slayer but he is not very good at it and he has a dragon friend named Sally and Sally lives in his backyard and she sneezed on him and that's how he got a small bald spot! If the children look interested he keeps the story going, expounding on Sally's physique (she's gained a lot of weight and has itty bitty wings so it makes it hard for her to fly). He says she is big, green, stomps on Tokyo, breathes fire...on and on he goes. He is very funny and the kids love it."

Lily wanted something that she could frame and hang it in their pool table room. This was fairly easy and an enjoyable one to draw. Dragons, as far as I can tell, come in all shapes and sizes. That makes room for a lot of creativity. Lily liked the illustration. I haven't head whether or no her dragon slayer has seen it yet. I hope he doesn't quit his day job.

Update: Cousin Lily sent me this message after seeing this post...

Well, my dear cousin, the "not quite" dragon slayer checked the mail this Saturday and "lo and bebald" the doodle you created. I have not yet framed it but he loved it. My mom was over for Mom's day and she loved it as well. I am tempted to have t-shirts made, but I already gave out t-shirts that say "Sally Rocks" (the name of the dragon). If I find an extra, I'll send you one. THX again...hugs to all...cousin Lily

Sheriff of a No Horse Town

2010-05-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

During all the excitement I had last Friday night while trying to up my vote totals I grabbed a spare piece of paper and starting doodling this guy. In my usual fashion I started without really knowing where the drawing was heading. The next thing I knew he turned into a cowboy, and the the cowboy was upgraded to sheriff. After shading the feller in with my usual crosshatching I decided that I liked it so well I would add some color. Next came the dog and more color. Finally, I figured the Sheriff needed a town. I only wished that I had added a horse so that I could say he was he sheriff of a "one horse town."

I really, really like how this doodle turned out. In fact it's up there as one of my favorites. I just like how the whole thing turned out. I wished that I could express this kind of freedom when I do my caricatures, but I feel bound down when I draw those. The one or two times that I've tried to add my own "flair" to a caricature I sensed that the client was less than enthused with my work. Still, I try. What do you think?

Cute Megan

2010-05-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

I can always tell when graduation season is upon us. There are some purple flowers that bloom whenever it's that time of year. Another hint is that I get graduation gift orders. Kathy wanted a high school graduation gift for her daughter, Megan. She wanted an illustration which depicted her daughter's love of nature and included the lake that the family enjoys water skiing on during the summer. Also, she wanted Megan's high school mascot, the lightning blots (or something like that) included.

Megan is a cute looking young lady, don't you think? The cute ones are always harder to draw. I always appreciate an ugly mug to draw. This gift is yet to be opened, so I hope she's not a blogger.

This is a photo of the illustration, that's why the edge is kind of skewed. I think the caricature turned out well, despite the cuteness factor. What do you think?

What Price the Cost of Victory?

2010-05-01T12:01:00.000-07:00

Well it was crazy last night. I can't believe how silly it got with this blog voting thing. The short story is that I WON!!

But now, here is the rest of the story. It was a tight race with the blog in second place. A blog authored by one name Jackie Bartak. She has an inspiring story and you may want to check her out. I think that both she and I thought that the voting ended midnight, Pacific Standard Time. She must have been working the social networks just like me. Most of the day I was in the lead, but she kept coming on strong. I was calling my daughters telling them to get their friends to vote and basically embarrassing myself pleading for votes from friends on Facebook. Late in the evening she pulled ahead in the vote count. I kept trying to catch up, bringing it back to a tie at one point, but the lady must have resources. At midnight, my time, I ended up losing by 5 votes. I'm telling you people it was an eventful evening, but actually kind of fun. I place a message on her voting page, congratulating her on the victory and thanking her for the fun times.

But THEN, come Saturday morning, I received notice that the vote ended at midnight, Eastern Standard Time. Apparently at that point I was the winner!! So, congratulations me. What do I win, you are asking? To tell you the truth, the prizes are not all that great. It is, as it always is, mainly the thrill of victory.

The contest goes on with a new count beginning each month, but this blogger's meteoric rise to blog-stardom is done. It's just too much stress for my world.

THANK YOU ALL that responded to my silly little pleas for votes. You came through for the old doodler and I am feeling the love!!

Now, maybe an appropriate doodle message to send to my competitors...

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Watchin' the Tube While Doin' a Doodle

2010-04-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for voting for my blog @ BlogInterviewer.com. The voting ends tonight—midnight. I'm in the lead, but 2nd and 3rd are closing in. If you haven't voted in the last 24 hours please do so. It's not the prize, it's now the pride. You know my tender ego feeds on it.

Here's a quick little doodle that I threw together last night while the wife and I were watching the end of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Nice movie, but totally predictable. The doodle has nothing to do with the movie, but that's what I often do in an evening—watch TV and doodle for you.

I was purposefully trying to be a little messy with the lines on this illustration—just to do something different. I don't know what you would do with it, but Copy & Share If You Dare... then go VOTE!

Pacific Rainbow

2010-04-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

I appreciate everyone that has voted for me at BlogInterviewer.com. The contest goes on until the end of April—this Friday. Slowly my loyal fans have put me in first place. Yippee!!! Thank you very much.

The blogs that are currently holding 2nd and 3rd place have noticed and have been encouraging their readers to vote as well. A number of people have expressed frustration that their vote isn't being counted even when they've waited 24 hours. I don't know why that's true, but supposedly you can vote once every 24 hours. It's not going to make me rich, but there is a prize involved. So go here to keep me in the hunt... please!!

I have some doodles to post but for now I'm posting a couple of photos. The first one I shot off my back deck just this evening. You know I like to brag. It's not everyday that one gets to see a rainbow over the Pacific.

Also, our little doggie Molly crawled out from under the chair and gave me this look. She was having a bad hair day...

This Is Art!!!

2010-04-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

Peggy (or Peg, if you prefer) wrote me about creating a new header for her blog. She said...
I have a blog that has been giving me fits with my header. All of a sudden today the photo is off and I can’t get it centered again. I have even tried to change the photo all together but it is not cooperating with me. I have had it!!! So I have decided that maybe you can doodle me a blog template instead to elevate this problem all together.

Here is the photo I love that I scanned. I love it because it so captures some of our life. I don’t care that the photo’s looks like us as much as a photo of a woman, a man and a dog. That is my life. What I love about this photo as I said it is just so us. My hubby loves to fish and I love to sit on the boat and drink wine while sunning and keeping him company. But our young lab comes with us now.

Peggy (or even Margaret, if you're the kind that prefers that) also sent me a photo of their lake house, and of the lake where all this fishing, sunning, and alcohol consumption takes place.

In addition she sent me this peculiar—"who is that masked woman" photo of herself. She didn't care if the characters in the illustration looked like her, but I liked having something to work off of. Nice eyes Peg. I did a little research on her blog and discovered that her husband was a Yankees fan. Then I went to work. This is what I came up with...

I liked how this one turned out. Peggy apparently liked the results too. She wrote...

Hey Rick THIS LOOKS FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow. I don’t recall sending you anything with me and you got my hair down. (Apparently she forgot about her fairly unrevealing photo) All of it man. It is perfect. I just called my husband upstairs and he was blown away! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will tell everyone on the blogs about you and give them your link!!! God I am so exicted it is like Christmas in April. “Doodles” my ass – this is art!!!!

Now THAT'S the kind of response that I like to get. Did you see all of those exclamation marks? Over the top, I'm telling you. Peggy quickly made it her blog header. It fits there very well. Please click over there and leave a little comment or two. We bloggers, as most of you are, love receiving those comments.

Thank you Peggy for your MOST kind comment about the doodle (or "art" if you prefer). I had fun putting it together for you. I hope it graces the header of your blog for many days to come.

------------------

In other news: I appreciate all of you who have voted for my blog at BlogInterviewer.com. Many are telling me that it often won't let them vote everytime, even if the required 24 hours has lapsed, but many are getting through. Supposedly you can vote once a day. The contest goes until the end of April. I'm in second and catching up on first, with third not far behind. So, keep on clicking.

Move That Mountain!

2010-04-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

I really needed to get some- thing up quick tonight. It's been a long day and I've got another one facing me tomorrow. I don't think that I've posted this one before. To tell you the truth, I really don't remember. So forgive me if I've posted two reruns in a row. I try to keep things fresh.

When Jesus talked about His followers moving mountains I don't think He was talking about landscaping. I think He was challenging us to believe that He can do something about the figurative mountains in our lives. I will be honest with you, and I mean this, I have discovered that God can do amazing things in our lives, IF we will only trust Him. Try it—I think you will find it to be true too.

Copy & Share If You Dare

Thank you for all that have been voting for me at Blog Interviewer.com. I am hearing from a number of people that the "Vote Here" button doesn't always work—even after they've waited for 24 hours. I don't know why that's true. I would appreciate it if you just keep on trying. I'm in second place and catching up on the guy in first. But, the gal in third is gaining on me as well. She may be deserving, but I may be more deserving. So keep those fingers a clicking!

Earth Day

2010-04-20T20:45:00.000-07:00

This is a reposted doodle, but perhaps there are some of you that haven't seen it and would like a chance to use it on your own blog. Earth Day is April 22. I believe that it's our God given responsibility to take care of the one earth that He has given us. Go ahead then—be a little green. I've been Green for years and it's kept me in good stead.

Copy & Share If You Dare

AND!!: Please vote for my blog over at Blog Interviewer.com. You can vote once a day during the month of April. There is a "Vote Now" button at the top of the page. I could win a "Major Award!"

Big Bite

2010-04-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

This is just a little doodle I started last night and finished this morning—realizing that it has been too long since I posted anything new and had nothing to share. This actually just part of the illustration. My little scanner at home isn't big enough to copy the entire image. That'll have to come at a later date.

Copy & Share If You Dare

Don't forget to vote for my blog a BlogInterview.com. All you have to do is click on the "Vote Now" button at the top. You can vote once a day during the month of April. I could win a prize, and that would be nice. Right?

Community Art Walk

2010-04-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

On each 2nd Saturday of the month the local art association in town holds an art walk. Various businesses downtown host an artist to display their works. Some friends of mine own a popular thrift store and asked me to display my doodles there. I was happy to do so. This is the third time I've had the chance to show my art during the art walk. I've yet to sell anytime at one of these, but I always have a good time showing my stuff—plus they always serve snacks.

Me and some of my doodles. Perhaps you recognize some of the pieces.

A better photo of the display.

The girl's name is Peanut. (Her nickname) She and her mother worked the counter. She was a nice young lady. I'm pretending to explain my work to her. I let her have a copy of one of my cartoons—signed it to "my new nutty friend."

My eyes look so intense in this photo.

Also: I was asked for an interview at bloginterviewer.com. If you go there and vote for my blog during the month of April I could get a prize! That wouldn't be so bad—right?

Click on the above image, find the little "vote" button and visit once a day during April. You don't even have to give them an e-mail address or anything. Just vote.

Harley Charlie

2010-04-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

Charlie has been a good friend of mine. He's a big guy, but a gentle-gaint—as I refer to him. On more than one occasion He, and his sweet wife Lydia have treated my wife and I with kindness and generosity. For a couple of years now I've been wanted to try and repay his kindness by drawing a caricature of him on his bike. Last week I took the opportunity to create one for him. There was a motorcycle rally a couple of years ago at our church. During the event I snuck out to the parking lot and took some photos of his Harley—and '02 Deuce. It's a long machine—has to be to accommodate a big guy like Charlie.

Last night, at church, I told Charlie that I wanted to show him some- thing after- wards. He said, "Does it have something to do with motorcycles?" "Yes." "Alright I'll look forward to that," He said. So afterwards I gave him a paper sack with his doodle in it. I LOVED the smile on his face when he saw it. He was totally surprised. It was a three-hugger response.

This is a photo of the illustration, so the quality is not the best. But I really love how this one turned out. I took great care in getting it done. I wanted it just right. It's always a challenge to get the arms and legs to fit on the bike just right. I like the doodle, but more importantly I really loved enjoying surprising a good friend.

A Bridge Called Grace

2010-04-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me this set of illustrations depicting the concept of following Jesus' directive to "carry your cross." I've seen it before, perhaps you have too. The problem that I have with it is that it is wrong. It's hard to see but in the images we see a man carrying his cross. He complains that the cross is too heavy so he whittles it down a couple of times to make his burden lighter. In the end we see that it is the person that dutifully carries the full weight of their cross to the end that is able to cross the gap. The one man's cross is now too short to cross it. The problem is that's bad theology. The Bible tells us that we can't do anything to earn our salvation. We are able to gain access to the Father only by His grace—which is appropriated for us by placing our faith in him. I responded to my friend's e-mail by sending back to him this Bible doodle I drew sometime ago. In the background you see a bridge that the man tried to build himself. In the trash can are the plans for his bridge that he discarded because his efforts are turning into a disaster. With hammer still in hand he contemplates the idea of crossing the bridge of grace already provide for him. I don't a lot of "preaching" on this blog, but it is my recommendation that you cross that bridge for yourself. I did and have never regretted doing so.

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Heart of Brookings Update

2010-04-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

To tell you the truth, I really didn't want to post this one. I drew it so large that the only way I could get a copy of it was to photograph it. The photo didn't turn out that great, but I wanted to post it anyway because I like closure. So, this is the final outcome of the image I shared on March 18th. This one took a lot of time. There are a lot of little details that

On Saturday there is a monthly art walk that is put on in our community. The owners of the thrift store have asked me to display some of my doodles in their store for the occasion. I've participated in this a couple of times before in two other locations. I've never had an success in selling any pieces. Maybe I'll have to reduce my prices just to make some kind of change. Supposedly, the owners of the store are going to have the original of this piece framed and on display.

Photos of an Unveiling

2010-04-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

Stefani sent me these photos taken at the unveiling of the doodle I did of her parents with the grandchildren. I really enjoy seeing these kind of pictures. Generally my only feedback comes through e-mail text. I try to measure reaction by the number of exclamation marks and words used to describe my client's reaction. But, As the saying goes: "A picture is worth..." It would appear that their doodle was well appreciated—there even what appears to be clapping at one point. An ovation! Wow! Could even Rembrandt ask for more? Hardly! Thanks Stefani for sending the pics to me. They're great!!! (Note: three exclamation marks.)

It's a funny thing, these caricatures that I do. I take a piece of paper, work with it a little while, and then turn it into something that people end up prizing. I always feel honored, and amazed that they put them in places of importance in their homes—over a desk, by a collection of family photos, near the toilet, wherever. It does my heart good to see people enjoying something that I had the chance to create for them. I guess that I'm kind of like Santa with a pencil.

Dragon Encounter Fini?

2010-04-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to draaaag this out, (Pun in- tended) but after looking at my En- counter With a Dragon doodle I knew that it needed just a bit more work. You can scroll down to make a comparison. The main thing I did was darken the sky. So, maybe, I'm done with it. At least it feels like it's done.

Anyone interested in purchasing an original bit of art? It's drawn on an13.5x11 piece of paper—pen and ink. For a mere $30, plus $5 shipping, this bit of doodlery can be yours. Why so cheap? Two reasons: 1. My doodles don't seem to sell when I charge more, and 2. I can be bought. At least my doodles can.

Contact me at green_rick@juno.com and we'll get this dragon in the mail.

The Sting is Gone

2010-04-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Good Friday—a very special day for many people. For those who follow Jesus, it is a time which commemorates the day when He destroyed the sting of death.

My wife thought this doodle was a bit strange. Maybe a should take that as a compliment. I like to create images which provoke thought.

You are welcomed to Copy & Share If You Dare this doodle. I hope that it provokes some thought from the readers of your blog as well.

(And BTW, it's suppose to be a wasp and not a bee. Wasp are a lot meaner than bees. At least in my opinion. It was three wasps that hit me the first time I got stung. So, I've had it out for them ever since.)

Spark

2010-03-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty busy lately but I didn't want to ignore this blog too long without posting something else. I know that you've got to try and keep things fresh so that you, my blogging audience, will stay in the habit of checking up on me. We artist live for the attention of their adoring public.

Here's a quick one. I drew this for a friend that is a children's pastor in Bend, OR. She calls her ministry "Spark." This doodle really didn't take me long. Often, the good ones, don't require a lot of time. Simplicity is often the best.

I never heard if she actually put the illustration to use. I guess I'll have to ask her the next time I see her.

Dragon On

2010-03-27T10:20:00.000-07:00

I hope that you're not getting bored with dragon updates. At one point I thought that this was finished, but as I look at it this morning I think that I could fiddle with in a bit more. The problem is that sometimes I fiddle with things too much and end up hurting the illustration more than helping it. I think every artist faces that challenge. Anyway, for you view pleasure, here is an update on my Dragon Encounter doodle. This is a photograph so some of the details (especially one particular detail—you regulars to my blog know, perhaps, of whom I am referring) my be difficult to pick out.

AND... Just so I can throw something in a little different on this post—here is a photo of the youngest and I getting ready to go for a ride on the Harley. It's also my current Facebook profile pic. The weather looks good today. I may have to break out the bike for a quick spin.

Dragon Doodle Update

2010-03-22T17:49:00.000-07:00

I've had to lay this aside for the past few days, but not before I got some more doodle time in on this dragon encounter illustration. The trick for me is to not make the background so busy that I end up losing the two characters. Yet, I want the forrest and so forth to be busy enough to make it interesting.

So, what do you think?

Scroll down to March 12 to make the comparison from when I previously posted this illustration and!! ...stay "tooned" for more.

The Heart of Brookings

2010-03-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

Brookings, Oregon is located down on the SW corner of the state, right on the Pacific coast line. We live 6 miles from the California state line. It's a small community with a grand total of six stop lights in town. You can see one of them depicted here. To the entire populace's dismay the highway department is installing another light soon. Grrrr...... I live on the "other side of town" from where I work. Some people think I live far away, but in reality my driveway is only 4.7 miles away. So, we're pretty much the Mayberry of the West Coast.

Recently some friends, that own a downtown business, asked me to create a design which illustrated the fact that they are located in the heart of Brookings. So I went downtown and took some pictures and then went to work on creating a simple logo illustrating that concept.

This is another work in pro- gress. My next step is to color it in. Their business is called Sac's Thrift Avenue. It's a little second hand store located right on Hwy 101. The next time you're coming through stop in and buy one of their "vintage" clothing items. I picked up a very nice jean jacket which I had turned into a vest for motorcycle riding. I look mean with it on.

I think I have four projects going at the moment: My dragon doodle, this drawing, another caricature of a soon-to-be high school graduate, and the illustrations for my children's book. Where will I find the time?

Boatin' With the Grands

2010-03-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

Stefani wrote me and said...
Hi, My name is Stefani and I have seen your work both on Because I Said So blog and a fellow twin mom friend here in San Diego, Tonya From a Day In My Life blog. I have been thinking about having a caricature done (and was just gonna contact Tonya for your name and info when I saw your contest post on Because blog tonight).
I love your work and was thinking it would make a great gift for my dad who has everything for his 68th birthday. I was thinking I would like it to include the whole family which is mom and dad, my husband and I plus 2 kids and twin babies and Brother, sister in law, young niece and new baby (due the end of march). Is this too many people? what would you charge for something like this? I look forward to hearing from you and discussing possible options. Thanks, Stefani

After sharing my (very reason- able) prices with Stefani she decided to go with a doodle of her parents with the six grandkids. Together we came up with the idea of making it a boating scene.

I had a lot of fun putting this together for her. Large group illustrations can be a challenge to bring all the portraits together to make an interesting layout. I'm happy with the way this one came together.

When I sent Stefani of photo of her piece she wrote back and said, Oh Rick, it's great. So, love it, love it, love it. Wow! a three "love it" response. That's pretty good.

A Dragon Work In Progress

2010-03-12T15:55:00.000-08:00

I started this little doodle during the recent mini-family reunion we had a few weeks ago. I had forgotten about it, and then rediscovered it while flipping through my sketch pad. All that I had done was a quick pencil sketch, but it still had an appeal to me. I've drawn plenty of dragons before, and even posted some on this blog. I liked how this one was turning out enough to make me want to develop the illustration further. The scribbles you see on the illustration are the outlines of a forrest that I am setting the two characters in.

There's no real purpose for this illustration; other than my the entertainment factor for me. I have a couple of other paying jobs I need to be working on, but once I get going on something like this it's hard for me to put it away.

Stay "tooned" for dragon updates.

New Blog Header

2010-03-10T15:40:00.000-08:00

After three years of just using the standard blog header for this space on the internet I finally took some time to create a new customized header for myself. I started on it early Monday morning and could hardly put the project down all day. I'm happy with it—quite happy as a matter of fact. I wanted something colorful, something fun, something doodly... My one fear is that the title, "Organized Doodles," get's lost in the mix. What do you think?

An Evil Dust Bunny Has Hit

2010-03-05T14:32:00.000-08:00

I woke up yes- terday morning to find that there were 444 new com- ments on my blog! "Wow!," I thought, "somebody out there really likes my work." It didn't take long to find out that my blog had been "spammed." Of course I don't know who the evil dust bunny is. All I know is that the culprit is Asian because the "comments" involved a loooong like list of links in some kind of Asian script. It turned out that he/she left one of their annoying spam comments on EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY POST!! Grrr.....!!! I am guessing that they have some kind of program which seeks and finds blogs to target and then will automatically place the links there.

What likely took them seconds to do is taking me days to erase. I have been slowly going through each of my post and permanently deleting the links. I'm a little over half way through.

To delete one of the comments involves seven clicks with scrolls on my computer. Do the math. To rid my blog of this "dust" I have to click 3,108 times. That doesn't include the "miss-clicks" and the times I click on the post again by mistake. So now I've had to change my setting to give approval to a comment before it will be seen on my blog. I don't like that. When I visit a blog I just like seeing that my comment in place before I move on.

Any of you have your blog attack in the same way? What steps did you take to prevent it? I did follow the link on his name back to his "blog" and told him that he was a pain in the butt. That probably didn't help me any. Also, I reported it to Blogger. Who knows if they'll do anything.

At least going back through each one of my post has been a trip down memory lane for me. So many doodles, so many kind people making nice comments. I've been at this blog thing for over three years now. I guess I will keep on going—despite the evil dust bunnies that are lurking out there.

Copy & Share If You Dare

Your Name Here

2010-03-02T11:36:00.000-08:00

This doodle may seem more appropriate for Halloween, but really all it is was an attempt to fill a tall slender piece of paper that I had laying around. As with most of my doodles, one thing led to another, and the next thing you know, I've sketched out some kind of macabre graveyard scene.

Do you know where you'll find your final rest? If not, then Copy & Share If You Dare, and prepare to met they Maker. (No forwarding address will be necessary.)

Inspired by the Olympics

2010-02-27T17:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a little doodle that I drew while my family was sitting around the TV in the cabin in Hood River, OR. (Refer to my February 23rd post) My one regret is that the right hand seems to be a bit bigger than the left one. Oh well, otherwise I think not bad for just sitting down at the table with a sketch pad and doodling away some time.

Copy & Share If You Dare

He Wraps Himself in Light

2010-02-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

There is a song that we sing in church that uses a line from Psalms 104:2 - "He wraps Himself in light as with a garement; He stetches out the heavens like a tent." One Sunday we were singing the song and the concept for this doodle hit me. I started on it as soon as I got home. To tell you the truth, I'm not totally happy with it. On top of that, I'm not happy with how my scan of the illustration turned out. So, I've been holding on to this for sometime. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Having said all that, if you would be interested in purchasing this original bit of doodlery, then I would be happy wrap it up and ship it your way for the mere price of $49.99 (Plus $3.01 shipping and handling). It's an 11x14 piece, drawn a card stock paper, in pen and color pencil. So Purchase and Share (your money) If You Dare. (And yes, Eggy is included.)

Otherwise, feel free to express an opinion. We artist types live on the comments from the larger public out there.

P.S. I'm kind of stoked about reaching 200 followers. I'm always amazed that anyone would want to follow my madness. Thank you all.

It's Not Nice to Fool With Mother Lisa

2010-02-23T12:10:00.000-08:00

Lisa has been a visitor to my blog, and a Facebook friend, for sometime now. The other day she finally worked up the courage to ask me how much I charge for a caricature drawing. I gave her the information and, apparently, she liked what she read and ordered up an illustration right away.

Lisa has a particular love for raccoons, but when I checked out her photos I saw that she has a love for all kinds of God's creatures. So, instead of illustrating her with just raccoons I decided to turn her into the mother of all nature... (You got it.) Mother Nature herself.

I really like how this one turned out. In fact, I am adding it to my Favorite Doodles list. I had fun doing research on various attempts at illustrating Mother Nature. My version incorporates some aspects of several different images—with a lot of Lisa put into the mix, of course. Lisa apparently liked what she saw. She's using it as her Facebook profile pic.

In other news...

Some of my family got together to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday. We met in a four bedroom cabin in Hood River, OR. Since sometimes members of the family visit this blog here are a few photos that I took during our weekend together. Non-family types are allowed to view the photos as well.

The cabin we stayed in.

View of the Columbia Gorge from our cabin.

The family gathered for breakfast.

A sign in a store window, downtown Hood River, OR

(I thought you would enjoy seeing it.)

Mom and Dad

Our youngest - Marla

(Ain't she purty?)

Mom blowing out the candles.

Mom crocheting.

She's trying to make a tablecloth for all of her granddaughters.

Marla and me walking.

My oldest keeps me exercising by making me do 30 minutes before she will give me a phone call. I hate exercising, but I love talking to my girls.

A view of Mt. Hood shot through a grove of pear trees. I thought it made an interesting photo.

Mt. Hood on a rare clear day - minus the pear trees

The family - all that was there, at least

Just Hanging With Jesus

2010-02-18T11:00:00.000-08:00

Jon saw the doodle that I created for my sister, Becky. He is a youth pastor in Yreka, CA. Jon contacted me about an illustration he has wanted for sometime. He said that he wanted an illustration depicting Jesus just hanging out with teens. While, to me, drawing Jesus as a cartoon seems less than worthy of such an honored subject, I'm not one to turn down a paying job. (In other words: I can be bought.)

After looking for various photos of teens just hanging out, this is what I came up with. Jon liked what he saw. He said that he was going to frame it and hang it in his new office that his church is building.

I assume Jon, that you'll have the illustration hanging under proper lighting—give it a heavenly glow.

Chief Thunder Bolt

2010-02-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

This is the last of the doodles I created during my meeting two weeks ago in Salem. I guess I like this one the least from that series. The story behind the doodle is that we were at the time conducting an interview with a friend I've worked with during a few of the children's summer camps I attended. For whatever reason, her nickname at those camps has always been "Princes Thunder Bolt." I'm sure that there is a story behind the name somewhere. One time I even gave her a "Princes Thunder Bolt" doodle. So, this time I thought I would create the male counter part. But, I haven't shown it to her. Maybe that's because I'm not too crazy about the illustration. But here it is for your viewing pleasure.

This is a Copy & Share If You Dare doodle. Remember that if the illustration is NOT labeled Copy & Share... then that particular drawing is (as you might guess) not to be copied. Just so you know.

Banner Update

2010-02-13T15:49:00.000-08:00

Back in September I posted a design I created for a banner that some of the ladies in my church asked me to put together. The ladies finished it and it has been hanging in the front of the sanctuary of our church the last few Sundays. They did a pretty good job, I thought.

Here's a photo of it. What do you think?

Hilary's Holiday Hoorah

2010-02-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

Sometime last year I was contacted by Hilary from way over in England. She found a doodle of mine that I created for a children's camp here in Oregon. Hilary wanted to use it as a logo for "Holiday Bible Club" they conduct each year. (Over here in America we call them Vacation Bible Schools.) I like kids and I sure want to do want ever I could to promote their Bible education, so I gave her my "blessing", of course. The one condition would be the payment of photos from the event sent to me. I've been saving these photos for some time, waiting for the chance to share them with you...

Included in the photos that she sent me was a picture of a "sculpture" they created based upon my doodle. That was a first for me. To my knowledge, no one has ever turned my art into a 3D image. Pretty cool, huh!?!

This year, Hilary contacted me again about creating a brand new image for her. I told her that I would have to charge her this time, but (I modestly add) it wasn't much—certainly not in today's Pounds to Dollars exchange rate. Hilary wanted an image of a child, that could be seen as either male or female, riding a flying bike. If you've been around my blog you know that I don't like to draw mechanical items, but for the kids I was going to give it the "Organized Doodles try."

After playing with the colors to suit her taste, this is what I sent Hilary. I hope to get some photos, yet again, of this year's event.
What do you think?

Update: This note from Hilary...
Hi Rick,

Many thanks for that. I thought your page was very interesting. I’m so glad you liked our 3D model, it did cause quite a stir. We are hoping to make a model of this year’s logo as well, but I haven’t mentioned that to our designer yet …

Thanks and God Bless,

Hilary

Gonna' Get You...

2010-02-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

I keep posting these "meeting doodles." I have other works to share, but posting and writing out the text for them is always more involved. So, on a lazy Superbowl Sunday, I offer another tidbit to you. It's much the same kind of stuff, only this one I took the time to color.

I'm not sure if, or where you can use this one. It's a little "Halloweeny", but go ahead and Copy & Share If You Dare. In the mean time—keep looking back over your shoulder.

Mosey On Out of Here

2010-02-04T07:17:00.000-08:00

The birthday is over. I had a great day, but it's time to get back to some cartoon series posting. Here's another meeting doodle from the day long one I was in last week.

Besides the fact that his pointy finger looks like a carrot, I like my conception of Moses. I think his beard turned out especially well. And, don't you figure that a guy named "Moses" might tell 'o Pharaoh to let them "mosey?"

Copy & Share If You Dare

Give Me Some Birthday Love

2010-02-03T00:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it's my birthday—I don't mind tell you. And I don't mind telling you that I turn 53 today. Is it just me, or does everyone have a hard time remembering how old they are when they get to be my age. I'm not talking about pretending you forget how old you are. I seriously have a hard time remembering. One time I was 46 for almost two years before my brother informed me that I was turning 48. Wow! That 47th year went by really fast.

This is a doodle that I originally created as a birthday greeting for my sister Becky a couple of years ago. You can see the original using the link (if you like). You'll have to scroll down to the bottom of the post. I just changed the text and gave it some color. I wanted something to post as my profile pic on my Facebook account, so I made the changes. But I didn't want to miss the opportunity to share it with you too, so enjoy.

Make my day complete. Give me some blog comment love. I'll turn 53 a happy man.

Don't Bug Me

2010-01-31T14:07:00.000-08:00

Some of my most productive doodle time happens during long boring meetings. This last week was no exception. I had to go to an all day meeting up in Salem (A 5 hour drive north of me), and while everybody else is sitting at a table trying to ask pertinent asks, there is Rick Green off to one side drawing his poor "whittle" fingers to the bone.

This particular doodle is a product of my creative expressions from that day. I have a few more that I will post in time.

The thing that I like about my "Meeting Doodles" is that they are so unplanned. I just start drawing and what comes out, comes out. And, if you make any mistakes, you have to incorporate them some how into the illustration. I really like how the guy on the left turned out. I was feeling a bit sad about adding the second, long and lean fellow, on the right, but when I added the captions I felt that it all came together well. But, as I often say, we're not talking about brain surgery here. It's just a little fun—we're not creating the Mona Lisa.

I you haven't seen my free Valentine doodle yet be sure to scroll down for your chance to "copy and share" something for your honey on Valentine. AND!... Come back Wednesday for a doodle that I am looking forward to share with you. (How's that for a teaser?)

Hair Ball of Love

2010-01-28T01:31:00.000-08:00

This doodle may seem a little early, but I wanted to get it out there so that you could have plenty of time to post it on your blog—that is if you were so inclined to do so.

Since I've had some free doodling time on my hands I've just been doing some sketches for the shear fun of it. For some unknown reason, other than just trying to draw something different, this cat came out the other night. Then, while realizing that St. Valentine's Day is almost upon us, I decided to try and use it for an appropriate holiday post. But, the question was, "What does is cartoon feline suppose to be saying?": "You're my little catnip?" You're the my one and only litter box of love?" Nothing seemed to work. AND THEN!... it hit me! "Hair Ball of Love!" What more poetic statement could a cat make? The two, (cats and their hair balls that is) are so connected. Just like two people in love.

So, it's with a deep appreciation of heart felt love that I release this Copy & Share If You Dare doodle to you, my romance loving blogging friends. And for the first time I am releasing two different version at once—a total black and white one, and one that has been highlighted with some hints of color. You must choose.

Why not celebrate to occasion by giving your own little Hair Ball of Love this doodle printed out on a little note on the 14th? Wouldn't that be special?

Concept for St. Wilfrid's Episcopal Church

2010-01-23T08:17:00.000-08:00

My long time friend, Mike, is a priest at St. Wilfrid of York, an Episcopal Church in Huntington Beach, CA. He contacted me about creating a logo for the church where he serves. He told me that they had an artist working on a logo, but apparently he was not following through on the project. Mike said that they wanted an image that, while standing together as a whole, could be broken into three different parts—representing the three parts to their mission statement: "St. Wilfrid's is a Christian Community seeking to know and share God's unfailing love." Also, since Huntington Beach is an ocean community, he said that they would like to have a logo which had an ocean/beach theme.

I started by looking at images of waves on the internet. I've drawn plenty of sketches of ocean waves in my day, and I've never been particularly happy with what I've created. I down loaded many examples, but I especially liked the above concept. Using that as my inspiration this is what I first came up with...

Mike liked it, but he wasn't sure if it would reduce well. So, I decided to remove the black outlines and see what he thought of that. Here is what it looks like...

Mike liked it much better. So did I. Then, to show him how the image looked broken into it's three parts. I sent him these...

For "seeking to know God"—the sun representing God.

For "Christian community."—the birds representing community.

For "sharing God's unfailing love"—the wave hitting the rock representing the act of sharing God's love with the world.

I have to admit that I was pretty proud of the design. I really wasn't sure how I was going to create something that fit with Mike's parameters, but I felt like I had hit them all well. Mike liked what he saw, but needed to have his committee approve the concept. (Which, in my opinion, is always a mistake because committees have a way of killing really good ideas.) In committee... my concept failed. Grrrrrrrrr.... Apparently the artist, that they had previously worked with, returned to duty and the committee wanted to give him another chance. In the end they went with his submission. You can click on the link to the church's web page to see what logo they chose to go with.

I'll let you, my bogging committee of friends, decided which logo won. But, what are you doing to do? Win some. Lose some. Mike has been a friend for a long time. I guess I'll have to find a way to forgive him for taking my art to committee.

P.S. I'm pretty much caught up on my doodle requests. Much of my doodle work, of late, has been on my children's book project. I've got nine pages done. But, if you were interested in having me create something for you, this would be a good time to ask.