Working on some new themes of heads with multiple eyes. Finding inspiration in the linear work of Mike Giant http://www.mikegiant.com/index.php
Im trying to throw my own twist on the source material. When I saw a Sake bottle with a Uni/deamon with multiple eyes in Encinitas I had to take off on that theme. I'm planning on doing more of these on some larger,sturdier bristol boards.
The sketch on the bottom is the first one of the series. Above it are some printouts I made from Mike Giant's work.
My brush pen collection. The one on the top is a big one with rellly long "hairs" The label is worn off and I don't remember where I got it, so when it runs out Ill have to switch back to a real brush. The Tombo and the Zebra are the best of the lot. Prisma color is good but not remarkable. The pigma is the worst of the lot.
Please check it out, spread the word if you like it or if you know someone who will like it.
The Adventures of Jack Maggot is a choose your own adventure format comic. It has mazes and other diversions included, such as mock ads, mock games. I have posted the first 9 pages and I will be constantly posting more as I format them for the web. I have a lot in mind for this comic which I don't want to reveal yet.
I had to redraw some pannels for my webcomic. Jack descending the staircase to the basement.
I used velum on this section for the comic. Lettering has proven to be a challenge. I have created a custom font from my own handwriting for now it will have to suffice.
Inked finished maze 2 of 3 for pages 18,19,20.
Inked Page 18 for The Adventures of Jack Maggot
Work in progress page 20 for The Adventures of Jack Maggot.
Looks like the mountain top from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
On Day five of our cross country drive, we arrived in Golden Colorado to a warm greeting from our friends Alan, Mercedes and Nyx.
We stayed in a hotel outside Colorado for a two day visit. During our stay we were able to catch up with friends, recuperate, visit local attractions and have our Mini serviced. The engine light triggered because a filter sensor needed to be replaced. The long drive from Boston finished off the old filter, the work was covered under warranty. The visit to the Mini Dealer meant I would spend a part of the second day in Denver area dealing with repairs while Rise and Mayari hung out at the hotel pool. The good news was that we spent the rest of our extra time with our Denver friends, and we had time to explore Dinosaur Ridge.
Rise and Mayari with a lifesize painted sculpture of an Iguana don, which is the type of dinosaur that left its foot prints in the sand.
We were really excited to see dinosaur ridge on day 6. Dinosaur Ridge is a plot of land with fossilized dinosaur bones and foot prints are embedded in the stone hillside. There are dinosaur remains and footprints from many dinosaur migrations millions of years before the earth shifted and transformed Colorado into mountains. At Dinosaur Ridge you can interact with fossilized dinosaur bones and foot prints in a rock wall. The footprints were imprinted during the Cretaceous period millions of years ago, when the Colorado area was more low lying marsh lands. When the surface was still soft enough to be imprinted on by the Iguana-don type of dinosaurs which migrated over this surface. As time passed on the mud was covered by other silt and mud, add millions of years, shake up the earth and you get fossil imprints in a sandstone rock wall.
Makes me feel like the geology of Earth is alive and that we were travelling through time.
You can take a walk on the trail to the other side of dinosaur ridge to see a bone quarry from the Jurassic era.
Basically a pile of fossilized bones embeded in the rock wall. Less impressive than the footprints but still accessible and cool to see.
Mayari using special glass crayons on the windows of our car to send messages to fellow travelers.
Preparing for Day 4 of traveling to California from Massachusets
Preparing to drive for a day started with cleaning and packing the car. This meant that by
day four the preparation had become a morning ritual. The prep process began with, sweeping out the car interior and throwing away any trash from the day before. I would then pack the top roof rack compartment with things we would not need until we stopped at a hotel for the night. I added a ratchet tie down over the top of the Thule roof container which helped keep the container sealed tight. The tie down also prevented water or insects from being driven into the container.
The Mini Clubman has a boot compartment under the rear storage area. It is small but useful for packing the stuff that was going to be inaccessible such as surplus travel supplies, emergency supplies of food and water, and emergency tools. That compartment was checked and packed before the interior could be loaded. The next step was packing the interior of the car with our daily gear, including our gadgets, food and a pillow fortress for sleeping. One of the last steps was setting up the litter box and cat accessories, while also being sure to have cat food and water easily accessible. After all our items were on-board, Mayari (the 4 year old) was next to get in the car. Then Chowder (the cat) , Rise and Myself. Note to travelers: Pack your cat last, then hit the road. We relied on using a leash most of the time in case Chowder tried to escape while going from hotel to the car, and on pit stops. The cat carrier was cumbersome and I would keep it un-assembled in the back of the car most of the time.The plastic cat carrier was useful for containing water bottles.
The next leg of our trip would be from the outskirts of Kansas City to Colorado. Deep in the Midwest we were about to cross over Dorothy's take off spot to OZ. The weather radio informed us it would be hot and there were advisories to watch for wildfires. That made it a normal early Summer day in Kansas which we will have a chance of being swept away by a tornado to a mythical land or burned by wild fire. As uneventful as it was,this day was pretty exhausting. The distance we traveled, the uniformity of the landscape and the heat were the contributing factors. Also there were very few places to get amenities. At one interesting stopping point we found a gas station, convenience store and gun shop all within the same building. I think this may have been as close to the modern day wild west general store. A place where you could gas up, reload, get a snack and move on.
We passed through the flint hills Saw long ranges of prairie which were in the same state as a the great plains were before cultivation by Europeans.
Thankfully there are stretches of highway in the United States where you will not run across a Starbucks for eight hours of driving. Kansas is one of those places. There were so few places to stop for coffee or gas along the way. The road was four lanes rather that six and the speed limit was 75.
Progress report for Day 4: we departed from Kansas City MO and arrived in Golden Colarado at the end of the day. Happy Summer Solstice 2012!
Day 3 Road trip to California.
We were getting better at traveling by the time we hit day three. However we were still newbies without much real road experience. When we set out from our Hotel in Indiana and we were traveling by a more direct route, West on Indiana State Highway 50. State highways are not optimal for the long distance we needed to travel. We headed North to hook up with the interstate then we were moving at a reasonable pace again.
Creation Museum
Earlier that day at the hotel we discovered that the Creation Museum was close to where we were staying. A little too close for anyone who has a respect or understanding of science. The creation museum is an organization that believes that the theory of
evolution is a lie. Not the different perspective of the country that we
were hoping to find. Rise and I toyed with the idea of visiting for a
minute out of curiosity. Then we thought of the potential damage it may
cause to our four year old's perceptions of the world, we kept on
moving West.
As an institution which calls itself a "Museum" the Creation Museum presents no evidence or artifacts related to their point of view . The place is entirely faith based, and has placed itself in the
anti-evolution mindset which take a similar perspective to the
anti-Galelain camp or the world is flat school of thought. The place should be considered a faith based diorama not a museum. Beware it is no joke, Teachers, Parents or Grandparents that think this way are shaping the minds of children in an ignorant way.
To balance out this creationist perspective I have included a link to Black Sabbath's entire Master of Reality album. In case you feel the urge to listen to Ozzy while you contemplate a museum with less science. If you do not like Sabbath then just read on with out listening.
You can click above and Follow the link to read the Wikipedia article on the Creation Museum. On the wiki you can read a less biased history of the creation of the Creation Museum. On the wiki I learned how the Teachers Association and different Church organizations feel about the Museum. Not only to scientists and teachers disapprove of the Creation Museum's science, but some religious groups also feel that the perspective is harmful to religion. It remarkable when even religious groups feel that your point of view is harmful not only to science but also to religion and a deterrent to faith.
During breakfast at the hotel, I realized that some of the patrons were preparing to spend their day visiting the Creation Museum. They were a large party consisting of adults and mostly raucous children filling the hotel breakfast area. The conversations at the next table caught my attention when I heard some teen speaking about visiting the Creation museum. The children were speaking about seeing dinosaurs in the same discussion as creationism. There would be obvious contradictions ahead at the Museum, for myself even as a child the whole 7 day creation story arc never seemed like something meant to be taken literally.
Back at the breakfast table, a battle between a Science book fighting a King James Bible was waging in my imagination. The books were fighting to the death then some librarian steps in tells the books that they are both wrong, the librarian then makes the books sit on the shelf next to each other for the next ten thousand years. Neither book wants to admit to the readers that the other holds some truth inside. At the table beside me there were convoluted explanations of how dinosaurs work in a world created in seven literal days. The younger children went on discussing what dinosaur could beat the other in a fight. I could imagine in that 7 day universe Jesus would be a referee, and sit the dinosaurs down to discuss how they should love their neighbor dinosaur rather than battle to the death for little boys entertainment. Then the dinosaurs could disappear in the noon light of the third day. Evolution would be on the losing side at that breakfast table.
Onward to the Saint Louis Arch
We were looking forward to another must see destination, the Gateway Arch. I had seen a documentary on the construction of the arch and I was eager to walk through the arch myself. It symbolizes a gateway from East to West, it is a symbol of westward expansion. It is a marvel of engineering made of stainless steel standing 630 ft (192 m) tall. It is the largest stainless steel monument in the world, dedicated in 1965.The arch houses a tram which takes passengers to the top, and has a Museum underneath it.
Passing over the bridges that led to St Louis we were amazed by the size of the freestanding arch. The arch was easily accessible from the highway and parking was inexpensive and nearby. St Louis provided us with some needed downtime from travel.
The arch houses a museum below the structure called the Museum of Westward Expansion.
The Museum includes dioramas,taxidermy specimens, artifacts, and Indian Peace Medals, that were given to the Native Americans by Louis and Clark while on their journey through new territory. The Museum is small enough see in less than an hour. However there is enough in there to keep you busy if you are interested in the history of the United States. Overall it is very worth the time to visit. The Arch is a modern equivalent to one of the seven wonders of the world. The Arch even has medal detectors and an airport style pat down at entrance to the Arch/Museum to prove it's worth to the other six wonders. We were not planning on spending much time in St Louis so we decided to skip the tram ride to the top. Beside sitting in the car for 10 plus hours each day we preferred to stretch our legs while we could.
The photo above of the United States topography is part of the Museum's exhibit If you look closely at the photo you will see a reddish line that represents the river route that Louis and Clark took with Sacajawea to the Pacific. The line starts at the eastward end of the Missouri river where it connects with the Mississippi River, there you see a dent in the map, this hole is caused by fingerprints from museum visitors pointing out where they currently are.
You can see the darker brown section representing the Louisiana Purchase and the lighter brown representing the Thirteen Colonies of the United States at the time before the Louis and Clark's expedition. The white areas of the map are areas belonging to Spain or Mexico at the time.
As I mentioned there were Indian Peace Medals which represented treaties between Native Americans and European Colonists. The Peace Medal exhibit spanned time from colonial English period through the Louis and Clark expedition. For me the medals are actually broken treaty medals. Each "PEACE" medal represented a promise of the European Settlers to coexist peacefully with the indigenous North American peoples. The treaty would be represented by a silver or gold medal and presented to a tribal chief. This was done by the ruling European or United States representatives as a token of good will. The medal would signify there was a promise of peace. In hindsight each medal represents a failed agreement of a Government to coexist with another established culture. Native Americans were pushed off their territory by European land claimers. Whatever you believe about the American Dream, it starts with a broken treaty. The right to home ownership is the right to buy stolen land from an occupying entity. This dream is spread from sea to shining sea under the guise of destiny and the delusion of divine entitlement.
The Museum of Westward Expansion had the courage to display some of the darker parts of The United States history. The Peace Medal exhibit placed the broken treaties on display and somewhat acknowledged how westward expansion ruined the lifestyle of Native Americans. Native American Culture in the west was shown as a thriving civilization before it was destroyed with railroads and superior weaponry. After visiting the museum I also understood better the significance of St Louis. How it is strategically placed at the junction of two major rivers. These rivers provide resources and accessibility for the nation and pass directly through St Louis. St Louis started as a trading post at the juncture of two rivers and has evolved into an industrial metropolis.
This part of our trip for me was a low in the valley of our journey. The blissful ignorance of the creation museum and the Native American peace medals which foretold of broken promises, showed me a dark place in mainstream America. We needed to keep moving through our stolen rugged landscape.
Day three was quite the day full of contrasts. Beautiful rural Illinois, cruising through the Mississippi river basin, juxtaposed by anti science Creationists.
An elegant marvel of stainless steel in the form of an arch, framing an urban landscape.The industrial urban decay of St Louis's abandoned factories contrasted the elegance of the arch.
