* House of Many Colors *

Flooby Nooby: Pear Cider and Cigarettes - Robert Valley

2012-01-14T17:15:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, you all know the maestro of maverix Robert Valley. What's he been up to lately?

Flooby Nooby: Pear Cider and Cigarettes - Robert Valley: I'm very happy that Robert Valley is (at last) making a new independent animated short-film. You can follow the production on his blog , ...

How did I miss this short film?

2012-01-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

Must have been napping in 2008, when this was first released.

Directed by Clément Soulmagnon, Yann Benedi, Sébastien Eballard & Quentin Chaillet - Copyright Supinfocom 2008

Browsing Vimeo -- pleasantly suprised. There's an intriguing directorial style here.
Note the way camera is used, the way the frame can be literal or emotional,
Figurative or abstract imagery connected by the thread of the story.
Hope to see more from this crew.

Tuareg Shaman

2011-11-16T01:12:00.000-08:00

It's fun to take old drawings and see if you can wring some new life out of them. It hadn't occurred that there was such an interesting shape there, while it remained a line drawing. But usually, if I get the costume how I see it, I lose track of the proportions I'm working with, but if I overthink it I'll never post , so here y'go.

Swords and sandals adventure anyone? How 'bout the Kalahari Desert for a set-piece?

I want to incorporate the flowing power of this kind of fabric into the use of magic, somehow, but in practice, it eludes a brother.

Ah, whimsy.

Magical Creatures

2011-11-12T21:25:00.000-08:00

My students had to create new versions of a mythical being this past week. In the spirit of class, I did one myself.For some reason the name that came to mind was LeFauna.

Bullroarers and recent mindmaps

2011-11-09T23:03:00.000-08:00

Hadron Smashes Through Door to New Era in Physics

Mar 30, 2010 ... CERN first tried to create quark-gluon plasma in the 1980s, and the results led it to announce indirect evidence for a new state of matter in 2000 ...

Chatbot, Chatbots - Artificial Intelligence
Are you ready to chat with an Artificial Intelligence (AI)? I am glad to have you as a visitor today and hope that you're ready to talk to a chatbot (that would be me! ...

I
In the West we know this instrument as a thumb piano or kalimba, but in its native country of Africa it as called mbira, sansa, , malimba, neikembe, or ikembe. It is both a sacred and secular instrument to the Shona, Bantu, Meru, Gogo, and Soga cultures. Used to contact ancestors and tribal guardians, chase away harmful spirits, weather control, cure illness, and impart a strong life force.

Self-awareness describes the condition of being aware of one's awareness. It is the awareness that one exists as an individual being.

Human:are you dave the ESL bot?
Bot:Yes I am DAVE E.S.L. bot.
Human:what is your surname?
Bot:E. S. L. Bot
Human:and your first name?
Bot:My first name is DAVE.
Human:no what is your first name?
Bot:Are you serious? DAVE.
Human:okay, what does dave stand for?
Bot:Yeah okay, DAVE = Dynamic Advanced Version Equipment.

Mass hysteria! Science world buzzing over rumours the elusive 'God particle' has finally been found

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Bullroarer:

Dogon use bullroarers to announce the beginning of ceremonies...

Known as the 'voice of God' to the Australian Aborigines and given to the males of the Clan at naming ceremonies or other auspicious occasions. Used as a 'talk back switch' to the Creator. To sound a Bullroarer it is swung lasso style which causes it to spin and make a 'humming type' sound. It is called by several different names including 'Burliwarni','Ngurrarngay',and 'Muypak'. They were used to display sacred symbols and sounded to warn the uninitiated that they were being shown. They were also used to send animals into ambush, and to alert one tribe of anothers presence, and in rainmaking ceremonies.

Three new experiments running on CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), ALICE,^[5] ATLAS and CMS, will continue studying properties of QGP. Starting in November 2010, CERN temporarily ceased collidingprotons, and began colliding lead Ions for the ALICE experiment. They were looking to create a QGP. They were expected to stop December 6, and return to colliding protons in January.^[6] Within the first week of colliding these lead ions, the LHC appears to have created multiple quark-gluon plasmas with temperatures in the tens of trillions of degrees.

Self-awareness describes the condition of being aware of one's awareness. It is the awareness that one exists as an individual being.

The music my son and his band have created

2011-11-07T14:17:00.000-08:00

I'm reeling with the strange effects of time on my parental self. Accelerated growth of the offspring is a commonly experienced phenomena, but lets face it -- you can't imagine it properly till you been through it personally. So the boy is SEVEN somehow, some way, and what's more- he's kicking off his music education with an amazing program called Rockland Band, in SF. They rehearse at the venerable Verde Club, where the walls get rocked all week with the many different youthful bands they form each session of Rockland's calender.

Makai's band name? The Galloping Caterpillars. What else?

And the music Makai and his ten or so band-mates come up with under the guidance of Brian Gorman and Marcus Stoesz, among others, is truly inspiring. There's a story under each unique song written in the classes, and.. well -- Oh, let me shut up and play this video -- Look for him on drums and whatnot...

Here's a link to the song itself, Mrs. Beluchiz, which is playing over this video's montage. The offspring is now back for the Fall/Winter session, loving it. New band name, Tigers in the Tomb!

pencil scan, then digital color

2011-08-26T18:40:00.000-07:00

Coming to the final two or three in a little series of sketches. I'll keep working toward a better integration of texture and line in the illustration technique. The rest I'll leave to chance and whimsy.

Glad to be moving into the school year, looking forward to seeing all my students on campus. Just finished a storyboard gig for an amazing product at a very interesting branding and motion graphics studio, WESTERNIZED full of talented people on some real positive vibrations.

So there's a new class in my schedule at the Cca: Senior Project class. I get to mentor seniors toward their final projects before graduation. Some of these kids are Modelers, some cg Animators, some 2d Filmakers in training, so I get a good variety of challenges to help with. Should be a hoot.

After a couple more model posts, I'll start updating this blog with the latest Cca related projects I have on the art desk, as well as

Pencils and paper

2011-08-11T12:01:00.001-07:00

So much to catch up with -- so little time to post...

2011-06-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

I know it’s been a while since I posted sketches and scribbles and whatnot. I’ve kinda felt like I needed something more “something”, than what my sketch life has had to offer of late. Such a wide range of thoughts, ideas and preoccupations show up on paper I often get a little stuck without a context or pretext to post things under.

So, I’m just going to stick things up with no real rhyme or reason rather than sit on everything in a state of indecision. The perfect is the enemy of the good, after all. Enjoy some un-filtered scribbles and stuff.

doodling faces w pen & marker

I must admit it’s tough to catch up with all the stuff I’d like to share in this space. I’ve got a quite a backlog to get online. The summer months are sucking time away like there’s no tomorrow.

Those of you with kids understand the challenge of just getting to the desk with purpose and a plan (outside of work assignments) amidst the self-generated storm of one’s own parenting-life. Makai is going to be in the second grade in just a couple MONTHS. Wait -- let me say that again, and try to make myself believe it: Our kid, Makai will be in SECOND grade! Hokey- smokes on a Rope, how did it happen? My amazing crazy nephews are like actual young-men… Actual movers and shakers in their respective cultural milieu, how did all this happen?

As you may know, I made a commitment in 2009 to do something to bring more art education to school age children locally. With some help and support from the amazing people at 826 Valencia I’ve put together my first art-workshop for kids 6 to 10 years old in visual-storytelling and cartooning.

At the moment I’m preparing to launch the new workshop, and hopefully develop it for the SF after-school market. The program is being edited and I’m practicing my pitch to schools and parents everywhere. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. More info soon…

Sketchbook ball-point doodlings

I’ve also joined a weekly Taiko Drum session that’s fueling the soul with Beats I need to live. I’ve always loved Taiko, and now I get a chance to ask all my silly old questions about the cultural bits and -- most importantly-- to hit stuff really hard and make a beautiful noise in the La Mission.

Makai has always sung with lots of heart and is very tuneful, even dreaming up little ditties off the dome. Around the house he’s a regular songbird.

(Sometimes he’ll even let Pop beat-box backup) So he’s going start rocking in a great music program this season, so I better get the recording gear out. For Makai, this summer seems to be all about Pokemon trades and razor scooters and a fort in Glenn canyon somewhere. We had so much fun at Silvertree camp watching all the kids perform on the outdoor stage, beneath the canopy of trees and cloudy sky. Makai got to have a raw egg cracked on his head, which needless to say made his whole week. Ah, camp.

The boy is teaching me a great deal about drawing and having fun. Look at this piece he knocked out. Everything is there!

But Seven is also a challenging time of life.

He finds himself at the branching point between being a child -- with all it’s softer moods, it’s total dependence upon grownups, and the more awkward role of being a “young-boy”, carving out his identity a little bit more every day. Being taller than everybody his own age gives him privileged access to the secret worlds of the “older kids” at his summer program, who receive him as one of their own, and corrupt his hungry mind with whatever ten year olds happen to be fixated on this minute.

Mind you, my body sweats, my hands tremble even writing that fact down. Let’s face it, if Poppa had his ‘druthers, we would keep him “small & protected” for a few months or even years more… I so loved my little bundle of wide-eyed curiosities and innocent assumptions about the nature of reality. I dread the onset of grade-school competitiveness, ego and self-awareness that growing up is bringing all too fast. I remember all of it too well from my own school years. Makai has said as soon as he’s knowledgeable enough for the project, he will build Allison and I our own Time-Machine, and allow us to re visit him in his early years! Meanwhile his eye is on the sparrow: onward and upward, to ‘tweenhood and beyond!!

something from the BART travel sketchbook.

Teaching over at CCA in Oakland has been an experience. The school has been so supportive and positive, and recently tapped me to add another class to my week. Next term I’ll be the Senior Project professor in Animation, so we’ll see how that class shapes up. We didn’t have such a class period in my CalArts experience, so I’ll be curious to see in what ways I can help students larger projects in their final year of art-school. A new adventure. Aside from that, it's the great freelance-chase. Just finishing the new fashion-illustration folio to send to print art-directors this summer, while getting notes from the comic project. Chipping away... one stone at a time.

Alright - I gotta go fill up some waterpistols for a little melee out back. Till next post, have fun. It's Summer, you know!

ONE- Fundraiser for relief efforts in Japan

2011-03-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

I am humbled, once again, to be in the company of great artists using their talents to make a difference in the world. If you are in the Bay Area this Saturday, 4/2, please come to the art auction at Super Frog Gallery in Japantown in SF. Wonderful people, great art and the opportunity to contribute to an important cause.

ひとつ（"HITOTSU") means "One" which is the first number of all, but also means "United" in Japanese. Our action might be a little "one" to start with, but we can get together and become "ONE" to make a difference.

SuperFrog , Maverix and ArtistsHelpJapan are donating 100% of all proceeds to Artists Help Japan Fund with Mercy Corps.

More info on the Maverix blog here:

http://maverixstudios.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-post.html

Story time - playing with a visual narrative

2011-01-30T15:55:00.000-08:00

With much to learn, a bit of Boards practice. I'll be generating a bunch of these over the months, posting them as well. Seems like the best way for me to kind of warm up and tune my instrument for this particular craft. I'm going to start out with silent scenarios and work my way up to Dialogue bits from great film favorites out of my collection.

"Celebrate Fishbone! Brilliance I grew up with, which may explain some things...

2010-12-08T11:23:00.000-08:00

So much going on, I'm sketchless..

2010-12-04T18:02:00.000-08:00

Just some sketches to get the juices flowing today. Weather and holidays slowing down my postage, but I hope yours is going amazingly well.

Coming up, as soon as I get all my grading done -- Sketchbooking on the Bart line to Oakland!

This is a daydream. Right now, the ehough seems quiet. Soon it will have more to say. Maybe a story or moment emerges from these ideas.

The Picture Book Project - Art Block Finished!

2010-11-01T16:13:00.000-07:00

Click on picture for Details

Back to the markers

2010-10-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

Before I revise the dress & the arms/hands. Maybe a young Juju acolyte? Gris-Gris Girl?

Photographer Malick_Sidibé

2010-10-08T22:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.brixpicks.com/malick-sidibe-a-11485.html#more-11485 Malick_Sidibé
Ya gotta go look at more of his stuff. The guy captured a delicious moment in Bamako history.
Great document and ode to global style movements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malick_Sidibé

ButterBean my Boy

2010-09-27T15:46:00.001-07:00

Six and 1/2 and shy, but full of mischief of a magical kind. Always open, yet kind of a mystery, reminding me at times of the young narrator of Ben Okri's incredible novel, The Famished Road , which has had such an impact on my work for maybe 15 years, now. Sometimes my son reminds me of Azaro, the young Ibiku boy, for whom being born was a disruption of his contented spirit existence. A kid like many of us, starting out ambivilant about this thing called "being human". He loves to make you laugh. Salt of the Earth.

Big Things Are rising up to meet you

2010-09-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

working currently on this cover image for a labor of love comic set in the oasis universe. Trying to step back a minute, and think about how to keep the streaks of moonlight crisp as I figure out those trees...

First Avenue Machine -Surreal & flavorful.

2010-08-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

How I see robots and AI in the future. We all know it's coming. Look, At some point we'll get over making them look like our favorite old movies, and just GROW our computers, gadgets, robot nannies, in the lab.

Real future talk? Bender is out. Robbie is out. Even Data and the Replicants will not be. So, when I sketch crazy ass robot designs mine just go all organic.

Asimov must have thought of it... Nanotech? Quantum Computing? Bioengineers live up the street from me in the Mission. Cuzz the smartest life form on earth is a fungus, maybe, and after that plant life.

Go check out the stuff from 1st Ave Machine; Director: Arvind Palep. They're thinking like Ed on this!

Watch their stuff here: Example - 1st Avenue Machine video

1st Ave Machine: Clark / Ted from strange|beautiful on Vimeo.

2010-08-09T14:33:00.001-07:00

Latest color, working from scans.

2010-08-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have to try stuff. I like to find palletes that work for a painting by thumb-nailing it in the mac. Sometimes occasional lines of action, and compositional opportunities arise. Then I'm in trouble, scrambling to find a surface I can hit with paint that fits my format. But I err on the side of letting a picture call the shots. Mostly. Next step would be a more serious pass at the left corner group and the stairs... Then final value choices, but those are better worked out on the painted piece, eh?

characters i gotta paint

2010-08-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

Daily color

2010-07-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

Practice. I had fun combining custom brush and plain pen strokes.

2010-07-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

Itching to get back to Canvas.

2010-07-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, there she is.

2010-07-14T14:37:00.001-07:00

Back into fast color.

2010-07-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

What a summer it has been. Flash training, Stay-cation in SF with the youngster. Neighborhood block parties, the demolition of a great old hospital on the block... discovering world cup madness for myself...

The youngin' is on his way to the first grade -- and we still haven't gotten used to this... But I know I'll be proud to see him go in that classroom and make himself at home (hopeful) this late August. I seem to be back on track with my Calendar project, with 12 plates roughed out, it won't be too long before I'm doing final color on a big batch.

Meantime, here's a color frame I did as I ran a few tests on some brushes I've created for finishing pieces in ps.

Sorry my blogs are going through some minor changes, which I haven't worked out yet. -one-love!

2010-06-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

Fractal Computing with nature...

2010-06-08T22:53:00.000-07:00

A.I. huh?

A lot of people in the world of science and tech are putting in late hours in the pursuit of this kind of Grail- like goal called "Artificial Intelligence". I knew if we were building a sci-fi world, we had to come to some kind of terms with this trope. I looked at the research for a while, then got terribly side tracked upon finding something more interesting along the way. The "something" I stumbled upon became the basis for the world building in our oasis project.

Like I said, this got me going. Since 2005, when it came onto my radar, Ethnocomputing, and the merging of indigenous human culture, and computation itself. Peep this, though:

Ethnocomputing is the study of the interactions between computing and culture. Indigenous computing: In some cases, ethnocomputing "translates" from indigenous culture to high tech frameworks: for example, analyzing the African board game Owari as a one dimensional cellular automaton.

From the ethnocomputing perspective, no computational technology is culturally "neutral," and no cultural practice is a computational void. Instead of considering culture to be a hindrance for software engineering, culture should be seen as a resource for innovation and design.

Interactive software: simulate African designs, create your own patterns, and learn about fractal mathematics

I love the way this direction of thought begs the question: What if those who were never given the keys to high-technology suddenly found that they were now the ONLY people with access to the global database, that great neural network of human ideas and beliefs we all contribute to daily? How would this occur? What would it mean?

Somebody once wrote that any technology far enough removed from what we know, would be indistinguishable from magic. For an animator, a born dreamer, that's all they had to tell me.

Geomantic instrument, Egypt or Syria, 1241-1242 CE, made by Muhammad ibn Khutlukh al Mawsuli. When turning the dials, random designs of dots would appear, which were then interpreted

Folk Machines of the Mad Future!

2010-06-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so lots of you may have heard this diatribe before, as I spent around 3 years researching and knocking around these ideas with my brothers over at Maverix studio, but for those I never got to regale with the story: a new kind of world view emerged from the process, one I had not found any way to interpret through a personal prism, though I'd seen it expressed by other minds I admire.

When I dream there's a place where technology looks alot like folk-art and handicrafts. As in the past, we become attached to our tools, rely on them to remind us of our meanings and not just our ambitions. In the dreamstate, we don't program our machines in the abstract, with numeric commands. Instead, we mold and shape it directly, by hand and heart. The sweetest piece of code, the most effective design, can only be the result of the most dedicated focus, the most intense curiosity, the most personal vision ( for whatever is being designed) for it's ultimate function.

My beloved maternal grandmother, Lucille Pulliam made her way to California with the skills of a sewing instructor. She taught at a Women's Insitution, preparing women who's existence

had been criminalized, for a world in which there was no future without these now almost unheard of, folk technologies.

-textiles, pattern making, shaping, sewing, hemming, fastening, understanding fabrics as functional & crucial elements of everyone's life.

Remember, at one time, tailoring and clothes-making were as revolutionary, and world changing as any technology of post industrial life on earth.

But, in my dreams, people seem to always be using the old skills, the ancient crafting technologies that my waking world has nearly forgotten ( exp: shout-out to the craft movement, you guys rule) to shape reality itself. Here, people have discovered a functionally tactile interface with the world's "substance" , it's "there-ness".

Okay, I should interject I been reading this thinker named Teilhard de Chardin, and trying to find an artistic response to ideas that frankly captivate my imagination like very few philosophers have. Look at this from wikipedia --

Noosphere (pronounced /ˈnoʊ.ɵsfɪər/; sometimes noösphere), according to the thought of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, denotes the "sphere of human thought". The word is derived from the Greek νοῦς (nous "mind") + σφαῖρα (sphaira "sphere"), in lexical analogy to "atmosphere" and "biosphere".

In the original theory of Vernadsky, the noosphere is the third in a succession of phases of development of the Earth, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the emergence of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere. In contrast to the conceptions of the Gaia theorists, or the promoters of cyberspace, Vernadsky's noosphere emerges at the point where humankind, through the mastery of nuclear processes, begins to create resources through the transmutation of elements.

Snap!

Thinking of reality as having information content, data, code? How cool is that? See why my dreams are now full of these wigged out bio-machine creatures?

For Teilhard, the noosphere emerges through and is constituted by the interaction of human minds. The noosphere has grown in step with the organization of the human mass in relation to itself as it populates the earth. As mankind organizes itself in more complex social networks, the higher the noosphere will grow in awareness. This is an extension of Teilhard's Law of Complexity/Consciousness, the law describing the nature of evolution in the universe. Teilhard argued that the noosphere is growing towards an even greater integration and unification, culminating in the Omega point, which he saw as the goal of history. The goal of history, then, is an apex of thought/consciousness

If L. Frank Baum had been hip to the noosphere, would "Oz" have been any stranger? Maybe.

So, no wonder so much of the genre fiction novels I like seem to use this theoretical phenomena as a basis for fantastic universes and plotlines. It has such a mythic scope. It hangs in my consciousness and builds pictures and stories.

Blood Music is a science fiction novel by Greg Bear from 1986 I think. It deals with all my favorite issues around modern humanity: hemes including biotechnology, nanotechnology (including the grey goohypothesis), the nature of consciousness and of artificial intelligence.

Profile Playlist by Smokestack

2010-05-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

A rather smooth blend of true funk sound abounds here:

Profile Playlist by Smokestack

Let your ears guide you there. Big Ups Smokestack.

There and back.

2010-03-04T11:14:00.000-08:00

So many projects, so little week....

2010-02-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

Always at the crossroads between opportunity and insanity, I've gotten really busy lately with all the personal pieces, animation tests and learning new software to support all the work that needs to get done. Also, the folio has to be broken down into different versions for every potential client I want to give it to. It's been a slow burn into the year 2010, but this month and the next, I'll try to post a chunk of what's finished from the lab, and generally do better about updating and sharing more stuff with you all. The REVENANT ROAD comic adaptation is going well. Mr Boatman and I are set to meet up next month to review my complete thumnails for the book, and nail down the character designs, so I kin git into those panels.

The slower-than-molasses calendar of ancestors is still in progress, but seems to have fallen to a less urgent spot on the hit list of "To Do's". Getting Flash, Garage Band, Illustrator, Flipbook under my belt s an enjoyable process, for sure, and I love using all the tools Illustrator provides now to get our work into other workspaces, like Flash, and get layouts setup from digital illustrations so easily. Bravo, code geniuses! You've made every animator a studio in just a few quantum leaps. Amazing.

My only complaint is with my own distractibility, and unsteady focus. It's in my nature to jump around from technique to technique... Painting to drawing... Composition to dance idea. It's like learning to juggle ambitions, to lock in on the goal the way my producers used to. ( Yeah, guys like me used to survive by our producers, never doubt it...)

Challenge. I need to make a lot of progress to even be viable in this new marketplace in which I find myself. Can't get lost in the beauty of the thing we do, if I want to make a living at it. More to come.

Love Works

2009-12-12T11:37:00.000-08:00

Workin on pitches...

2009-12-08T20:59:00.000-08:00

Like this one. My buddy Michael is on point but there's still alot to do... Back to the table.

Good Thoughts & Great Tunes

2009-10-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

from my friends, the SWAMP SOUND SYSTEM

My good bud Colin Miller has been stirring your senses for years with a number of talents. Now, there's a fine hub for the creative activities of KALI, his sound collective of sharp minds and funky ideations.

I love it. Hope you will too! Go check out Kali and get lifted.

Their audio feed is podcast. Nice.

Latest Project: My own Calender!

2009-09-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Meet Gaia. Aka, Mother Earth. She's one in a new series of folk art figures that I'm printing as full-color calender -- producing for sale in October. GAIA appears in the calender as the month of"January".

This calender will be full of the gods, demons, orisas, and ancestral spirits that rattle around in my head all day - singing their songs...

It's been a busy month, but I'll return with a heap of artwork and ideas very soon.

2009-08-07T09:43:00.000-07:00

Gratitude

2009-07-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

"Into the Blank Where Life is Hurled,"

2009-06-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

cover for Starship Sofa. July Issue.

Mamase Mama mamakusa, mamase mamasa mamakusa...

2009-06-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

The great entertainer is gone. From earliest memories, he made me walk and think and dream, and sing and make images differently, and everyone around me. All of us together were imprinted with the most profound pride in our potentially endless creative energy, in a time when we had good reason to doubt ourselves.

In my tapestry of memory I cannot find a single lawyer or zoo animal or shadow or trace of the tragic anywhere near that shy young handsome entirely marvelous dude.

Time will flatten his narrative, and judge his walk in the world as a success.

I don't think this thread of thought is finished. The well runs deeper than I expected. We get older, find darker Princes to worship, in my musical landscape. But MJ is always a pulse you can hear in your chest wherever you go on the planet. MJ made me connect with strangers in foreign places, just by being there, on some shop speakers, bass heavy cinematic grooves calling down some gospel interconnectedness. I have no memory any longer of a glove, though. I grew up wanting to make Michael's feet become my feet. Studying the sharp determination on his face. Riding the boogie with that invisible girl he sang to. Love was still a honey sweet flavor in my future body. Romance's soundtrack has changed a lot since he and Quincy laid down the bedrock layer.

..."It's this magic in your eyes, and in my heart... Break of dawn..."

..."Lay back with me..."

..."There'll be no darkness tonight," Cuzz my love will light it right, right?

But it was more important for us first hip hop generation boys to romance his massive ambition. Our aspiration starts here with Ali Cosby and MJ. His swagger and focus onstage.Some kind of ethic of surpassing expectations. Wowing your audience. All the world is your stage, young man.

With that kind of love of self one could get oneself out of one's small town existence, one's perceived poverty of the good life. Just imagine yourself doing your thing the way Michael did his... And nothing could stop us

Everybody get up and moonwalk. Make the panels on your kitchen floor light up again. You know what what I'm talking about.

More to come. Love to hear your thoughts, impressions.

Starship Sofa Cover

2009-04-26T21:11:00.001-07:00

I love the Starship Sofa podcast, as I've said, so I did a cover for one of their stories that will be out in May. "Vinegar Peace" is the chilling story of a new kind of orphanage constructed by a State at war: An orphans' home for the PARENTS of soldiers lost in the ongoing hostilities "over there". The story makes the READER the protagonist, makes us gape in wonder at the way a society might compartmentalize it's widowed-- those beyond age of conception that is, into some kind of internment camp full of modern conveniences, and a clear message about how much meaning your life has to the State when young bodies have to renew the theater of battle year after year. I know, mad dark, right? But it's so full of emotional truths, absurd humor and awesome scifi inventiveness. The world the writer created here is so rich, inside the walls of Vinegar Peace. Please pop over and listen in a week or so if you like dreamlike, intelligent scifi, as I do.

2009-04-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

I want to recommend

Beautiful Muzik. Go See for yourself. Magic. Try a listen. Then, go to a show here in soulful SF.

The Starship Sofa.

2009-04-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hi all. Haven't updated in a while, and it's all good why. I'll be posting roughs for a piece I am finishing now, to accompany an amazing short sci-fi story on the great Starship Sofa and it's "Aural Delights" podcast.

More details to follow, as I want to post my thumbnails and rough stages along with the finished joint.

For now go check out my friend Tony C Smith's site, and download great audio fiction by the top Sci Fi writers out there currently. What a pleasure to create art for fiction like this.

2009-03-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

The Revenant Road (Paperback)

Pushing hard on freelance, but here's some of what I'm up to:

2009-03-23T16:06:00.000-07:00

My buddy and fantastic writer Michael Boatman and I are in the midst of doing a graphic novel

for his book "The Revenant Road", which was released a short while ago as a novel. We've been looking for a property that was right for us to team up on and his uproarious horror thriller awash in gore and big laughs on every page is going to be the one. I'll be posting updates and skribbles here soon!

The Bakshi Summers...

2009-03-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

Hey, want to understand what I'm on about? Go here:

The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse on TV.com - Free Full Episodes ...

Cuz, you may as well see what we hath wrought. Ed, you have to look back and wonder how you ever got there...

We love Cartoon Brew!

2009-03-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was invited to join my old animation buds, Jeff Pigeon, and Jim Reardon at Pixar for a sit down interview. The interview is for the DVD release of a show we all worked on before we'd reached 20! The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse was probably my first professional art job experience, and meant so much to me in ways I've never talked about before in a forum such as this. Details to follow in other posts. The session at Pixar was a blast. I just hope they got something usable out of my rantings.

Big-Up, Large-Ups in fact, to Mr. Jerry Beck, an historian of animation I really admire. It's due to his and the Brew's support of that show, that has kept it in the cultural digestive system all these years. I consider his analysis of the industry, since the years I worked with John Krisfaluci, to be right on point with what I believe about the beloved art form. If you have any interest in this aspect of our popular art culture, but want commentary that's coming from the creative's POV, the advocates' POV, then Cartoon Brew is for you.

I don't have any stills or pics of the Emeryville interviews, but here's some pics of the LA meet-up where all my cohorts in the show got interviewed last Wednesday. This included Vicki Jenson and Tom Minton, Mike Kazelah, Kent Butterworth, John Krisfaluci, and Libby Simon, who also produced MY first stint as a TV director, on "Happily Ever After, Fairy Tales For Every Child." Salad days to be sure.

Links to a Mystic Poet and Ancient Bard

2009-03-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

A great inspiration for me is RUMI

Mevlana Jelal al-Din Rumi, who is known as “Mevlana” in Turkey and as “Ru

mi” in the western world, can be called a mystic poet, a thinker, a theosophist or a Sufi; but if you could a

sk him, “What are you?” He could say, “I am nothing but a simple lover of God..."

Mi Familia.

2009-03-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

Words of Jelluddin Rumi, persian poet:

“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.”

After a hectic week...

2009-02-17T17:50:00.001-08:00

2009-02-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

2009-02-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

2009-02-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

Catching Up with Sketches

2009-02-02T14:56:00.000-08:00

2009-02-02T14:53:00.000-08:00

Archived Oasis art in case you miss the old "OASIS" blog.

Oasis Graphic Nov...

Oasis Images

2008-12-01T16:49:00.000-08:00

Our Maverix Site for OASIS -- a Future/Primitive science fantasy project we just finished a board-o-matic for -- went down a couple weeks ago. Which does suck, I admit.

While we work on a rebuild of that blog, here's a sample of just the pics I had posted there. It'll take time to get the text, but I aim to get all the goods back up and running.

Thanks for you patience and support as that project gains it's footing.

Please send feedback or questions, I'd love to hear from you. Peace

Chi Town

2008-10-21T17:22:00.001-07:00

Sometime ago now I worked on a pitch for the Chicago 10 project. It didn't end up in my hands, but I liked the idea and now you can see the final piece (by the other guys) airing on PBS on Oct 22. These are a couple of stills from my pitch.

october on our doorsteps

2008-09-29T19:24:00.000-07:00

Not sure how it can be almost October. Time for darker days, harvest time, sweet golden light in the garden time with my family.

Ken Harris - Great animator getting more props.

2008-08-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

KEN HARRIS REEL
by thadk

Totoro!!!

2008-07-10T10:25:00.001-07:00

The lid is off folkz. We can finally share with the world the project some of us have been so fortunate to have been a part of- "The Totoro Forest Project"! We were asked to do our own take on Totoro, and/or magical beings from our childhood, or our own forest or nature landscape that may have inspired the film. Some beautiful work came out of this. For details I will quote the talented Enrico... as details are rarely my thing.

"The Totoro Forest Project is an international charity effort to preserve Sayama Forest, also known as Totoro Forest. This endangered sanctuary on the outskirts of Tokyo is where director Hayao Miyazaki got the inspiration for his much loved character “Totoro.” Over 200 top international artists from animation, illustration, and comics are donating artwork especially created for this cause. On September 6th 2008 Pixar Animation Studios will be hosting an art auction event featuring all these fantastic pieces of art. All the proceeds of this fundraiser will benefit the Totoro Forest Foundation. On top of the auction we are producing a wonderful art book of the auction pieces and we’ve also managed to secure an exhibition at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco."

It has been very inspiring to be a part of this ground swell. I can't wait to see it all together. I am sure it will be overwhelming and awe inspiring! Thank you so much to Dice, Enrico and Ronnie for all their hard work and incredible talent, and for giving me the op to join in! I am humbled.

Hope to see you all at the ensuing events!

from the heart

2008-06-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

I just finished a piece for a charity auction project, and, man, was it a challenge . It has been a long time since I have put actual paint to surface, and though I have been painting sporadically over the last few months, nothing with a deadline or even firm subject. And generally, I have been working digitally for so many years now, spoiled by the ability to "undo" or move and edit layers, that this pushed my head to new / old places. As hard as it was, I want to do more now.

I can't show the work here, but more info will be out about it later this summer. It has been an honor to be part of this project. Inspiring and motivating... Can't wait to see it when it all comes together! It will be really beautiful.

In the meantime here is a bit of older work, and don't forget to stop by the Oasis blog from time to time too.

Have an excellent June, everyone!

April

2008-04-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

Hello folks,
April is here. Spring is here.
My good friend Steve Moore has a great site called Flip Animation.
I have the great honor of being featured there this month. Thx Steve!
Stop on by!

Quiet Time

2008-01-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

Looking for a patch of quiet, ease, warm orange comfort. Days are growing longer. Mecury in retrograde is around the corner...see you on the other side.

2008 off and running

2008-01-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

Well, it's a new year. Still working on the short with the Maverix. And, frankly, glad to have the holiday season behind us. Here's a rough sketch from the short.

Happy new years to one and all.
May it bring more peace on many levels.

Inspire!

2007-12-02T09:48:00.000-08:00

Maverix is throwing a holiday party in the finest Maverix Studios style- a fundraiser. This time it is for a local organization, Glide Memorial Church. Glide is a beautiful place. It is an inclusive house of worship that really walks it's talk. They have changed the lives of many, and help those who are in need. The fundraiser is specifically for the Children's Creative Arts Media Center. I have a couple of pieces that will be in the auction, along side talented notibles from our design and animation community, including our friend Patrick Awa, who will be in attendance for this one!

The evening will include food, drink and music and, of course, artwork from local artists will be up for bid in a silent auction, with the evening culminating in a live auction for the most sought after pieces.We figure it is a great opportunity to get an early start on holiday shopping while supporting a wonderful organization working with and for the under served children of our fair city. There will even be pieces by the kids that are part of the Center's programs. The theme of the show is INSPIRE: GIFTS THAT GIVE TWICE.

Come on by if you are in the area. It always a great evening, with beautiful art, and lots of friends old and new.

Time is my enemy

2007-11-14T15:42:00.000-08:00

I say this often enough, and the proof is in the... blogging.

I think about posting all the time, and yet make here so rarely.

Not that I don't have plenty to say, just fighting with Time all o' the time, ya know?

Keepin' On

2007-08-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

Just trying to throw some work up every so often. Working hard on the short film project. Delivering a PSA spot as well. I'll let you know when that is out in the world. It looks good, thanks to all the talented folks at Maverix. Glad to be part of that crew these days. Hope everyone is having a good summertime. It'll be gone all too soon...

days long past

2007-07-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

Found this in an archive. Some concept art for an animated segment (that ended up nixed)for a live action feature. Any guesses? Year was 2002.

Farewell to the formal site

2007-06-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I decided to let the "portfolio" site go. Wasn't keeping it updated, and figured noone was looking anyway. But as soon as it was down got emails asking where it was. Funny, huh? Ah well. Will try and be regular about this site here. Maybe folks will stop by more often if I stop by more often.

Thanks for stopping by!

From the Plantation to the Penitentiary

2007-03-12T19:59:00.000-07:00

Been a long time since I've posted. Kinda lost the desire.

These are a couple of panels from a storyboard for the doc I did with HBO, "Unchained Memories". This scene didn't make it in, but was reminded of this part of my journey from the interview of Wynton on NPR today. Deep and inspiring on many levels. Check it out
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7813667

Who do YOU wish you could meet?

2006-09-27T21:56:00.000-07:00

Uh, for me it's got to be this cat. I want to know his whole world. Nuba of the Sudan. The Nuba only have a lil' time left in this mad world -- you know the whole " let's make em extinct!" and all.

Open Source - Audio brain food fo ya arse...

2006-09-27T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hi There,
Thought I'd start including other web Thought I'm reading/hearing. Please let me know what you think about Lydon's show There's some real Mind nuggets out in Cyberland. Bye now.

powered by ODEO

New Blogger Jitters - Where do you begin?

2006-09-17T00:12:00.000-07:00

Confession time: So I don't really know how to type, other than like a bird pecking for worms in the dark. And I'm pretty lame at outlining my inner life on a page the way my favorite bloggers do so masterfully, but I'm determined to get some thoughts into this frikkin blog before I rest, dammit. I write as a professional story guy on occasion, but don't journal or log my world in any way except through fiction/drawn images, philosophical digressions, and quoting my betters at every opportunity.

Bear with me as I figure out what this page is meant to be "about". It's in search of a voice ... I hear something if not a voice. Gospel voices, of the First Baptist Church of God on Crenshaw Blvd in Inglewood, Kalifornia, USA. Once inside the halls of that place, we were all back in Munroe, Louisiana, population 40, 000 broke as hell, getting "cheeoouch" on a Friday night, sweating out a weeks worries -- aching hearts every one of us. But the choir was hot, brotherrs and sisterrs, and stirring up something ineffable -- speaking another language that the secret self alone understood.

I hear Deltron, Fat Freddy's Drop, and Cesaria Evora, Osunlade and Robert Johnson and Lightnin' Hopkins. And SIGN OF THE TIMES too, if I'm expansive. I don't know.

All that ol' lightweight ephemera. To describe it seems like hyperbole. As if I know what the hell I'm thinking when this stuff is generated. One jumps into these commercial gigs with the survivalist mindset on.

Fleeting edges of ideas from ages of art-directors needing whimsey or menace or last months stale eye-candy -- just like they have since the early twenties, btw. Collected from years of making pictures just to sell ideas to folks who had plenty of their own...And occasionally hitting on something interesting at the heart of a commercial spot, or animation technique.

The list of products and icons is insane, the ad-agencies, television programming departments, production studios is sort of interesting if you cut it up and switched all the letters around, I guess. I should try it, and see what wisdom can be seen there. But even that ironic voice of experience is shushed by the smallness of all these images. At least, until I look closely enough to see some musicality and that hint of blues sensibility -- finding a "way out of no-way".

So here's to finding a new way to see. A new eye.

-- let's go.

Change

2006-09-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

Back for Illustration Friday... Change.

Some stuff

2006-08-29T00:16:00.000-07:00

Just wanting to post a few things... still new to this and, like many, it's hard to find the time. Couple of pieces that started in pencil/ink and taken further in photoshop.

02

2006-08-29T00:09:00.000-07:00

something to begin...

2006-08-28T23:57:00.000-07:00

blogging at blogger now

2006-08-22T17:05:00.000-07:00

I had started a blog on my page at lulu but they have some crazy blocker for spammers that doesn't let folkz talk back to you/ "comment". I love the dialogue so had to skip on over here to blogger with the rest of the community... Hope you come back often. I will throw up old and new art as often as I can fit it into the weeks.

Peace

* House of Many Colors *

Flooby Nooby: Pear Cider and Cigarettes - Robert Valley

How did I miss this short film?

Tuareg Shaman

Magical Creatures

Bullroarers and recent mindmaps

Chatbot, Chatbots - Artificial Intelligence

Mass hysteria! Science world buzzing over rumours the elusive 'God particle' has finally been found

Self-awareness describes the condition of being aware of one's awareness. It is the awareness that one exists as an individual being.

The music my son and his band have created

pencil scan, then digital color

Pencils and paper

So much to catch up with -- so little time to post...

ONE- Fundraiser for relief efforts in Japan

Story time - playing with a visual narrative

"Celebrate Fishbone! Brilliance I grew up with, which may explain some things...

So much going on, I'm sketchless..

The Picture Book Project - Art Block Finished!

Back to the markers

Photographer Malick_Sidibé

ButterBean my Boy

Big Things Are rising up to meet you

First Avenue Machine -Surreal & flavorful.

Latest color, working from scans.

characters i gotta paint

Daily color

Itching to get back to Canvas.

Ahhh, there she is.

Back into fast color.

Fractal Computing with nature...

Folk Machines of the Mad Future!

Profile Playlist by Smokestack

There and back.

So many projects, so little week....

Love Works

Workin on pitches...

Good Thoughts & Great Tunes

Latest Project: My own Calender!

Gratitude

"Into the Blank Where Life is Hurled,"

Mamase Mama mamakusa, mamase mamasa mamakusa...

Starship Sofa Cover

The Starship Sofa.

Pushing hard on freelance, but here's some of what I'm up to:

The Bakshi Summers...

We love Cartoon Brew!

Links to a Mystic Poet and Ancient Bard

Mi Familia.

After a hectic week...

Catching Up with Sketches

Oasis Images

Chi Town

october on our doorsteps

Ken Harris - Great animator getting more props.

Totoro!!!

from the heart

April

Quiet Time

2008 off and running

Inspire!

Time is my enemy

Keepin' On

days long past

Farewell to the formal site

From the Plantation to the Penitentiary

Who do YOU wish you could meet?

Open Source - Audio brain food fo ya arse...

New Blogger Jitters - Where do you begin?

Change

Some stuff

02

something to begin...

blogging at blogger now