Milestones

I’ve been thinking lately that I wished I’d begun this sojourn a few years sooner. My hunger for the world seems insatiable these days. And the cravings grow every day. With every person I meet, with every new moment I experience, I long for a thousand more. I was stagnant for so long. Lost in monotony. Obsessing over minutia. Covering the same ground day in day out. Asking questions without seeking answers. Fighting battles that didn’t need to be fought. But that is as it is.

This week it has been ten years since I graduated from high school. Ten LONG years. The irony is that for me graduation was a prelude to normalcy. For most people graduation means the end of normality. It means relentless, unstoppable change. But for me it meant… for the first time in my life… stability. I moved to Lubbock my senior year - 4th high school in 4 years - Many more schools before that. And after graduation it was ten years of one home, one town, one life. Which probably explains why a lot of that time was spent experiencing what most people normally experience in high school. First kiss, first girlfriend, first car. Best friends, parties, love, fights, and so much more. And all the drama, heartbreak and lessons that go along with them.

But now, now I crave to be a child of the world. I think it’s what God made me for. I have a tendency to take the world with me, and share it with everyone I come in contact with. To what end or purpose I don’t know yet. Only that it is my nature. It seems like all the people I’ve come across here I have had some sort of affect on them. Some in very profound ways. It’s bewildering.

One thing I know… everywhere is the same. Lubbock has its beauty, same as San Diego. Lubbock has its benefits too. It’s only from seeing another way do I really understand how that’s so. And people… people are lost everywhere. Being “somewhere” doesn’t help you find your way. It’s just your place to begin. And clinging to what’s safe, what’s comfortable is the worst thing you can do. It makes you complacent. It makes you lazy and makes you take things for granted. And its just prolonging the inevitable. It may take 5, 10, 20 years… but you will realize that life is wasted unless you’re actively living it. Happiness is seeking your life’s purpose - not waiting for something to happen.

--Will

Closure is a funny thing...

It often comes suddenly, unexpected and without much fanfare.

What is even more peculiar...

Is what immediately follows after.

A simple question...

with very complicated answers...

"What now?" he thinks.

The question comes often unspoken. Wrapped in a package of quiet thoughts and a distant unmeasured gaze. Like the ticks of a clock it echoes in the background relentlessly. Whether drowned by life's chaos or clacking loudly in those quiet moments of the day. It relentlessly continues ticking away...

Questions and Answers. They are the substance of life.

It feels like a deja vu thing, or maybe a dream that's trying to tell me something. I can't remember what it's supposed to mean. Can't remember what beginnings looked like. I ask myself "Don't things usually begin where things end?" That's the problem with a memory, it brings with it the memory of so many other things. It's hard to know what's real. The moments are the only reality I guess. Before that they're dreams, fragments, what'ifs. After that they become anything but real.

"What now?" he thinks... "What now?"

--Will

The tithe has turned

I started tithing again. I stopped for some reason when I moved here. My finances were so thin that I panicked. I let myself be fooled into thinking again that I couldn't spare it. That's why it's been so uncomfortable the last couple months. I knew it when it was happening... but that immediacy is a very "real" feeling... although completely fabricated. But I got a wake up call. That's what God does when you know better but have trouble remembering why. So a few weeks ago I was running on empty, in every meaning of that phrase. I was brought completely to my knees. That Sunday I went to Joe's crab shack and was blessed with a fortune - $30 dollars... there is no sarcasm there. I went and bought gas and groceries and put $3 dollars in a donation jar at the grocery store. It was the last of all the money I had. But that was my tithe. God had blessed me with that money, and all he asked was for me to pass on $3 dollars of it. So I did. Having $3 dollars isn't much better than having nothing. The next morning I made more in tips at Seaworld than I ever have.

Needless to say I have continued tithing since then and also needless to say I have been blessed many times over since then. Things are much, much better now. And in the last week I've received 3 extra opportunities. One is a pretty decent paying party gig in a couple weeks, another will take several hundred bucks off my rent next month by doing some work for my roommate. And the third is an opportunity to do caricatures at the Del Mar fair once a week without paying for a booth and I get to keep everything I make. (The Del Mar fair is a month long fair with traffic of more than a million people.) That's not even mentioning all the crazy tips and windfalls I've had lately. But I'm sure all that's just a drop in the bucket compared to what's waiting for me around the corner.

I feel stupid that I stopped to begin with. But the poverty felt so very real. It's frightening how real that immediacy feels. That fear that there isn't enough to go around. And not just with money - but time too. I constantly have to be weary of fooling myself into thinking my time or money is out of my own control. Whether it's grabbing a "quick bite" because I can't be bothered with the 5 minutes it takes to cook and eat my own food. Or putting off finishing something that's far more important to me than what I end up doing.

Convenience is the cruelest joke ever played on man. We think that convenience is there to help us but it's not. Convenience doesn't save us time. It just makes us do more. Convenience doesn't make things easier for us it makes us lazier. And with a far more costly expense than doing something the right way. And usually we end up doing more of what we don't like doing in the first place.

Anyways... do with that what you will. You can write it off as coincidence. But this is the second time tithing has changed my life. Hopefully this is the last time I have to learn that lesson.

--Will

Atelier - Week Seven

Things are really coming together now in my head. The hardest part was and is still just learning how to use the pencil. There's a certain way of creating lines and even tones that has a very magical effect when done right, but is very frustrating when done wrong. I'm still very far off from being consistant with it. But I'm getting enough good results to be very happy with where things are headed.

HEAD DRAWING

Our model in class today was dressed as a pirate. Freaking awesome! Full costume. Weapons and all. I think the airconditioning in the school is broken right now, so it was really hot, which made the model even more in character. Sweaty and all that.

I realized about 2/3 the way through class that I was shading in patchy tones again and it was starting to look like ass. So I went back and added a consistent tone over everything to even it out. It looks a lot better than it did. But it's still not clean enough. I have to keep reminding myself to draw lighter. Everytime I think it's light enough I find a lighter tone to work in. I guess after a few more weeks I'll be at the lay-in tone I need to be working at.



There's so many awesome examples of this guy that it would prolly be best just to look in the FULL ALBUM. I like this one the best though. It's by a guy named Lucas, He's my new favorite artist at the school, lol. He's only been taking classes for 4 years too. He seems to have come a VERY long way in that time. He was doing caricatures at Legoland before that too. Hopefully I can get this good in that period of time as well.


TONAL drawing

This was our first week drawing the figure from an actual model. It was pretty awesome. We started doing quick 5 minute sketches at the beginning of class and I was laying in tones like I knew what I was doing. Not even close to actually KNOWING what I was doing, but I was having fun with it. Then we started into the long pose and I had a rough time getting started. I kept wanting to sketch it out instead of gesturing it in with big simple lines/shapes. And so when it came time to flesh out the drawing it looked awful. I ended up starting over and quickly laid in the gesture drawing. Much more comfortably, and it made the whole drawing much more energetic, clean and dynamic. Essentially, what I'm realizing is that it's important to create consistancy in the drawing. Either using layers of tone(instead of patches of tone) and solid finished layouts before adding details. I KNOW they've explained that to me a dozen times, but I have to learn things by doing them, I just don't take aural instructions well. Reguardless it's starting to gel now. "Keep it simple."


Here's the teachers examples.


Three weeks left for these classes. So I'm looking towards next term. Trying to figure out what to take. It will most likely be another head drawing class, and a figure class or a quicksketch class. Or possibly an anatomy class. And I definitely want to take Court Jones' Caricature class. Since I wasn't able to do it this semester. It's been hard coming up with the money though. I have seven weeks to do it. So hopefully it will come through.

By the by... people put job adds up on the boards at the school all the time for game companies. Here's one if anyone's interested in seeing what people are looking for. It sounds pretty stringent. I know there's more entry level jobs too. But texture artists seem to be a ground floor kind of gig.



--Will

Caricatures - BINGO

This makes me laugh everytime I draw it.

"Kid on a leash!" (Just screams I don't know how to handle my kid, doesn't it?)

"Guy with a Flag!" (I saw 5 of these today at Seaworld)


--Will

Dork Vader

Tonight Millions of Nerds across the galaxy got Laid... Laid by a lady named... STAR WARS. Oh yes. I didn't much like the first two movies but I have to say this one more than made up for what I didn't like about those. I was surprised at how tense I was watching this one. You know everything that's gonna happen, you just have no idea how it will go down. Very enjoyable.

By the way, there's a couple things if anyone goes to see it. The reason General Grievous is wheezing in his scenes is because Mace Windu crushed his heart using the force at the end of the Clone Wars animated series on Cartoon Network.



I went and saw the movie with my friend Brian from Seaworld. His fiance was kind enough to stand in line 2 hours early for us so we could get a good seat. Stoked. It was a total dork fest. I loved it. The best part of waiting in line was this little 4 foot tall round woman dressed as Darth Vader walking around with a clip board marking down stuff for the theater. She had a little toy Vader breathing box hanging around her neck with a necklace that she kept fiddling with trying to get the breathing noise to work. It was the funniest thing I'd ever scene. Had to do a caricature of it of course.

Can't wait to go see the movie again my next day off.

By the way...

Random Star Wars nerd fact: "Did you know that Vader means "Father" in German?"

--Will

Atelier - Week Six

This week was very interesting. We're definitely more into learning the application of all the stuff we've learned previously. In the Intro to Tonal drawing class we are still working with the figure. We're not using models yet, just working from photo reference and guide sheets. But we started out doing warm-ups with the Assarrow head. I started doing my usual blocking method to get the head down, then I started to see the Rhythms in the face. I don't know why I didn't put that together before. I just assumed that the Assarow head was designed to show us how to break up the face, but now I actually see the rhythms even more clearly with it. So it made me a lot faster with laying out the face. Still not fast enough to finish the shading on 5 minute poses, but getting there. I didn't see anyone else's drawings get that far along either.

Then we started into the figure. Last week we worked on learning to Manequinize the figure. Turning it into objects and contours to get proportions and posing exact. I actually went too far with my drawings last week so I sort of missed the point. But I got it as I worked with it some this week. This week we went even more meticulously into the step by step process of manequinizing the figure, contouring, creating edges, darks and shading. What was so fascinating about tonight was how quiet the entire class was. Usually there are lots of jokes and laughing about how bad their drawings look, or how this foot is wrong, or this arm is ginormous. But not tonight, everyone's drawings looked good. Looked correct. Looked classical. The process really works. It's incredible.



The first pic is my teacher's, and the second is mine. As you can see I've learned to slow down considerably. I didn't even get close to finishing today. But it looks a lot better. And I think I'm getting close to understanding how the shading should look. Whether I am or not, my sketches in my sketch book have definitely benefited from it. I still can't get over how it's only been 6 weeks. When I think about a year, two years, four years of these classes... wow. And there's all kinds of other classes, conceptual design, painting, digital. I'm gonna be a freaking art ninja. Hopefully.

I don't have any other pics. That's pretty much all we worked on in class today. And I didn't do much walking around to take other pics. I also didn't go to my head drawing class last night. Monday was my first day off and last day off for a week. And I was so exhausted I ended up sleeping.

--Will

Caricatures

I had the best day today. It was very strange, but a lot of fun. I worked at Seaworld today, and I was lucky enough to get put at the best booth 3 out of the last 4 days I've worked. And fortunately I've been able to capitalize on it to hopefully show it was a good decision. I've been the top seller in the park every tue and wed so far for the last 3 weeks at Seaworld. Course tue and wed are the slowest days, but I'm still proud.

Today I realized something that's been going on. I get a LOT of foreigners. And they usually come by once to see everyone drawing then walk around the park and see everyone else drawing then come back to me. It's happened a couple dozen times now. Today I drew a couple from Turkey, Austria, Japan and this awesome family from Italy. (I HAVE to visit Italy now - these are my kind of people, lol). I'm ok at selling, I'm getting better at seeing people interested and jumping on it instantly. But I'm still not into pushing. But it seems like this is a big part of my sales success. I'm stoked too, it's the most fascinating part about the job I think. Two weeks ago I met an old guy who's an artist living in South Africa. Had an awesome conversation with him, he gave me his info and told me to call him whenever I'm in South Africa. I'm going to try to get meet a lot more cool people from all over the world and get their info and hopefully do a world tour one of these days. That's one of my life goals, is to be a worldly traveler.

So there's this game we play at Seaworld called Theme park Bingo. It's pretty fun, there's all these strange phenomena that only show up at theme parks. And some time back someone did a cartoon bingo sheet of a bunch of these items. I haven't actually seen it, but I've heard most of them, and occassionally I make up some new ones, just cause its a fun game. There's "kid-face-plant", "Punkrock-Japanese-teens", "Guy-with-socks-and-sandles", "TFTW's"(too fat to walk - rascal fats), Matching-clothes-family, and my favorite "guy-with-flag/sword". There's a lot more. The best part is letting the guests in on the joke. Especially some of the weirder one's, usually I'll be drawing someone and say "BINGO: Guy-with-a-flag/sword" and they'll laugh like I'm crazy. Then like five minutes later they'll finally see the guy and bust out laughing cause they thought it was a joke. Because I'm such a big dork, I may start taking some bingo pictures just to share. We'll see.

Speaking of Oddities that you only see at Theme parks...



They're opening this new ride at Legoland next week, and they had a sneak preview party this past weekend. There were all kinds of RenFair people there and this awesome King Arthur and his guy with the coconuts walking around. They had the act down pat... sy.

This ride is crazy, it's basically six independently operated robot arms with seats at the end. There's five different settings for it from really mellow to "guaranteed to make you puke". It's the first robotic ride anywhere in the US. Man. We're like less than a decade away from having giant walking robots, I just know it.
FULL ALBUM

--Will

Summerteeth

I've slipped into overload with legoland. I like working there. But I'm working too much now. Somehow I've ended up with just one day off between Legoland and Seaworld. And I'm having to pull doubles on Fri, Sat and Sun with Legoland and Joe's in order to make gas and food money. And Mon and Tue I have classes at night, which means doubles those days too. I'm already frazzled. I can't even imagine what it will be like with summer hours. And frankly it's not worth it. But it's not just the hours. It's what it represents. It's what I'm not doing that's bothering me the most. Not drawing, not going to the beach, not meeting people... not having fun. It's all about the job now. It's all about surviving. And that's wrong.

"We must be masters of ourselves... of our lives." I remind myself as I pull to the side of the road. "We must actively live each day... not simply exist." In just a few short weeks I've been sucked under again. Pulled into the wave helpless. Somewhere I lost momentum... Somewhere I lost direction. To the point where I am merely existing again, not living. There are excuses... there are always excuses - I've been busy, need money, can't keep up, don't have time - But they're just excuses. Self-fabricated obstacles put in my own way. Simply put: I'm working for a paycheck again. I'm struggling to survive. That's when I know I'm doing something wrong.

Someone gave me advice the other day on how to make it work at Legoland/Seaworld. "Set a goal for yourself: in the spring look forward to summer - in the summer look forward to August - in August look forward to a Holiday - then another - and another - and another - Till pretty soon your back around again." I felt sick to my stomach. I told him that's a great way to let your life slip away. He got quiet and reflected that the years had gone too quickly for him.

Life isn't supposed to go by quickly. Not in my mind at least. You must savor each moment as though it were your first and last. Live life with the eyes of a child. You can't live life for tomorrow, you have to live for today. Do what you love now... don't plan on doing it later. Life goes all too quickly when you are simply making due. Even more so when you're just working for a paycheck. It's making me sick to my stomach.

I don't need either job. I know that. There are parts of both places that I really like and don't want to give up. At Seaworld it's the guys I work with. At Legoland it's the child in me. With both it's definitely not the pay. Lol. I got a paycheck for the last two weeks from Seaworld that was less than $400. I made more money last weekend at Joe's in a couple hours each day Fri - Sun. But somehow I've gotten my priorities turned upside down. The jobs take up 80% of my time and give me 20% of what I need/want. Something's got to be done about that. I don't know what yet. But I can't put it off much longer. They keep telling me "wait until summer... it will get better." I'm starting to hate that idea more and more each day I have to wait. I'd rather be poor doing what I love. I'm poor right now and I'm not doing enough of that.

I hate bitching.

--Will

Journey Inward - Journey Outward

My Dad has a blog now. I think that's just about everybody now. Lol. Just kidding. Now you can experience first hand that from which my weirdness sprang. Check it out... JOURNEY

--Will

Atelier - Week Five

I've been drawing a lot in my sketch book lately. And I've been getting some pretty exciting results. There's only been a couple times in my life where I just wanted to go out and by a new sketch book - because I knew everything I drew from that moment on would be a whole other level of art. That's how I feel right now. I haven't gone out and bought a new sketch book yet though. Just filling up the one I've still got. It's going to be a while before I can post any of the stuff I'm working on right now. It's a secret. Heh. But I assure you - you'll be just as stoked as I am.

Art classes - Head drawing class was a little frustrating again. I couldn't get my mind focused. Was antsy and distracted most of the night. But I did have a very important realization about how to do the tonal drawings. I realized that I'm supposed to shade in layers instead of spotting tones - the way I usually do it. There's only 5 gradients that we use in tonal drawing, basically white to grey to black. And you're supposed to make one complete pass with the tone over the drawing in order to get a consistent natural feel to it. But spotting tones the way I've always done it leaves a somewhat patchy, inorganic feel to it. So it was an important realization.


Other than that, the model was really tough to draw. Very difficult angles, and I couldn't get Adolf Hitler out of my head when I was drawing him, lol. So I did my best, but left about 30 minutes early to get some drawings done in my sketchbook before bed. Here's some of the teachers' examples.


The other cool thing about this class was that I actually started talking more to the other artists and I met one guy that worked at Legoland a few years ago. He also started taking classes at the Atelier about 4 years ago and about a year ago he started teaching here. He said he had almost no anatomy/figure drawing experience when he started here. Just lots of conceptual design skills. I get the feeling I'm about the level he was when he started. And from talking with a lot of the other artists, it seems like 4 out of 5 in this class already work professionally in the Gaming industry. I didn't even realize how many video game companies there were out here. But this is a booming industry here. It would seem San Diegos' little boom could be attributed almost exclusively to the talent coming out of the Atelier.

On a related note - I am recanting any and all recommendations I've ever made for the Arts Institutes (excluding CalArts Burbank - that one's still amazing). Since I've been here I have not heard a single good thing about AI. And every portfolio/sketchbook I've seen from artists going there is woefully weak. It doesn't matter what CGI/3d skills you get from AI - it won't do you a damn bit of good without figure drawing and 2d. But yet I see student after student pouring $60 - $70'000 into an AI degree that won't even get them the skills they don't even know they need. Half the students at Watts are former AI students. I wouldn't say AI is a total waste of time - but it's definitely not the best road to go.

The pervasive theme I feel - and see with other students - at Watts is that of relief. It's that feeling that you finally know you're on the right track. Whereas before I always wondered if I was doing it right, or not quite sure what to do. There's no wondering now. I know what I'm doing. And it's just a matter of time and follow through before the magic starts to happen.

INTRO TO TONAL DRAWING

Intro to Tonal drawing was a lot of fun. We started into the figure today. I'm pretty excited about that. Just like with the head we're basically just jumping into drawing the figure from pictures without any real instruction. And next week we'll start learning about the rhythm's of the figure and anatomy and proportions. I was pretty happy with my drawing in class, especially with how the face came out. But now that I look at it shrunk down on the screen I see all sorts of problems. Especially those enormous clod-hoppers. But I think it's a much better start than what I did when I started this class. I really had fun experimenting with layering the tones. I'm starting to get an idea of how it works.


After class was pretty incredible. I snuck into one of the other classrooms to see what they were working on. It was an anatomy class. They go into all the muscles of the body in intricate detail. I'm really excited to take that next time around if they have it. Jeff Watts was sitting at one of the boards demonstrating the musculature of the arm. It was incredible seeing him draw. I've never seen anything like it. He even broke the figure down the way they teach in the Bridgeman book. It finally made sense to me. And not just, oh I get it - more like WHY didn't I get that BEFORE!!! Man I have so much to learn. I left so totally inspired. I can't even imagine what I'll be drawing like after 3 or 4 years of classes like this. The best part was hearing him talk about applying this drawing style to comic book art. Hoo.

--Will

Legoland Photos - And Caricatures

I just had to share some of these photos of kids beating each other up. This isn't even the beginning. At one point there were like 15 kids whacking away at each other. I can't wait till summer to see scores and scores of kids bludgeoning each other with foam weapons.


And here's some new caricatures.


FULL ALBUM

My style seems to be getting a lot cleaner. I feel much more crisp when I'm drawing them. The eyes are starting to bother me though. I'm starting to realize just how much I draw eyes the same. Problem is, time after time, parents have told me that's the best part about my drawings. So I'm worried about messing with the magic. I guess it will come in time.

--Will

Atelier - Photos

I took apart my camera tonight and futzed with it till I got the Lens motor working again, then put it back together and it seems to work now. Hopefully it will last a while longer. I missed being able to take pictures. Anyways, I took a pic of that final drawing I did the other night in my art class. I'm really digging on this. Can't wait to do more drawings.



--Will

Legoland

Worked at Legoland for the first time today. It wasn't too bad. I really enjoyed working there. Very laid back, and cool atmosphere. Today I was at Castle, where the knights and stuff like that are. For me, it's just a fun place to be. And the booth across from me sells all the foam swords, shields and armor for kids. So I get to watch kids duel to bloody death all day long. Nothing like parents promoting the nerf protected bludgeoning of their offspring.

The only downside was how slow it was today. News people reported that it was going to rain today - turned out to be 78 and sunny all day long - that's a shocker. It's been 78 and sunny all but two days I've been here. But it was enough to kill our traffic. And besides that they're installing a new ride on one end of the park so the main path to Castle is blocked off. So that really hinders traffic as well. So I only made $120. Goal was $500. But at least it wasn't just me.

In other news I was the top seller of all the caricature artists at Seaworld Tuesday and Wednesday. Stoked. Too bad it was so slow, I'd feel more inclined to brag about it. But still, it's something I'm proud of.

Three weeks till Memorial day - that's when traffic is supposed to get steady again. For Legoland and Seaworld. Just have to deal with it till then. Hopefully I can capitalize on the lull. I'm trying to arrange my schedule and my mind to get a good amount of personal work done in the mean time. I want to finish one of my projects before June 1st. But I'll update that later on.

--Will

Quatro De Mayo

Tomorrow is Cinco De Mayo - and we all know what that means! It means today is QUATRO de Mayo... El Birtday Del Bastard Magnifico. Luis Estrada. Happy Birthday bud. Sorry I couldn't get this in the mail to you. Maybe I can give it to you when you come out for Comic-Con.



--Will

Atelier - Week Four

This was the best and worst week so far for me at the school. Monday's class was awful. I was so frustrated I left a half hour early. Almost left way before that. I just wasn't getting it. I kept trying to apply what I'd learned the week before and it just wasn't working. So the entire class was very frustrating to me. I left mumbling to myself about how I was going to commit to drawing 100 drawings EVERY day and get 1000 drawings done before taking another class. Crazy BS frustrated rant. I think I really just needed a nap. Cause I felt better today.

So I went out and bought a 3-ring binder and some plastic sleeves to organize all the handouts I've been getting for class. That made me feel a little better too. Then I went in to the Intro to Tonal drawing class today with new vigor and optimism. It went fantastic. I started into the five minute sketches using all the techniques I was supposed to and it worked perfectly. It's freaking incredible to me how if you just follow the instructions step by step and use your eye to apply what you see to the steps, it almost always works out perfectly. Or at least close enough to give you a great start. After the five-minute sketches the teachers did a demo and I paid very close attention to the steps to make sure I was doing them correctly. Then we started into the final pose (2 hour - 6 x 20 minutes) and I started going through the motions and it worked. Looked just like her, and best of all I wasn't rushing anything. It was easy to do it right finally.

After the third break I went to go sharpen my pencil and I mentioned to the teacher that I thought I was starting to get it and he laughed and said "I'll say!" Lol. Pretty enthusiastic. Eventually after I started getting to the end of the drawing I asked for a critique on the way I was rendering and he gave me some good insight into how to lay down the tones better. I can't wait for my next drawing to apply that too.

I really, really, really wish I could show you the final drawing, but like I mentioned earlier - I have camera no more. Sucks. Anyways, next week we start learning about drawing the figure.

--Will

Caricatures

I've had some sort of major breakthrough with my caricatures lately. I am almost certain it is due to what I've been learning in the Watts classes. Something finally clicked the other day when a friend of mine at the park was showing me some tips on coloring with the color sticks. Funny enough, right after she showed me, I look down and there's a bumble bee sitting on my coat sleeve. At first I was freaking out, then she reached down and let it walk onto her sleeve and then set it free. Apparently bees represent wisdom and understanding. Based on the work I've been doing since then I would have to concur.

It's all starting to come together much better now. Cleaner lines, less sketchiness, more exaggeration. And I'm all together much more comfortable with the process. I really feel like I have an edge on most artists. My frustration for years was having to give Mom's there money back because the kids didn't look like the drawings. And it was my money, not some corporation. Much more humilating to have to give it back up. So I made it a discipline to learn how to draw likenesses well. It's really paying off now. I get a LOT of special requests from people. I've heard several times from customers that they've watched artists all over the park and like my stuff the best. Or at least that it usually looks like who I'm drawing. It seems to be 3 or 4 times a day now. I thought it was a fluke the first few times but I'm getting it more and more now.

Anyways, here's some new samples...




Unfortunately... there will be no more samples for some time. My camera finally stopped working tonight. It doesn't even turn on anymore. Poor little thing's been busted, dropped, drenched and worn beyond what most cameras could ever endure. I've even been using it the last month without a lens. I guess it was just time to give out. I don't know how long it'll be before I can come up with the $150 some odd spare bucks for another one. Honestly I don't know how I'll deal with not being able to capture moments regularly the way I'm used to. But it is as it is.

--Will