Potatoes On Parade

I really liked how this carica- ture turned out. This is a birthday present for Sharlyn's husband. He's an Idaho potato farmer. Is there any other kind. Oh yeah! There are sugar beet farmers too, but anyway... Sharlyn wanted me to illustrate hubby on a John Deere tractor harvesting potatoes. His real tractor is one of those big ones that has all the comfort of a Cadillac, but Sharlyn thought that putting him atop an older model would look better. I agreed.

I don't know where I got the idea, but the image of potatoes popping out of the ground and marching along with him seemed like a fun concept. Sharlyn liked it and so away I went.

The challenge for me on this particular drawing is that I couldn't find a photo on the internet taken of a tractor at just the right angle. I wanted the tractor to have a commanding, dominate position in the illustration. To do that I want the perspective on the lines of the machine to be at a dramatic angel. So, instead of taking the usual shortcut and tracing a picture, I had to draw this one out pretty much free hand. As I said, I really liked how this one turned out. The only thing I wish could be different is that I would have liked to have more room to draw a whole bunch of potatoes marching along behind him in formation.

I seem to be in a tractor mode of late, since this is the second one of late that I've been asked to illustrate. I've seem to have been drawing a lot of potatoes as well. I guess it was fate that the two themes should come together in one illustration eventually. (I'm so philosophical when it comes to my cartoon work.)

Check out Sharlyn's blog. There are some very nice quilts displayed there - another art form that impresses me.

Plowing Asphalt

When Cynthia wrote me and said that she wanted an illustration of her husband driving his tractor I imagined an idyllic rural scene with a farmer plowing his field - tending to his crop. But when I saw the photos she sent I realized we were talking about something entirely different.

Cynthia's husband is the proud owner of this antique piece of machinery, and the only field it ever sees is the one made of asphalt, running up and down the city of Phoenix, Arizona. She said he liked to take it to the hardware store, and uses it to pull floats in parades.

Look at that thing! What a challenge to try and illustrate! (This is not actually the one he owns, but a good photo of one almost entirely like his.)

Cynthia said that his tractor has a literal top speed of 8 miles an hour. She thought it would be fun to hop it up and make it look like it was zooming down a city street. So I took one of the photos she sent me, traced the complicated piece of metal work onto the paper, added tractor style racing tires, and put him at the helm. What do you think?

This was meant to be a Father's Day gift for today, and so I haven't gotten an update on his response to the drawing. I hope he liked it and I hope to have an update to share with you later.

In the meantime: Since it's Father Day, here are the young ladies that call me Father. Actually, they call me Daddy, or Dad. The oldest came up with the name "Chard" for me. It's a take on RiCHARD. I always tell them my name is Daddy to them, and that's what they should call me. But it hasn't seem to stop them. Now days, I think they can call me anything. Just call me.

This photo is from Christmas. I give them a gift just from me each year, and it normally has a sleep theme. That time I gave them silk PJ's. From left to right: Marla, Andrea, and Tarah (...getting married in October)

I love you girls. I'm proud to be your Father, or Chard, or whatever you may give me as a title.