Casting Art to the Net

Art & Exposition

Artists finish their work and an audience completes it

art awakens the senses
composing reflections from life's reasoned fences
encoded skill and mind is the foundry
beyond the grip of night's emotional boundary

Beatles

1975 - Acrylic and ink on acetate

This was my first work in this medium (animation cel)... I found it when cleaning out my files while sheltering in place. I had mistakenly painted George's pants yellow before painting the Yellow Submarine so I had opted to paint the submarine tail red instead of starting over... illustrative proof that two wrongs don't make a right!

Ken's Ride

1979 - Acrylic and ink on acetate

"And I'm hovering like a fly, waiting for the windshield on the freeway..." lyric quote from the band Genesis, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, released 1974

The highlight I painted on Ken's windshield reminds me of the inevitable bug collisions. I reckon it's a good argument for a full face helmet...

Angle Wrangle

1982 - 11x14 Lithograph 

A fun project! I printed several of these with the intent to sell them but didn't. I completed the entire graphics production including sketch, pen and ink, rubylith color overlay, grayscale screens, camera ready mechanical, graphic arts camera work and printing on a 1250 Multilith offset printing press.

Dragon One

1971 - Pen and ink on paper 

My first pen and ink of this dragon. I found it when cleaning out my files while sheltering in place.

Traversity

1980 - Metal Etching/Carving

I made two of these (left and right) for my 1979 Kawasaki LTD 1000 motorcycle (below). The two holes align with a gas tank mounting bracket. It started as a pen and ink drawing that was etched in magnesium then I carved it out of the etch panel and painted it gold to match the LTD's blue and gold pinstriping.

Fireworks

1976 - Watercolor on watercolor pad

This painting of "my Dragon" is the third of a set of three storyboard watercolors that were inspired by Gandalf's fireworks at Bilbo's Magnificent Party from The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Balance

1977 - Acrylic and ink on acetate

Log Cabin Church

1981 - Acrylic watercolor on illustration board

This Log Cabin Church painting is my personal favorite work. My adopted mom always said this was my masterpiece. I discovered this beautiful church in 1973. I saw the two buildings as reflecting the Christian Bible "Old Testament" (log cabin) - the Tabernacle was built of cloth and wood, see Exodus 26, and "New Testament" (stone building) - "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.", Matthew 16:18 NIV.
 

The ghostly shadow in the painting that's approaching the front of the stone church is symbolic of the evil that constantly challenges us all, see Romans 12:21. I took artistic license there and replaced the road that runs directly in front, (see pencil drawing).

The original church was held in the small log cabin. The stone church was built later as the congregation grew larger. In 1981 the stone church front doors were green but have since been painted red.

Portal

1971 - Original pencil sketch

2008 - Wacom Intuos3 Drawing Tablet, MS Paint

Jesus Christ's Birth - Such a humble beginning for the Savior of mankind. And what a strong mother Mary must have been to travel over one hundred miles in those days from Nazareth to Bethlehem at nine months pregnant! see Luke 2:1-21 

Portal is a study for a Christmas card. The three stars are symbolic of the Trinity. The upper most star symbolizes God the Father. The middle star is the Holy Spirit bridging us to the Father in this mortal life and the star closest to Earth. Hovering above the manger, represents Jesus who is God compressed into a human, come to Earth as the Father's Son to redeem us from our sins. Jesus Christ is our "door" to Heaven. If we love God and do our best to follow Christ's teachings, it's God's good and perfect plan that we will live a second time, eternally in His Holy presence. see Revelation 21:3 

Santa is symbolic of us humans. I attempted to portray the transitional phase from this life to the afterlife with "Santa". see Isaiah 65:17 The evil that we dealt with in this life is blowing away into flames of the second death. The flames trailing off Santa's eyebrows and hat brim represent the internal self-destructive types of thoughts many of us fight. The dragon's head in the beard is dissipating into flames symbolic of the external evils that we dealt with in this life's world leaving our memory. Evil is always closer to us in this life than we like. see Revelation 12:9 

Notice the fish symbol in Santa's hat. The early Christians used a fish symbol to represent themselves as followers of Jesus. The red coloring covering Santa's head and body is emanating from the fish's mouth. Jesus's blood is our armor against evil. see Ephesians 6:11 Jesus Christ was on Earth to save us. see Matthew 1:21

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6 NIV

The overall Portal theme is that Christ's legacy lives throughout time. The prophets of the Old Testament told us about Jesus Christ. i.e., see Micah 5:2 Even Job, probably the oldest book of the Bible, refers to Jesus. see Job 19:25

The Lamp

1974 - Pen and Ink on paper

Grasp as in "Get a Grip"... This drawing symbolizes Satan's spiritual posturing. Satan is perched with a grip on the earth as he's reaching out to take hold of our spirit. We frequently deal with his influence as we grow throughout life.

Satan is God's creation to help us develop as we grow. God knows we're not perfect and the devil provides us with spiritual challenges such that we have to make choices in our behavior. We can develop into honest and good Jesus followers or become dishonest and evil Satan followers. The devil seeks us and Jesus wants us to do the seeking. It's part of God’s good and perfect plan.

"No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you."  Luke 11:33-36 NIV

Search Light

climbing the tree

what to see

dare we aspire
a journey higher
to find key
beyond the lee
stars of fire
twigs of pyre

every soul be

on bended knee

light we acquire

evil will expire

The most essential and pertinent aspect of our human life is God's healing power inherent in following His good, pleasing and perfect will

The above Human Life hyperlink takes you to my Writings page where I outline in detail my Christian inspirations. The Space and Hope hyperlink at the bottom of my Writings page brings you back here.

Space is Out There

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world."  Psalms 19:1-(3.5) NIV

Thanks to folks such as the good people at APOD we have at our Internet fingertips an impressively large quantity of very high quality artistic and scientific images from the seeable universe. Their Astronomy Picture of the Day featured images are wonders to behold and many would argue enough for our astronomical appetite. But for others the thought of exploring space from the comfort of a faster than light starship is a bit more palate pleasing.
 

Unfortunately, travel to even our closest stellar neighbor is well beyond a reasonable human journey today. However, these distant space traveling dreams so many of us have likely indicate possibility. I believe we look and outreach with hope to the heavens because it's part of our nature. How the star trekking dream is fulfilled, who can say. Maybe Heaven holds the answer!

life’s flame burns like fusion
propagating emotion like starlit nebulae
who can hide from its beckoning
to the stars

onward outward

ever reaching...
for love's reward

Space Traveler

"For now we see through a glass, darkly;"

1978 - Acrylic and ink on acetate with background photographic print

This is my rendition of Ed White's historic 1965 spacewalk. The above space traveler was drawn with black ink on one side and painted on the opposite side with acrylic in the fashion of early animation cel production.

HummerHead

September 1992 - Computer Animation

Commodore Amiga 3000, Imagine 3D 2.0 software - This work won honorable mention in a national Computer Animation competition for the Amiga computer. Unfortunately, this digitized video is made from a VHS tape recording. I no longer have the Amiga computer this was built on that would provide a sharper image.

The overall theme for HummerHead is that much of our inspiration and inventiveness comes to us by studying nature. When we do finally realize how to build a starship, it will be with God's help.

The Net

January 2020 - Internet Circuit Board (partial view)

The above colorful picture is a raster graphics image of my career final PCB design. It's a pseudo partial "X-ray" rough representation of a small portion of a cable modem Internet circuit board. The actual production graphics data is rendered in a CAD tool then manufactured from multiple individual layers of copyrighted proprietary vector graphics artwork (not shown here). You might have a "real" one of these in your home.

Covid

March 2020 - Watercolor on watercolor pad

I originally started drawing this dragon in 1971 (see Dragon One). He's always been full of mischief, but I hadn't thought about naming him until deadly COVID-19 hit.

Flames

April 2020 - Acrylic and ink on acetate

This animation cel character painting cartoon of Covid was another post-retirement refresher project for me. One thing that you might find interesting about painting on transparent acetate is that the cartoon is viewed from the opposite side that the paint is applied so that the brush strokes aren't visible. That means the highlights are painted first then background last. For example, the flames' red highlights were painted first, orange second and yellow background last. So that in viewing from the opposite side through the clear acetate, the red highlights appear to be on top. In contrast, on canvas and illustration board, two common examples, paint is normally applied background first and highlights last.

Ariel Mermaid

August 2020 - Ink on acetate

This is the second step in producing an animation cel. In this case, I traced a print of Glen Keane's rendering. Usually my first step is a pencil drawing on paper then trace my drawing using a rapidigraph pen or ink brush on the acetate as shown above. The $1.00 cotton garden glove with thumb and two fingers removed is the same one I've used since my Beatles painting. The glove protects the acetate from my skin and the fingers are cut out to help with drawing and painting control.

In the early days there was usually an assembly line team of artists employed to produce each individual cel for a commercial production animated film. First an animator would sketch broad step character positions on paper. Next cel artists would trace the sketches with ink on acetate. The cel artist would bridge the motion sequences by drawing the character positions between the broad step animator's sketches. The cels were then painted with acrylic by cel painting artists.

September 2020 - Acrylic and ink on acetate 

This is the third and final step in producing a cel. This painting is a present for my favorite oldest ❤️ daughter's toddler... the "apple of my eye" granddaughter. She loves this Disney character and calls her "Ariel Mermaid".
 

This work actually combines my Princess Ariel cel with my Sebastian and Flounder cel to make a single picture frame from two cels. Since acetate is transparent, multiple production cel artists were able to work on separate characters at the same time then overlap them for one camera film frame.

Typically there are 24 individual camera frames per second of animated film. Disney's first feature length animated film, Snow White (released 1937), contains hundreds of thousands of drawings done by a team of 750 artists. This traditional by hand labor intensive method of animation has since been outdated by computers.

Princess Ariel was created by Glen Keane.

Sebastian and Flounder were created by Ron Clements and John Musker.

Princess Ariel, Sebastian and Flounder are copyrighted by Disney.

Saint George Island Beach

Art is a celebration of God's gifts, both in our minds and in the rest of His Creation.

Above is my very patient, youngest daughter's photograph of the sunrise beach scene I plan to paint at some point. Both my daughter's love the beach. They get that trait from their mom!

The beach gives us an unobstructed view of the sun rising above the sea's surface. It's amazing to watch how fast the sun climbs in the beautifully colored sky (close to 902 mph at this latitude). The clouds make a clever natural artist's frame for the magnificent Florida sun. Most definitely a loving God's art moment!

Below is my favorite youngest ❤️ daughter on the left. My favorite oldest ❤️ daughter is on the right.

Music & Exposition

Musicians finish their work and an audience completes it

music awakens the senses
composing reflections from life's reasoned fences
encoded skill and mind is the foundry
beyond the grip of night's emotional boundary

Pedal Boogie & Jam

Sounds emanating from the basement

September 30, 2021 - Time keeps ticking. While I plan to add recordings here at some point... right now, when I play, my fingertips feel like marshmallows with nerve endings. You see, my guitars have been mostly sitting idly by for a long time. (Long story.) Thusly, my fingertips are out of shape. Where they used to have calluses, they now have marshmallows... with nerve endings. The only remedy for marshmallow fingertips is to develop calluses which takes a little bit of time. And while I'm whining, I might as well throw in my knees... they're not fit for the needy... especially the left one. Getting old ain't for sissies!

Ed (Bear)
Casting Art to the Net

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