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Good morning everyone,

Here is the latest in my Celtic cross series. This one is a bit more involved, not in the intricate design on the cross itself but in the background, as you can see.

As usual I created this with a pencil and paper. The color is all done by painting on a single color layer in PhotoShop. I originally sketched the concept out last year, and spent a few evenings last week working out. The last time I spent this much time drawing leaves was when I illustrated Jairo Penaranda's book "The Little Leaf" which is available here. Like most people I enjoy fall, the bright colors in the trees. I'm especially enjoying it this year as we had such a hot dry summer here. I'm very thankful for the cooler temperatures, and the rain.

I chose simple colors, and gradations of a single color for each leaf, instead of multiple colors for the leaves. After spending a few days on the drawing I don't have the time to spend making a photo realistic painting (I've never enjoyed that style myself, why not just take a picture, and save the wear and tear on your hand and wrist?). I like to keep it simple too, it appeals to me.

This is a close-up of a portion of the pencil drawing before I colorized it in PhotoShop.

Thank you again for stopping by my blog. I hope that you enjoyed what I have shared with you here, and that you have a terrific day today, God bless. --Ryan

Good morning everyone!

Today I am sharing a rough animation I have created. I created this scene for my annual Christmas card and animation. First I drew all the buildings and the train in pencil, scanned them, and colorized & knocked them out in PhotoShop. Next I rendered an animation(quicktime movie) of each one, then I took all those quicktime movies into After Effects and rendered each one with snow falling. On each piece of my "set", as they go further back into my scene I added a little camera lens blur, I did all of this to add to the depth of the scene.

I'm really disappointed with the compression on this. It looks SO much better on my computer here at home. Maybe some day I will find the right settings, that will make a clean and clear video that is small enough to upload from my connection here at home. I will try to replace this video at some point with a version that has better compression settings. Also, I'm not sure why but the animation is cropped. I created a 16x9 animation and this is not as wide as it should be. If you want to see it un-cropped go to my Vimeo page and view it there.

Next I will add riders on the train, and people in some of the windows in the apartments. Some of them will be animated, just a little. I'm only one person and I only have until the end of November. This animation was a huge first step though, proving I could create the look I wanted.

I hope you enjoyed this project, I hope to post a couple updates as I work on this over the next couple months. As always feel free to leave a comment, and to share this post with others. I hope you all have a terrific day, and thank you for stopping by.

Howdy folks. Today's illustration is another in my Sunday Sermon Series, from this week's sermon at Hockinson Community Church. The sermon was about the prodigal son parable Jesus told and is found in Luke 15:11-32.

I have read this piece of scripture many times, and have heard at least two sermons that I recall on it. Pastor Andy's sermon had a little bit different take(as usual) than the other sermons I had heard. Andy has a terrific knowledge of life/society during Jesus times. I always knew that when the prodigal son asked for his inheritance and the freedom to leave that it was a slap in the face to his father. What I hadn't ever heard before was that it was so much more than that. In those times, and that society it would have been perfectly acceptable for the father to kill his son for the disgrace he had heaped upon him. So, his sin could have, should have, cost the prodigal son his life. But the father saw him coming and ran to him, forgave him, sacrificed the fatted calf for him, welcomed him back with open arms with no questions asked. "For this son of mine was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found." (Luke 15:24)

We suffer the same when we try to shake God off, and live for this world. But if we seek repentance God is always there, running towards us. The tag line sums up what I took from this sermon. I think we should routinely stop and look up from our busy, hectic routine. Assess our lives, our direction, what we are doing and saying(and why we are doing and saying it), and see if it aligns with God's will. It's easy to get off track in life, but it's also easy to get back on track. Just turn towards Him.

I did not have time to colorize the drawing this time. With the temperature back in the 90's this week I can spend very little time in my office. Also I have little time these days for work what with Angela, Stella and the boys and the house/chores needing my attention. I like the drawing itself, but am not one hundred percent happy with it. I was going for a more subtle expression of self realization/shock at his predicament for the prodigal son there. More of a "the fog is lifting "What the..." moment. As it is, he looks suspiciously like Marty Feldman if he stuck his finger in a light socket. That's fine because I always liked Mr. Feldman, but it wasn't what I was going for originally. But, with little to no time to rework things what you see is what you get around here these days.

As always I hope you enjoyed this drawing. I hope this post was informative to you and helps you in some way in your walk. Thank you for stopping by. God bless.--Ryan

Today I'm sharing with you a sketch of Chip riding a bus. I'm working on a new story. Unlike the previous two picture books starring Chip this one is a middle grade book with illustrations. Probably a lot of illustrations, since I'm an illustrator/writer.

I have a lot of experience with buses. I used to ride an express to and from work in Portland each day for several years. I did a lot of sketching on those 40 minute rides.

Here we see Chip, and to a lesser extent his pal Fred who is sitting next to him. I have been drawing Chip for about 11 years now. One of the many things I like about writing a different kind of book like this (middle grade as opposed to picture book) is that I can be much more subtle. In a picture book you can't get away with the main character facing away from "the camera", in a big crowd. You have to have your hero easy to spot for the little kids.

The guy coming up the stairs is a minor character, whose only job was to start the story off. But then I changed the whole beginning of the story, and this scene doesn't exist anymore. I won't tell you his name, because it was so good I'm recycling it and using it as the name of the antagonist in the new version of the story. Ha! Cliff hanger there.

As usual this drawing was done in a sketchbook, with pencil. No color on this because I don't have time to colorize a drawing I'm not going to use these days.

I hope you all are having a terrific day, take care, and God bless. --Ry

Last Sunday our sermon was about the story of Ruth. Ruth is a story about how God redeems broken lives, brings light to the darkness.

One of the points Pastor Mike touched on was how Naomi's faith was highly visible to those around her. Naomi's faith made a big impact on her daughters-in-law, both of whom refused to leave her side even though their husbands (her sons) had died. Ruth went so far as to return to Naomi's homeland with her (a land that was a bitter enemy of Ruth's birthplace, Moab), and help provide for Naomi. Picture giving up your life here, moving to Iraq, or Iran for good to help your mother-in-law after your spouse has just died.

Rather than do what was easy or comfortable for herself, Ruth did what was best for Naomi. Ruth had seen something in Naomi that convinced her to do this. She had seen Jesus, she had seen "love one another" worked out day after day in Naomi's words and actions. It led me to think about how hard I try to "love one another", and how much harder I should be trying.

So as I listened to the sermon I drew this sketch. Jesus is seen directing Naomi. She is providing for a man, maybe a homeless man, I don't know, but a person in need. He definitely suffers from cartoony giant feet.

I hope you enjoyed this drawing, and thank you for stopping by.

Hi everyone!

I spent the last few days creating this animation for the About/Contact page on my website. I asked a pal of mine(David Walters) how to avoid collecting spam through my contact page and he suggested CAPTCHA, which is great, but it would have taken me at least a couple weeks to dope it out and get it running right. I never have that kind of time. So instead I decided that it would be really hard for bots to scan and scrape an email address from a moving image, and since I love to draw and animate I went to work.

Ryan's Boats from ryanloghry.

I used muted colors, and pencil texture (in the pier, and the gull on the piling) to help this piece blend with my illustration style. I should have some artsy-fartsy, fancy pants reason, but I don't. I just really like the look of washed out color, translucent, so you can see the pencil work through it.

I also sketched some gulls sitting on top of the buildings, but they would have been so small, they would have been confusing. I might go back and add a couple 3D ones in though, so I can move them a little. We'll see.

I hope you enjoyed this peak behind the scenes. I sure enjoyed creating it. --Ryan

Hi everyone! Here is my latest drawing. As you can see I really enjoy drawing these Celtic crosses.

This particular drawing has significantly more detail than any other cross I have drawn so far. I added more Christian symbolism this time; the alpha and omega on either side of the globe, and the seven roses. The gears represent the intricate workings of God's creation. The distressed quality on the gears is meant to reflect the fallen nature of our world.

As usual this drawing was done with a mechanical pencil. This time I used a paper with a much smoother tooth, which allowed for more detail. I hope you enjoy it, as always feel free to leave a comment.