The first story today that caught my eye came from the Daily Telegraph, the main reason being that it’s in my neck of the woods – East Anglia (UK).

A local councillor, Pat McCloud at Forest Heath District Council in Suffolk attended a committee meeting and was making his point when Councillor Lisa Chambers interrupted him mid flow.  Councillor McCloud, who obviously had got his knickers in a knot, then proceeded to send an email to some of his co-councillors commenting on the interruption and stating that Councillor Chambers couldn’t possibly have known in advance what he was going to say and went on to say that they used to burn witches at the stake for such skills!  This obviously touched a raw nerve and ended up going before the District Council’s standards committee where poor Councillor McCloud was found guilty of accusing Councillor Chambers of witchcraft.  The decision was overturned on appeal but it ended up costing the Council more than £3,000 to investigate and ultimately, of course, this will be added to next year’s tax bills for the general public to pay off next year.

Councillor McCloud, strangely enough, seems to have found allies in the local Pagans who were disappointed that Lisa Chambers and the committee members who found Mr McCloud guilty obviously felt it was a bad thing to be a witch.  As they quite rightly pointed out, not all witchcraft is bad – there are obviously black witches but there are white witches too who do good rather than evil.  I just hope that the witches there in Suffolk can conjure up a bit more cash for the council tax payers in their district to cover the wasted costs in this futile case and let’s face it, if this is how our money is spent in local government it’s no wonder the local taxes go up drastically year on year!

The second article from the Telegraph related to the above Golden Delicious apple.  No, it’s not been painted red – the apple has grown naturally that way!  It’s a ‘random genetic mutation’ apparently and the odds of finding one of these growing on your apple trees at home are 1 million to 1!  As you can imagine it’s causing quite a stir in the village where it grew – Colaton Raleigh in Devon.  The grower, Mr Morrish a retired painter and decorator, said he’d been picking apples to take to his sister-in-law and spotted this little beauty.  He’d been growing apples for 45 years and had never come across anything like it before.  Even the experts at the Royal Horticultural Society and British Independent Fruit Growers Association can’t find any rhyme or reason for it.  Just don’t tell the local council, Mr Morrish, or you may find yourself under close scrutiny by the Witch Finder General of Devon!!!

My third article was spotted in The Times.  It seems that the darker witches have been waving their wands in London!  A series of speed humps has been put on public walkways in London in order to prevent speeding cyclists.  Obviously the cyclists have got the hump but many pedestrians, particularly the elderly, have said that something needed to be done to combat the two-wheeled terrors.

Unfortunately these humps haven’t gone down well (or should I say up and down) with all pedestrians however.  Young mums with pushchairs and prams say they’re not that easy to negotiate and they’re not particularly wheelchair friendly; and of course the blind or more frail pensioners run the risk of tripping.  Somehow I can’t really see these catching on too quickly around the country.  Here in Norwich we tend to have a series of cycleways and footpaths combined which work quite well.  Half the footpath – the outer part is for cyclists and the inner part is for pedestrians.  There’s a white line down the centre so ne’er the twain shall meet – well, in theory anyway; although my experience is that all too often the twain do meet but thankfully, as far as I know, we’ve had very few fatalities although I think we’ve ended up with the odd bruise or scratch (or wonky wheel … and I’m talking about the bikes here, not the pedestrians or cyclists!).

Now to my final article which I found in The Guardian.  The Food Standards Agency is going to fund investigations into whether, after years of telling us we should be cutting back on sugar and using artificial sweeteners, aspartame can be damaging to the health and has side effects.

Aspartame is around 200 times sweeter than sugar and can be found in more than 4,000 products in the UK including diet sodas, ready meals, yogurt, cereal bars and candy.  It’s been considered safe for more than 25 years but now it seems the populace are finding that after consuming products with aspartame in them, they seem to be prone to headaches, dizziiness, diarrhoea and tiredness.

The research is apparently going to take the form of using 50 human guinea pigs who are susceptible to side effects and feeding them with cereal bars.  Some of the bars will contain aspartame and others will be aspartame free.  The results should be available some time next year and, if there is reason to believe aspartame could be damaging to the health, then further research will be carried out.

Now this is where my witchcraft comes into force!  For years (without the aid of a crystal ball) I’ve foreseen that all this cutting back on fat, salt and sugar and opting for artificial versions is bad for the health.  People for centuries have been eating the natural versions and don’t seem to have come to too much harm.  Provided you have a good range of all the natural minerals and vitamins and have a reasonable amount of exercise you shouldn’t need all these artificial things and now it seems my premonition has borne fruit – even if it’s not a genetically mutated fruit. 

Come on Witch Finder General – seek me out and burn me at the stake if you will!!!!

The first story today that caught my eye came from the Daily Telegraph, the main reason being that it’s in my neck of the woods – East Anglia (UK).

A local councillor, Pat McCloud at Forest Heath District Council in Suffolk attended a committee meeting and was making his point when Councillor Lisa Chambers interrupted him mid flow.  Councillor McCloud, who obviously had got his knickers in a knot, then proceeded to send an email to some of his co-councillors commenting on the interruption and stating that Councillor Chambers couldn’t possibly have known in advance what he was going to say and went on to say that they used to burn witches at the stake for such skills!  This obviously touched a raw nerve and ended up going before the District Council’s standards committee where poor Councillor McCloud was found guilty of accusing Councillor Chambers of witchcraft.  The decision was overturned on appeal but it ended up costing the Council more than £3,000 to investigate and ultimately, of course, this will be added to next year’s tax bills for the general public to pay off next year.

Councillor McCloud, strangely enough, seems to have found allies in the local Pagans who were disappointed that Lisa Chambers and the committee members who found Mr McCloud guilty obviously felt it was a bad thing to be a witch.  As they quite rightly pointed out, not all witchcraft is bad – there are obviously black witches but there are white witches too who do good rather than evil.  I just hope that the witches there in Suffolk can conjure up a bit more cash for the council tax payers in their district to cover the wasted costs in this futile case and let’s face it, if this is how our money is spent in local government it’s no wonder the local taxes go up drastically year on year!

The second article from the Telegraph related to the above Golden Delicious apple.  No, it’s not been painted red – the apple has grown naturally that way!  It’s a ‘random genetic mutation’ apparently and the odds of finding one of these growing on your apple trees at home are 1 million to 1!  As you can imagine it’s causing quite a stir in the village where it grew – Colaton Raleigh in Devon.  The grower, Mr Morrish a retired painter and decorator, said he’d been picking apples to take to his sister-in-law and spotted this little beauty.  He’d been growing apples for 45 years and had never come across anything like it before.  Even the experts at the Royal Horticultural Society and British Independent Fruit Growers Association can’t find any rhyme or reason for it.  Just don’t tell the local council, Mr Morrish, or you may find yourself under close scrutiny by the Witch Finder General of Devon!!!

My third article was spotted in The Times.  It seems that the darker witches have been waving their wands in London!  A series of speed humps has been put on public walkways in London in order to prevent speeding cyclists.  Obviously the cyclists have got the hump but many pedestrians, particularly the elderly, have said that something needed to be done to combat the two-wheeled terrors.

Unfortunately these humps haven’t gone down well (or should I say up and down) with all pedestrians however.  Young mums with pushchairs and prams say they’re not that easy to negotiate and they’re not particularly wheelchair friendly; and of course the blind or more frail pensioners run the risk of tripping.  Somehow I can’t really see these catching on too quickly around the country.  Here in Norwich we tend to have a series of cycleways and footpaths combined which work quite well.  Half the footpath – the outer part is for cyclists and the inner part is for pedestrians.  There’s a white line down the centre so ne’er the twain shall meet – well, in theory anyway; although my experience is that all too often the twain do meet but thankfully, as far as I know, we’ve had very few fatalities although I think we’ve ended up with the odd bruise or scratch (or wonky wheel … and I’m talking about the bikes here, not the pedestrians or cyclists!).

Now to my final article which I found in The Guardian.  The Food Standards Agency is going to fund investigations into whether, after years of telling us we should be cutting back on sugar and using artificial sweeteners, aspartame can be damaging to the health and has side effects.

Aspartame is around 200 times sweeter than sugar and can be found in more than 4,000 products in the UK including diet sodas, ready meals, yogurt, cereal bars and candy.  It’s been considered safe for more than 25 years but now it seems the populace are finding that after consuming products with aspartame in them, they seem to be prone to headaches, dizziiness, diarrhoea and tiredness.

The research is apparently going to take the form of using 50 human guinea pigs who are susceptible to side effects and feeding them with cereal bars.  Some of the bars will contain aspartame and others will be aspartame free.  The results should be available some time next year and, if there is reason to believe aspartame could be damaging to the health, then further research will be carried out.

Now this is where my witchcraft comes into force!  For years (without the aid of a crystal ball) I’ve foreseen that all this cutting back on fat, salt and sugar and opting for artificial versions is bad for the health.  People for centuries have been eating the natural versions and don’t seem to have come to too much harm.  Provided you have a good range of all the natural minerals and vitamins and have a reasonable amount of exercise you shouldn’t need all these artificial things and now it seems my premonition has borne fruit – even if it’s not a genetically mutated fruit. 

Come on Witch Finder General – seek me out and burn me at the stake if you will!!!!

I’ve recently been going through the UK’s daily papers and finding one or two weird news items and giving you links to them but I’m now finding myself in a position where I can’t keep up with the weird and wonderful so I’m trying a change of tack and just give you a brief rundown of what I found intriguing or amusing!

Here’s my top four for today.

Image by Jim Linwood via Flickr

I was checking out the Daily Telegraph and came across something particularly odd.  It seems that, in order to try and keep swine ‘flu at bay in H M Prison The Verne in Dorset, the governor sanctioned the purchase of a goodly supply of anti-bacterial hand gel.  As soon as it was distributed amongst the prisoners apparently one of the inmates decided it’d be a good idea to drink it rather than shove it on his hands.  I’m not sure how much the prisoner actually drank but he became a tad tiddly and started a fight.  Before anyone knew it, there was a full blown behind bars brawl.  Oddly enough, the staff at the prison took away what remained of the hand gel, presumably considering it would be easier to deal with a swine ‘flu epidemic than an alcohol poison one!

It just begs the question, who was the prisoner who actually tried the hand gel in the first place?  I’m just wondering what I’ve got under the kitchen sink that I could try?  How about a Mr Muscle Margarita for starters?

The second news item that interested me was again from the Daily Telegraph.  It gave details of some of the strangest items that had been taken from hotel rooms.  Amongst those that caught my eye were a marble fireplace; a whole room – the contents were completely stripped; a mounted boar’s head; a hotel owner’s dog; a grand piano and a selection of sex toys. 

Once again, my brain went into overdrive, particularly when it came to the sex toys.  I can’t  imagine even using sex toys provided by a hotel let alone stealing them – you don’t know where they’ve been!!

Image via Wikipedia

My next story which was reported in several papers, relates to a tortoise that was found walking along the M25 motorway (freeway).  Thankfully, for once, most of the drivers were obviously keeping their eyes on the road and the tortoise was rescued by a tortoise loving driver who, having taken a little detour to the supermarket to pick up some lettuce and tomatoes for the traumatised turtle and then took him for a check up at the local vet where it was discovered that he was chipped so hopefully owners and family pet will soon be reunited.

Quite what the tortoise was doing on the M25 I have no idea.  Maybe, like many travellers before him, he couldn’t find the right junction off the circular motorway to reach home or another alternative could be that he’d been visiting The Verne Prison and had a drop too much of anti-bacterial hand gel!!!

And finally, what would you expect a badger to eat?  I’d always considered they spent their evenings rummaging around the woodlands looking out grubs, insects, worms and the odd mouse or two but it seems it’s now been discovered that the latest badger delicacy is hedgehog.  How can a badger who normally eats small and relatively ’smooth’ food cope with the prickles?  What motivates a badger to even consider tackling a hedgehog.  Maybe their lives are so mundane that they decided they wanted more of a challenge.  It’s a mystery to me but I’m sure that some night wildlife watcher will come up with a bit of video footage to enlighten me!

I’ve recently been going through the UK’s daily papers and finding one or two weird news items and giving you links to them but I’m now finding myself in a position where I can’t keep up with the weird and wonderful so I’m trying a change of tack and just give you a brief rundown of what I found intriguing or amusing!

Here’s my top four for today.

Image by Jim Linwood via Flickr

I was checking out the Daily Telegraph and came across something particularly odd.  It seems that, in order to try and keep swine ‘flu at bay in H M Prison The Verne in Dorset, the governor sanctioned the purchase of a goodly supply of anti-bacterial hand gel.  As soon as it was distributed amongst the prisoners apparently one of the inmates decided it’d be a good idea to drink it rather than shove it on his hands.  I’m not sure how much the prisoner actually drank but he became a tad tiddly and started a fight.  Before anyone knew it, there was a full blown behind bars brawl.  Oddly enough, the staff at the prison took away what remained of the hand gel, presumably considering it would be easier to deal with a swine ‘flu epidemic than an alcohol poison one!

It just begs the question, who was the prisoner who actually tried the hand gel in the first place?  I’m just wondering what I’ve got under the kitchen sink that I could try?  How about a Mr Muscle Margarita for starters?

The second news item that interested me was again from the Daily Telegraph.  It gave details of some of the strangest items that had been taken from hotel rooms.  Amongst those that caught my eye were a marble fireplace; a whole room – the contents were completely stripped; a mounted boar’s head; a hotel owner’s dog; a grand piano and a selection of sex toys. 

Once again, my brain went into overdrive, particularly when it came to the sex toys.  I can’t  imagine even using sex toys provided by a hotel let alone stealing them – you don’t know where they’ve been!!

Image via Wikipedia

My next story which was reported in several papers, relates to a tortoise that was found walking along the M25 motorway (freeway).  Thankfully, for once, most of the drivers were obviously keeping their eyes on the road and the tortoise was rescued by a tortoise loving driver who, having taken a little detour to the supermarket to pick up some lettuce and tomatoes for the traumatised turtle and then took him for a check up at the local vet where it was discovered that he was chipped so hopefully owners and family pet will soon be reunited.

Quite what the tortoise was doing on the M25 I have no idea.  Maybe, like many travellers before him, he couldn’t find the right junction off the circular motorway to reach home or another alternative could be that he’d been visiting The Verne Prison and had a drop too much of anti-bacterial hand gel!!!

And finally, what would you expect a badger to eat?  I’d always considered they spent their evenings rummaging around the woodlands looking out grubs, insects, worms and the odd mouse or two but it seems it’s now been discovered that the latest badger delicacy is hedgehog.  How can a badger who normally eats small and relatively ’smooth’ food cope with the prickles?  What motivates a badger to even consider tackling a hedgehog.  Maybe their lives are so mundane that they decided they wanted more of a challenge.  It’s a mystery to me but I’m sure that some night wildlife watcher will come up with a bit of video footage to enlighten me!

Cartoon for the Dutch Nu.nl news website, about scientists who succeeded in giving a human speech gene to mice.

More at Sevensheaven.nl

Join me at Twitter [I mainly write in the Dutch language].

Ammon Shea recently spent a year of his life reading the OED from start to finish. Over the next few months he will be posting weekly blogs about the insights, gems, and thoughts on language that came from this experience. His book, Reading the OED, has been published by Perigee, so go check it out in your local bookstore. In the post below Ammon shares his love of the obit section.

I am an unabashed fan of trivial information. I suppose this may rightfully be referred to as trivia, but I prefer the adjectival word to the plural noun – trivia has a limited range of meaning (each of which is more or less contemptuous), whereas trivial can refer to things having to do with math, chemistry, mediæval university studies, the place where three roads meet, and a host of other subjects. The trivial does not provide grand explanations for why the world is so, but it tells some small piece of history as a story, and in doing so grabs my attention in a way that great events never seem to. I suppose this is why I enjoy reading obituaries.

I find the obituaries to be by far the most interesting part of the newspaper. Not because I have a morbid fascination with death, but because this is where wonderful little details come out, things that would ordinarily not be classified as news. Yesterday I was reminded of one of my favorite obituaries of recent years, from the New York Times of September 12, 2008, titled “Martin K. Tytell, Typewriter Wizard, Dies at 94”.

It is a long obituary, and justifiably so, for even though it deals with (mostly antique) typewriters, the man it profiles was the foremost expert of this field, and deserves the column inches. It is a fascinating story, full of intrigue (Alger Hiss and the O.S.S.) and descriptions of a man who was entirely devoted to his field. Somewhere near the middle there a nugget of trivia, mentioned almost in passing: “An error he made on a Burmese typewriter, inserting a character upside down, became a standard, even in Burma.” I cannot help but wonder what the typewriter wizard’s feelings were on this – was he chagrinned at his mistake, or satisfied in a quiet fashion that his influence was such as to change a written language?

This has been on my mind of late because a friend has recommended a book on the subject: The Dead Beat, by Marilyn Johnson, a former obituary writer. I’ve not yet had the chance to read it, but it has the twin virtues of featuring a fine, under-written subject and possessing a great opening line: “People have been slipping out of this world in occupational clusters, I’ve noticed, for years.”

I wish that there were more of this in the news. It is not that I want to ignore the ugliness and strife of the world, and I am not calling for more feel-good human-interest stories in the news, but why must the unimportant yet interesting details wait until a person is dead before they can be widely known? It seems odd that death grants the permission to make the whimsical newsworthy.

Wow, its been as while since my last post! Looking back, its odd that my last post was about a lull in the workflow. I certainly don’t feel like things have been moving slowly! To start things off, I’ll talk about some “business” aspects of the past month.

Taking advantage of the downtime, I implemented an income/collections/taxes tracking system. Basically, now I know roughly what I’ll need to pay in terms of federal taxes come April. I am keeping this estimated amount in its own savings account. In conjunction, I’ve also revamped my deduction-tracking technique so that its a lot simpler and easier to process come April.

Another administrative task I’ve been tackling as of late is collecting on invoices. I have learned that the end of the job is never the end of the job. Its can get pretty hairy and confusing. I’ve learned that folks process invoices immediately, at the end of the week, at the end of the month, or after publication. As such, I never know what going on with the invoice after the job so I have to email to follow-up. With the new system, its been easier though. Upon invoicing, I’ll now simply ask the client when they process their invoices so I can project a rough estimate of when I should be looking for a check. Then I can contact clients as needed after the date passes. I don’t know how other people feel about this or how they work, but I can get spacey on these matters when I’m concentrating on artwork. So instead of randomly hoping for checks when I open my mailbox, I am being more active and organized in collecting. Working in this manner, I now know where every invoice I have out stands in terms of processing and delivery. Sadly, some payments have been sent to my old address (long story) so I assume they will be forwarded by the always-punctual postal service.

What else has come up these past weeks? Ah, another thing taken into account since the last post was communication i.e, talking with other artists and illustrators. With Aliyah starting her graduate classes, it has been a very difficult solitude. Having just moved to the town of Beacon, I barely know anyone. After exhausting my trips to coffee shops and running errands, I have started posting on blogs to meet other artists. This also exposes me to a lot of new art. Recently, I was featured on thelittlechimpsociety.com as the “Editor’s Pick:”
Pretty cool. Also, that feature bumped up web traffic at chris-whetzel.com for a bit. I have been told that a lot of the members of that site are art directors so I see it as free promotion. Thanks to the guys at The Little Chimp Society! I look forward to posting more, and I tend to check out the blog every day or so. Similarly, I was invited to join sugarfrostedgoodness.com this week. I know that none of this is a big deal in terms of moneymaking, but I really feel that posting on these blogs as well as chris-whetzel.blogspot.com and theautumnsociety.blogspot.com really keep me motivated. As lame as it sounds, it fends off the lonelys :) And the bonus is that links from these sites increase chris-whetzel.com’s search engine ranking. Cool.

And the final thing I would like to say about blogs is to simply mention a helpful one: cedricohnstadt.wordpress.com. This blog is awesome for anyone freelancing. Its basically years and years of one guy’s experiences in the field. He also posts so many links that are illustration-business related. Great blog! One gem I found (of many) was the freelanceswitch.com podcast. Very cool. If you like the ICONIC podcasts, you may enjoy these. However, the Freelance Switch panel focuses on the BUSINESS of illustration by discussing a show-specific topic and answering questions about everything from contracts to etiquette to networking. And its all handled in a fun and light-hearted manner! This podcast also comes in handy when working long days alone and you just want to hear human voices! Its like being in a roundtable discussion!

Ah, discussion. I am jealous to hear Aliyah talk about class discussions. I miss it. I’m kind of disappointed that my friends and I never really got a collective together. I tried to establish “drink and draws” patterned after Dave Johnson’s group, but it never really took off. Its cool that Philly has The Autumn Society, but I’m in New York! Granted, I had a great artistic talk with Joe Game last week, but its not the same as sitting around looking at each other art, having crits, etc (and he totally guilted me for not blogging). However, I’m finding out that the artists in Beacon do meet; I just have to find out how to get involved. I was working at a coffee shop last night when a group formed next to me. Not really paying attention (I listen to my ipod when working outside the apartment), I noticed they were discussing art in between songs. Turns out they meet to just talk art, tell what they are doing, and pass on opportunities. This is awesome. I wanted to talk to someone in the group after the meeting, but I had to leave before they disbanded.

But hopefully, an opportunity to chat will present itself as I have been asked to take part in a show at that very coffee shop! After speaking with Nate (the manager) today, it seems the show will be November-ish. He really liked my drawings enough to ask a price on one! So it will be my “artsy” drawings as opposed to digital prints. He said he is still looking for illustrators who specifically have drawings to show. If you would like to be considered, drop me a line and I'll give him your website.

Striking off on a tangent, I was recently asked to attend the Baltimore Comic Con as part of The Autumn Society Collective. This was a great honor as I really respect the art of the other collective artists taking the trip: Joseph Game, Peter Wonsowski, and Craig Parillo. Good guys who make good art. What sucks is that I can’t go. Financially, I just don’t feel comfortable spending a lot of money to travel, for space, etc to promote to a field that probably can’t use my artwork. Plus I'll have a big expense thi smonth that I'll discuss later. I REALLY tried to rationalize going as I am a hardcore comic fan and I just wanted to be a fanboy for a weekend, but logical-me won the battle. Best of luck to the guys attending! Wish I could be there!

And so, being proud of my willpower, I have decided to commit to an ispot portfolio this month. I am worried about spending the money but its deductible, and I really think I’ll get some work from it. Dave Tabler at the ispot has been very accommodating with my hesitancy. It turns out they have a payment plan so that assuaged the fear a bit. And as a bonus, it turns out that ispot and Adbase have a deal where ispot members get a discount at Adbase. Cool. Next year, I hope to take advantage of it!

Another reason I decided to go for the ispot portfolio was that work picked up. August has been a super-busy month. It was sad to leave a personal piece unfinished to start new jobs, but I hope to have it done next week. Anyway, on to new work!

Ok, so the first commission came via email from Houston Press. This paper was a new addition to the mailing list so that was a good sign that the new card wasn’t such a bad image choice after all! The job was four spot illustrations for their “Best Of” issue due in a little over aweek. The budget was lower than I could afford, but we negotiated a budget that worked for both of us. Awesome. I can’t discuss the subject matter or post images until after publication on the 25th of September. But these were a lot of fun, and I think they add a little diversity to the portfolio. I’ll post them, sketches and all after the 25th.

Although fun, the period of working on them was a little crazy as while sketching them, I got a call from the art director of Retail Traffic who needed a quarter page spot by that Tuesday! Awesome, but the tight deadline was a little intimidating. Nevertheless, I knew I could do it so I accepted (just sleep less). He sent me a version of the article titled “Taking On Water.” It was about the California budget crisis and how its affecting the housing economy. It was an odd subject matter, but I enjoyed the challenge. Pushing back the Houston Press sketches, I ripped out these three sketches:
I like them all for different reasons. I assumed they would go with the first one of the house sinking on the chart, but he surprised me by choosing the house with the life preserver. I also like the "stormy weather" one, but we both agreed its more of a full-page image as everything is so small. The final:
This isn’t my greatest piece, but I like that it shows I can think outside of figurative work. Originally, I left off the “S.S. California,” but I was really happy that they asked me to put it back on the life preserver. I took this piece a little farther in terms of color as I want to push for more color in this graphic style.

One interesting aspect of this commission was that Retail Traffic is a magazine published by Penton Media, the same folks that commissioned the 10 portraits for Registered Rep a few posts back. My first return customer! Sort of. I worked with two different art directors but whatever. I count it.

So anyway, I finished the piece up on Tuesday. Prior to this, while doing the finish for Retail Traffic, I also finished and submitted sketches for the “Best Of” article. The art director really liked them, and we were set. However, the day I finished the Retail Traffic piece, the Houston Press art director called and asked if I could provide a cover in addition to the spot illustrations! Whoa! I told here there was no way I could have both done in four days. Then she explained that the spots were not needed until later in September and that the cover was for that week’s weekly paper. Now that I can do! On a sidenote, I have been becoming more relaxed with art directors, and it makes things more fun and light-hearted on both ends. Everything has been very laidback with everyone this month aside from getting work done. Its really kind of cool. So anyway, the spots got pushed back a week so that I could do this cover.

It is a portrait of Gary Kubiak, coach of the Houston Texans (football team). The idea was pretty simple: parody the popular Obama campaign poster using Kubiak instead. I was hesitant to do this as I like coming up with my own concepts, but I like paying rent so I agreed to do it. I was little worried about plagiarism, but my good buddy, Scott Brundage, said its not as he has seen this issue dealt with at his dayjob. I won’t show the sketches for this as there were like four versions with both the art director and myself photoshopping things, and they are really just messy sketches (not my usual rendered drawings). So anyway, here is the finish:
I like it. Initially, I wasn’t going to put it in my portfolio, but it really opened me up to using a palette without black and white. So I’ll keep it in there and add more pieces like it. What I really like about is that it’s a pretty good likeness in a totally non-existent pose i.e, I didn’t have direct reference to work from so I was making up lighting. I like jobs that challenge me and make me work harder. This one was a real test of my abilities! I never really thought my likenesses were good enough to market, but people seem to like them. As such, I’m trying to draw more popular figures in my non-commissioned works to get better at capturing a likeness. I have a list to work from!

However, there was one downside of this commission. Less than eight hours after taking the cover job, the art director at SFWeekly emailed me with a job for a half-page calendar illustration about a JETPACK EVENT! Arrrgh! I was so bummed to turn this down, but there was no way I could do both pieces as the turn around on the calendar was less than two days. We have a good, jovial relationship and he understood. Still, I hate turning anyone away. I think I’m still gonna do a jetpack piece just for fun and send it to him. I told him I might work it up for the portfolio, and he said its inspired him to break out his acrylics. Cool stuff.

And that’s all I got, folks. I just finished up the “Best Of” spots today, and they were approved. So the next post will probably feature those as well as the personal piece I am getting back to after almost a month. I don’t even remember where I was on it…Plus I stil lwant to do a particlular portrait and new drawings for the coffee shop show.

And maybe I’ll do something with this sketch I did while watching the DNC last week:

I like Obama. Good guy.

So who knows what next week holds? I'm sure I'll find something to occupy my time :)

Enjoy the Day,
Chris
chris-whetzel.com

In the post below David D. Perlmutter, a professor in the KU School of Journalism & Mass Communications, and author of Blogwars, reflects on the changing nature of newspapers. Read other blog posts by Perlmutter here.

For years, journalists have speculated when newspapers would give up the print ghost and convert to a purely online and digital presence. The news business is abuzz with the first real example of such a transference. The New York Times reports that the 90-year-old newspaper of Madison, Wisconsin, The Capital Times, “stopped printing to devote itself to publishing its daily report on the Web.” The editor of the paper was quoted as explaining, “We are going a little farther, a little faster, but the general trend is happening everywhere.”

The question is when a trend will become a flood–or a collapse. Newspapers are caught in quandary. The “print” business is their cash cow. Online revenues, while growing, fail to match what papers can change advertisers for print space and subscribers for copies. Online paper subscriptions rarely work or work well. There is a longstanding resistance by consumers to paying for a digital newspaper. And people are turning to many other sources of news besides papers, online or otherwise. Even old revenue standbys like classified ads are being taken over by outsiders like Craig’s List.

But the sheer costs of the print model are straining the news budget: The headlines in trade papers of the news business are about a time of confusion, retrenchment, uncertainty. You hear the same from journalists themselves: There doesn’t seem to be many happy and contented newspaper reporters.

Obviously, blogs and other social and interactive media are crucial venues for the traditional news business to explore and exploit. Going digital means more than changing platforms. Already one sees many papers trying different models, from adapting YouTube to their Web pages to creating interactive blogs for their staff.

However, it is unlikely that print will die out in all forms. Human beings still need it.

ShareThis

The first American newspaper, the Boston News-Letter, was published by John Campbell, a postmaster, on this day in 1704. I wrote about this last year (April 24, 2007) along with describing one of my favorite poem-creating activities: “found” poems. So, it’s time to make another poem-newspaper connection. Here’s a fun poem from a new collection by J. Patrick Lewis, The World’s Greatest: Poems, illustrated by Keith Graves (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008).

The Smallest American Newspaper
Roseberg, Oregon
3 x 3 ¾ inches
1876
by J. Patrick Lewis

THE DAILY BANNER
Business section -- Funnies News
Crossword puzzle -- Book reviews
Here’s who died -- Latest sports
Want ads -- Weekly farm reports
Weather (cloudy) -- Women’s wear
The BANNER world’s a 3-inch square!

From: J. Patrick Lewis, The World’s Greatest: Poems, illustrated by Keith Graves. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008, p. 13.

*Kids may want to create their own miniature newspapers, books, or poems. Or, they can explore other Guinness records and create poems to highlight the details.

These 25 poems are inspired by various facts and factoids from the Guinness Book of World Records and focus on the odd and unusual detail that kids find so fascinating. These are not poems about the fastest runner or the strongest lifter. No, here we encounter the stone skipping record and the most live scorpions eaten by a human. Crazy, but true! And Lewis turns each statistic into a humorous poem in a variety of poetic forms. Keith Graves’ illustrations are the perfect match, giving each poem an even zanier twist. And if you like this collection, look for Lewis’s A Burst of Firsts; Doers, Shakers, and Record Breakers (New York: Dial, 2001), another fun poetic tribute to the weird and wonderful.

Picture credit: www.nohscbwi.org

Storytelling can take many forms including live theatre, radio programs, stand-up comedy, classroom teaching and books. Being involved in each of these can help bring a unique and engaging style to children’s picture books.

On this edition of Just One More Book, Mark and Dan Bar-el sit in The Gallery Café of the Vancouver Art Gallery to discuss how Dan’s experience in live theatre has influenced his children’s picture books, writing with a flair for the absurd, and a classroom program called Stories In our Own Words which encourages children to write and perform their own stories.

Books mentioned:

• Alphabetter (on JOMB)
  
• Such a Prince

Books by Vivian Gussin Paley referenced by Dan Bar-el:

• A Child’s Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play
• The Boy Who Would Be a Helicopter

Photo: Dan Bar-el holding the original draft of Alphabetter (then called ‘Don’t Panic’)