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Last week I whipped up a little identity starter kit for my friend, Christian McDaniel, a talent dynamo and super nice guy whose dream in life is to develop wonderful entertainment and creative activities for kids. For his web site, we decided to go with a banner design that can feature changing themes and various kid created coolness in the ink-blot blurb area. (I used my beloved blob brush to draw the logo in Illustrator, and drew the mocked in kid-drawn images with the pencil tool in InDesign.)

Christian wanted his business card to be a tip of the hat to one of his personal heroes. I won’t mention the person’s name, but if you recognize the reference, Christian will be delighted.

When he’s not laying foundations for his kid-centric production studio or working on his children’s book, Christian is recording cartoon voice-overs and writing/performing in improv, sketch comedy, radio dramas, puppet theatre and children’s theatre. He was hilariously convincing as Fudge in the Equinox Theatre Company’s matinee of “Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing.”

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Yet he still finds time to drive a fork lift and play video games. Now that’s my kind of client!

In this case, the Montana State University College of Agriculture was looking for help in pulling together a branded annual report publication to reach out to alumni, tell success stories and recognize their staff, students and supporters. Since I had worked as a publications editor for MSU in the late 90s and early 2000s, I was familiar with MSU’s brand and Montana’s ag audience, so I decided to take the project on.

Looking over past reports, which were chock full of perfectly good writing from the MSU News Service but rather choppy to read, I suggested running larger photos and creating a narrative through-line to help guide readers through the huge document. (I don’t expect readers to devour a publication like this cover to cover: If they look at the pictures, skim headlines and get the right overall impression, I’m happy. If a couple captions draw their attention enough to read the articles that go with them, even better!)

As much as I tried to rein in this bulky publication, my effort is still pretty darn dense. I did a series of interviews with featured scientists and wrote 18 assigned stories. I shot for a correctly institutional tone, but tried to balance that with a reasonably warm voice, since the readers are “family.” Starting with a dearth of recent ag background knowledge and rusty writing skills, it took time to get up to speed. Looking back, I wish I’d made the stories shorter and the font bigger (I never thought I’d say those words). It is just so hard to cut stories down once you see how excited the scientists are about them! A good editor is truly a blessing.

Design-wise, I continued to use a curve (loosely drawn from the MSU logo) consistent with the style of previous reports, but I trimmed down the color palette and tried to accentuate section breaks to organize the content into manageable chunks.

The MSU photographer, Kelly Gorham (who does great work) wasn’t available, so it was a bit of a scramble to get brand-appropriate photographs. I did get to use some of Kelly’s photos, but thank goodness for my friend, photographer Meggan Carrigg Davidson, who came in and did some smash-up shooting on short notice.

Overall, I’m not absolutely blushing with pride over the layout, but on the other hand, I feel pretty good that I got it done on time.     …or at all, for that matter!

A PDF  of the report is online at the MSU College of Agriculture’s Website.

I can’t imagine having more fun working on an illustration project. Erin, the artistic director at Equinox was the most cooperative and appreciative client I’ve ever worked with. Granted, I’m donating my time (not the copyrights to the images though, I’m not THAT generous!) but sometimes people who are getting the work for free are even pickier than regular clients — my mom for instance…

The play runs Fridays and Saturdays Feb. 10-11, 17-18 and 24-25 in Bozeman.

Rather than having an opening reception (ick!) I decided to organize a community event to take place in February at the Flying C: Bozeman’s first-ever Valentine Ukulele Open Mic and Play-Along. It’s slated for 5-7pm on Monday, Feb. 13.

Yikes! What was I thinking? I hope some people who can play ukulele come. The thing that clinched the deal was that Ryan Cassavaugh of the Equinox Theatre and other points of coolness agreed to help me out with the scary parts of the event, like setting up the sound and talking into a microphone. Hoo boy. Anyway, I’ve always dreamed of getting a bunch of ukulele players together for fun, so this is my dream, gonna happen! I am not very good at all on the uke, but I’m one of those sots who believes that’s the beauty of the instrument: instant forgiveness. Not that I expect any real musicians to forgive me. But I know in my heart that my ukulele does.

And in other news, I’m still crunching along on my illustrations for the “Origin of Love scene in the upcoming Equinox production of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” (which I STILL think sounds like the title of a children’s puppet show). This project continues to be ultra-super-uber fun to work on.

So, with three projects underway that all revolve around mushy stuff, you’d think I might be obsessed with love, or something. Actually, the irony is that I’m one of those non-demonstrative winces-when-hugged people. I’m not really that mushy as a rule. I mean, I like love… What’s not to like?

I love projects where you can just jump in and go!

This segment finishes up the part where the gods and goddesses are wreaking havoc.

These are all drawn on my Wacom Cintiq in a 9×12″ Photoshop document at 300dpi. I’m using the same texture from an oil painting for all of the backgrounds. The pen lines are a 9 pixel brush. It would be easy to animate these images, since everything is in layers, but I don’t think that’s planned for this production.

I have to keep reminding myself that these pictures are supposed to look like they could have been drawn by a nine-year-old boy. (I figure he can be a very special boy who draws a bit like a 48-year-old woman, though.)

So, I tried to channel my inner 9-year-old boy a bit in this segment, which is particularly evident with all the blood in the whale scene. (That mean Zeus!) I got a little bummed for a while that the figures looked too cartoony and not naive enough, but I just charged ahead and tried to turn up the naivete a notch.

I also tried an option with lined paper in the background to imply that our hero/ine/ish drew these in a spiral notebook. Not sure that’s really worth the bother, though. Some notebook paper background on the initial slide would probably be enough to get the idea across.

Well, I’m having a great time drawing them, even if she hates them! I used a texture from one of my “14 Love Stories” drawings as the background, and am recoloring it using the hue/saturation controls (and some overlays) in Photoshop for the different illustrations.

Here’s a link to the Equinox Theatre’s website. The show opens Feb 10, 2010.

I decided to title the series “14 Love Stories.” The drawings will be on display at the Flying C Cafe in Bozeman in February.

What drawing #14 means is that I have now completed the minimum number of drawings to hang, so I have nearly two weeks to mess around and really have fun.

Of course, I was having fun all along, but now the pressure is off, so I feel more free. Today I worked on a drawing #15, and it felt great!

I decided to use grid lines to make the sketch go faster. I used a cream colored Prismacolor to draw the grid, so I hope I’m not committing some cardinal art sin, mixing Prismacolor with oil stick. Will the drawing spontaneously disintegrate at some point?

I had to force myself to go on after the initial sketch, because I really loved the way it looked as just lines.

I also liked it at the partially colored stage. Once again, I was tempted to quit right there. And maybe sometime I’ll do some drawings like that. But not yet. I love the way the daisies in the vase look like something out of a 1920s poster.

The third image shows where I stopped for today, but I think I’ll do a bit more tomorrow. I do sort of like the stage two version better than the third stage, but I don’t feel like quitting while I’m ahead quite yet. I can do that anytime.

Next is the under-painting and first stage drawing of a couple who I imagine are a teenager and his aunt, maybe dancing to the radio at Christmas time. I am happy that this is quite a bit looser than some of my previous drawings. I can’t decide yet whether to leave well enough alone with their faces, or color them in a less wacky skin tone, but I do think I’ll tighten up the hands a bit once it dries a bit. Right now they’re too confusing.

My regular freelance work is picking up again, so there’s less time for drawing. Isn’t it funny how when you have “real” work to do, it makes you want to do other projects more than ever? In college, when I was supposed to be reading a text book, I found that reading a novel was more delicious than ever. I must be some kind of sicko, enjoying free time most when it’s stolen from some other obligation. Or is everybody that way?

I kind of like the apron and the grass, and the weird out of perspective sofa bed frame on the porch. I'm kinda bummed with the monochromatic cartooniness of their faces, but I figure at this size, I'll be happy if I can represent expressions at all. Yes, the lady's legs look weird. I accept that.

I’m about 14 drawings into my “love” series now, and you’d think maybe I’d be learning something by now. Every now and then I see little snippets of things that I like and occasionally I catch myself in the midst of a mistake so fundamental that it makes me actually want to slow down and think before I act. So, I guess maybe that constitutes learning.

For example, on my first couple of drawings, I just started drawing with black oil stick on the white canvas board, then filled in around it with color. I actually like that effect, and I think it tends to produce the “super awesome coloring book” look that I wish I’d end up with. But I soon discovered that it was a pain in the ass (and I felt dumb) when I drew a tree and had to try to fill in the sky behind it. So I started doing colored grounds. Planning ahead! Novel! Then I realized that it was kind of a waste of ground color if I covered it up entirely, so I have started trying to block in darks and lights a bit at the ground stage.

I love this photo, but so far I do not like this drawing. Right now it looks like a bad drawing of children that somebody's aunt made. Oh, crap. I AM somebody's aunt!

On this “sisters” picture (still unfinished) I sketched in white instead of black. It seemed to undermine my ultimate goal of drawing FLATTER, so I don’t think I’ll do that again. The car behind the girl distracts from the image, but I feel compelled to tell the truth in these drawings from vintage photos. It’s partly the composition, or apparent lack of it, that I want to… What… Capture? Honor? Document? How can I say it without sounding too phony? I see the irony: Why am I making drawings if making a good looking drawing doesn’t come before representing the photo? Why not just show the photos? Well, partly because I’m afraid nobody would hang the photos. And partly because I need the drawing practice.

It seems like a lot of the drawings that I’m doing right now are somewhere between flat and shaded. I still can’t seem to make the leap away from modeling with shading (I know, I keep saying that!) but as soon as I’m done with the first 14 drawings (14, for Valentine’s Day) I’m gonna go WILD, I swear!

Where do I begin? There may be nothing in this drawing that I like! Well, I kind of like her expression. It does tell a story, if you can get past everything else. Oh, and I like the right park bench leg.

Meanwhile, I know I ought to give up on this park bench picture and move on. I have repainted the lady’s face at least 5 times (I even scraped it off with a palette knife) and while she looks less like a baboon now (at one point I considered adding a tail and calling it done), her skin tone is completely different than the guy’s. I can’t seem to make myself repaint the guy to match her because I like the way the warmth of the ground color comes through on him, in spite of the fact that it makes him look like he has been using a cut-rate spray-on tanning product. So I am stuck at an impasse with Oompa Loompa Man and Pancake Girl. I realize that this drawing just an outright failure, and it will continue to bug me like a pea under my mattress.

What is the lesson? It’s not like I don’t know this: Don’t get attached. Sometimes you have to sacrifice something you like for the greater good. For example, if you’re a writer, you know that you might have written a great sentence, but if it doesn’t flow, it’s gotta go. You just have to whack it out of the paragraph and have faith that you’ll write another good sentence some day.

My friend, writer Mike Harrelson, was telling me just a couple days ago something that David Quammen said to him: not to measure yourself by the highest peaks of your work, but by the lowest thing that you’re willing to put out there. Or, at least I think that’s what he said… something like that. I think he meant that DOING it is the thing, like everybody says (and to which I’m clinging with all my might).  …that if you only are willing to show your very best work, you probably won’t show very MUCH work. Or maybe you’re not really a writer at all. Or at least that’s what I came away with.

So I give you park bench people. And I’m saying, “Dude, it’s the PROCESS.”