House On Rocks vs House On Sand

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.

Two Faces

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...

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

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.

Bad Bad Bunny

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

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

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

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

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.

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...

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

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.

Are You a Lonely Heart?

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

Miss Fancy Pants

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.

Ninja Complete

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.

Almost Thereeeee...

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

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

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?

Inspiring Fatherhood

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.)

You Wanna Be a Rock Star?

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

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.