The Barn

This sketch was actually drawn during my first visit to Jonesville, but essentially nothing has changed a year later. The Barn is where tools and supplies used by the workers at Jonesville-area sites are stored. But, not much longer-- I was informed that the building is to be torn down and an improved structure put up.

Ale8 1

While enroute to Jonesville, VA for the Appalachian Service Project, we stopped for refueling near Lexington, KY and I picked up this local soft drink (which the check-out clerk had never tried). It is "Ale 8 1"- nicknamed "A Late One" and 'tis claimed by the manufacturer to be one of Kentucky's favorites. It is a ginger ale and compares favorably to similar offerings.

Shells

I spent a lot of time drawing...the landlord and his cronies spent their time listening to cricket on the radio and tried explaining it to me.

Tropical Beverages

We drank a lot, because, you know, you get thirsty in the tropics. We stayed at a "guesthouse"...now you'd call it a "bed and breakfast"...except we got dinner, too. The food was OK, but my most distinct memory is a peanut punch the landlord made...a peanut butter based beverage. I dislike peanut butter, but it wasn't bad.

Cockcrow

One distinct memory is the crowing of roosters at every dawn...for a suburban boy this was a novel, if not welcome, awakening. These days, I might not mind it so much.

Carl Meade

I met a sailor in Port Of Spain named Carl Meade. I can't remember the circumstances, and though I was leary at first, it worked out fine. He was from Antigua but knew his way around T&T. We crashed at his half-brother's house and then took the ferry to Tobago. That was my first "voyage" on ocean waters.

Tobago house

There was very little going on there...at least of which that I was aware. I hadn't even planned on winding up there.

Beach

I'm heading out of town, so I am posting a week's worth of pictures from another time I headed out of town around 1975...down to the sleepy island of Tobago....

Dreams of Food

And yet another Tribune illustration...Rapidograph and brush on paper and I used screens for the midtones, a technique I never used much. Devotees of root vegetables will find several depicted. The Food Dreamer at lower right is my father, who was in his late 40s at the time...younger than I am now!

Root people

These roughs were alongside other sketches which looked like Chicago Tribune material...I did a number of pieces for a food-related section called "Taste" in the late '70s-early '80s. Whatever they were for, these characters never made it pass this stage...a potato-headed man and a turnip-headed woman.

Joe Potato

Not completely root vegetable nor humanoid, here is the invesgitater of the abnormal, Joe Potato, deep in the ground where he makes a startling discovery....

130 Years Ago Today...

On St. Patrick's Day, 1879, the Irish-American Henry McCarty aka Henry Antrim aka William H. Bonney aka Kid Antrim aka Billy the Kid met secretly with Governor Lew Wallace (a famed Civil War general) of New Mexico to make a deal regarding his activities during the Lincoln County War. The Kid agreed to submit to token arrest and give testimony in exchange for amnesty. However, the district attorney refused to play along with the arrangement and the Kid slipped jail and resumed his outlaw ways. While governor, Wallace wrote the beloved novel "Ben Hur". I drew this with Rapidograph, brush and ink and it is one of the series of T-shirts sold at the Billy the Kid Pageant.

Root Vegetable

A gentleman representing a groundswell of public opinion requested graphics of root vegetables. That is not a subject matter which I have assayed much in the past...but I found several tenuous examples. Here is a piece I did for the Chicago Tribune in 1979. If this looks familiar to followers of this blog, it may be because I based one of the cards in the OD deck from it a few years later.

A Tree Which Never Was

I kind of like the spaghetti swirl of leaves in the foreground tree and am also partial to the big roundish stone or whatever which has dented the ground.

Yet Another Tree

Yes, another lovely tree from Louisville. You know, I think that is the last time I set foot in Louisville, though I have driven through it since. When visiting my kids' cousins there we always went to a certain barbeque joint, Mark's Feed Store on Shelbyville Road, which wasn't too bad even though I don't much like barbeque. You got your drinks in a fruit jar, which I suppose was evoke the atmosphere of being in some down-home hayseed roadhouse, which it isn't at all...being part of chain in a solid middle-class neighborhood.

The Wonderful Tree

The wonderful tree! The various species provide shade, homes for critter and human alike...timber for a trillion and one useful or beautiful objects...fruit and nuts, syrups, medicine and spirits...they clean the very air and bind the soil- and all they ask of us in return is carbon dioxide and manure. I salute the tree!

trees and cone

I believe these trees were sketched during a March '03
visit to Louisville, KY. Our kids might rate it is the worst Spring Break excursion ever--- judging by the state of the trees, Spring had not sprung and we dragged them to a bunch of colleges for tours prior to our son's high school graduation.

North Carolina tree

It just happens that a sketch book has a number of tree drawings. I made this one with a very fine-line Sharpie while sojourning in the mountains of North Carolina with the Bellwood Boys.

duck

Thus concludes this series of picture elements. Actually, there are more. What they were for shall never be known...unless Howie happens to see this and remembers!

Pig

Makes you want to squeal with delight, doesn't it?

Monkey

Here's one of our family favorites---
a distinguished and dignified primate.

Giraffe

Upon inspection of these images, I would say that the initial illustration was done in Illustrator, then imported into Photoshop to add effects and the backgrounds.

Another dawg

Howie Rubin was the VP of the Gottlieb Video Game division. After Columbia Pictures/Coca-Cola shut the operation down, Howie worked independently or from time to time for cartridge game companies like Jaleco. I produced a lot of artwork for Howie over the years and some of it actually translated into products, like "Lotto Fun" and "Double Cheese". But, many of the concepts never made it out the door. Here are some samples from a folder dubbed "Jaleco"...I have absolutely no recollection of for what this was intended...I don't even remember doing it...but it has my name on it!