Daily Life 025: Ice Skating

The other day, we watched the movie "Ice Princess" starring Joan Cusack and Michelle Trachtenberg. The movie is about a physics student who begins a project based on ice skating for a scholarship competition, and as she learns more about skating by applying what she learns, finds that she really loves skating.
About half-way through the movie as I'm making dinner in the kitchen, I check on the girls and Abby is spinning in the living room. She say's "Look daddy! I'm ice 'kating!" Ha-ha-ha! So I help her with some more spins, and then we pretend to do some other of the other tricks (is that the right word?) from the skating portions of the movie. Now, any time she's posing with one food behind her, she tells me to "look at her ice 'kating moves."

More Resolutions, and Some Daily Life Drawings

I did something out of the ordinary at the library the other day...I actually talked to two people I didn't know. Not at the same time, either. This might not seem like a big deal, as I don't think I come off as a particularly shy or introverted person. And really I'm not, but getting the conversation started has always been a stumbling block for me. What do you say to people? Small talk (at least what we think of as small talk) just seems so...I don't know...small. On the other hand, you can't exactly open a conversation by talking about comparative world religions or how Sam Raimi ruined "Spiderman 3" and ways the movie could've been saved. Perhaps the problem is just that I'm over thinking it.

On that note, I made a resolution to myself the other day. I always tell people, that when it comes to school, blogging, forums, or heck, even just life, you get out of it what you put into it. This sounds like good simple advice, but it's hard to live up to sometimes. As a step in the right direction, I've resolved to comment back on comments received within a day instead of waiting until the next time I post. Also, I'm going to start commenting more often on the blogs that I follow. I know I always appreciate hearing from all of you out there in the world, so...

Okay. That's enough drama for the day! I did some new water colored character sketches of the girls and me as I continue to work on some new Daily Life ideas. I've started writing several stories that I think are pretty good, and have the thumbnails for one of the funniest things that happened over the Christmas break all done and ready to move on to a strip. You heard me. A comic strip...I hope you don't mind fart jokes. Ha-ha-ha!


There's also another reason I've done this set of watercolor portraits. We're using them as part of the promo, logo and ad portion of the new venture that Amy and I are working on. Pooling our resources, we've decided to form a new company "Handmade Family", focusing on gifts, accessories, games, and decor for growing families. We've set up a new blog for it, as well as an etsy shop to get things moving in the right direction. We have a couple of more plans to move forward, but will have to wait until they are a little firmer before talking too much about them. You can check out the blog here: Handmade Family. We'll be posting projects (both new, and in progress), events, specials, and whatever else strikes our fancy, so be sure to check in!

Whew! It's been snowing like crazy around here this week, and Amy's been home for the last three days. It's been nice having her, and we've gotten a lot done. I hope you all are all safe and warm. Until next time, take care and be good.

Your friend,
Jeffrey

Zita the Spacegirl: A Review

In 2008, before Abby was born, I decided I wanted to write a comic book. It would be a science fiction story, starring a young Abigail set adrift in a world beyond her kin. Foes that seemed so much bigger, and unstoppable(er) than her would be ranged against her. It would allow me to highlight noble traits like compassion, courage, kindness, cleverness and inner-strength while providing a strong (female) role-model for my young daughter. With his new graphic novel "Zita the Spacegirl," Ben Hatke has done all the work for me. All I need to do now is get a piece of masking tape to cover his name on the front and a sharpie to replace it with mine. Done. Ha-ha-ha!

In all seriousness, though, when I first saw the previews for "Zita the Spacegirl" it promised all these things, and it delivered from the first page to the last. Much like a modern day "Wizard of Oz," the protagonist, Zita, along with her friend, Joseph, is drawn through a portal into an alien world with larger than life problems. The crowded alien street where Zita lands is where we catch the first glimpses of her real character, and where we not only begin to like her, but also to care about what happens to her.

The drawings are very well thought out and composed, yet still simple enough to add to the charm of the young hero. Often a panel would be startlingly poignant and cause me to pause and reflect on Zita and her situation.

At the beginning of the story (don't worry, this is not a spoiler), Joseph is captured by an alien being. Zita shows both great courage and loyalty, vowing to rescue him and also risking never being able to return home in order to complete that task. As the story continues, she meets a number of creatures and robots who through her kindness and compassion, cleverness and courage she befriends. The group becomes a sort of family of misfits that love and trust each other... mostly. I love how upon close inspection, I can feel out some of the universal stories of our culture, but that they have been presented in such a fresh and enjoyable way. The book will be available on February 1st from First Second books, and you can pick it up on Amazon, and I think also at the Borders or Barnes and Noble. Definitely worth checking out.

Zita the Spacegirl: Trailer from Ben Hatke on Vimeo.

Okay, that's it for now. Until next time, take care and be good!
Your friend,
Jeffrey

Daily Life Calendar Pencils for May and June

Wow this week flew by. I'd honestly meant to post something on both Monday and Wednesday, but they were gone before I knew it. Geesh! There's always next week though, right? So. Here's a couple of new layouts for the Daily Life calendar. It's really coming along, and I'm super excited about it. No text yet on these, sorry...

May is pretty much all rain all the time here. You don't need a weatherman to tell you that. We have this ceramic cat planter in the backyard by one of our trees that we used to use to put cigarette butts in (When we smoked. So glad that's behind us!) but it's had nothing but leaves and a few acorns in it for the last year or so. When we get a really good rain, it fills up and overflows. I just noticed, when I was doing adjustments on the scan of this drawing, the look on Abby's face. I think this is the third or fourth drawing out of the whole set where somebody's making that face... Maybe I should rethink it. I'm looking forward to painting the ladybug pattern that's on her rain coat, and the boots have some pretty rad graphics on them too. I really like the way the umbrella came out in this one.

In June, we can pretty much count on the days getting hot. I remember wearing a jacket on my wedding day in June and still being comfortable, but like I said... By the time June rolls around the cool days of spring are pretty much over and we start asking ourselves why, why, WHY did anybody ever decide to live in Missouri. So, with summer comes pools, and play dates. In the pool. And somebodies going to get wet that would rather not. I know you're thinking "A tidal wave? Aren't you being just a little dramatic?" Trust me. They happen. I decided to switch things up a little on this one and not have anybody whistling, or saying "oooh", "Whew", or "goo". I also decided to show the back of the house, and the crazy tree that's in the retirement centers house across the street from us. Also, there's usually more dirt than grass in this area of the yard, but I'm choosing to not show that... Although usually it's not in too bad shape in June. Except for the mole that's wrecking the yard in general. Ugh... that's another thing entirely, and I'll probably need to write a chronicle of my quest to gain a mole free yard. or MFY. or muffie.

Wow. It's late. Can you tell by the rambling. I'll talk to you all again soon. Until then, take care and be good.
Your friend,
Jeffrey

March and April Pencils for Daily Life Calendar

Here's the next couple of months worth of drawings for the upcoming Daily Life Calendar. I started writing in the (very rough) accompanying text in the sidebars of the drawings too. Sometimes it's hard to see where I'm going before I get there, Ha-ha-ha!
I don't know if I've mentioned here how much Abby loves "raking leaves". Every time we go outside lately, she wants to get her gloves and the trash barrel and rake leaves. She usually helps for a few minutes, and then decides she wants to sit in them and spread them around. The kid's probably around 40% help and 60% hindrance. She's so amazing though, that it's easy to forgive her.
My original idea on this one was to just have the baby popping out of the box. It's hard to really show though just what a gift Olivia has been to our family, and how much Abby adores her. I was glad that Amy "got it" that she was dressed up in a batman costume before she read the text. I was going for the Adam West version, and had hoped it wasn't too subtle. I'm thinking I'm going to add some actual package graphics to the gift-box, too.

That's it for this today. I've been scraping tiles up in my dining room, and my wrist is killing me, so I want to get a little drawing done before it's just too tired. Ugh, getting old isn't for sissies. Until next time, take care and be good!

Your friend,
Jeffrey

Daily Life 023: Drawing

A couple of months ago, we gave Abby a spiral notebook to use as a journal. She likes to draw her name, her hands elaborate, multicolored, scribbly compositions... We gave her a sheet of stickers which she happily used to fill the pages of her journal with a fascination combination of neat rows and layered smiley faces, stars and dogs saying "GOOD JOB!". The point is, she draws in the book, and (usually) not on the walls or bills.

Sometimes when shes sitting at the table drawing, I'll get my book out and draw too. Abby will lean over the table, balancing precariously on one foot and ask "What you drawing, daddy?" in her little voice. This particular time I was drawing her, drawing. "You drawing Abby drawing... daddy?" Yes, most answers are repeated as new questions. This is a sign that she will soon be shoving her journal toward me and demanding drawings of cars, or animals, or Shrek. Which results in a mad dash to get down a passable likeness before she turns the page and demands something different.

And you complain that your boss wants stuff done fast?

Daily Life 022: Washing Dishes

Abby loves playing in the water. She will literally stand there for an hour "washing the dishes". I was struck by just how grown up she's getting. I know I say it a lot, and will probably keep saying it, but it always surprises me when I realize that my daughter is a kid now, and not a baby.

Daily Life 021: Happy Meal

At nearly two and a quarter years old, Abby still amazes me daily with the new things that she's capable of. She's a kid now, definitely no longer my baby girl. I think she shed the last little bit of that in the months leading up to Olivia being born. She's capable of a great many physical feats (which are ALL awesome), but what amazes me most is the language. I think that there is a feeling that we have, that two-year-olds still don't have many words. That they can't have a conversation. Well. Abby can tell you who all seven of the original members of the Justice League are. Depending on how she feels, she will tell you what she did today. If she went to the pool, or rode on a train, she will tell you about that... Usually for the next two or three days.

The first time I remember this happening was late in the spring. I asked what she wanted for dinner, and in her tiny voice she clearly said, "Happy Meal". Maybe this is a sign that we ate out too much this spring?

Daily Life 018: Rocking Chair

There are so many things that I love about Abby growing up into a big kid. She's so much fun to play with, and she's so loving, smart, funny, and ... did I mention already how much fun she is? There's so many things that I enjoy about her now, that I'd forgotten some of the things I enjoyed about when she was a little baby.

Like how much I enjoy sitting quietly and rocking a sleeping baby in the rocking chair. Olivia turns a month old tomorrow, where does the time go?

Daily Life 017: The Fence

More new boots... What can I say? My daughter loves shoes. And she's not a baby anymore, she's a big girl now. Today when I got home from work, Amy and Abby were outside sitting on the porch swing. Abby has on a red sweatshirt (over a Batman T-shirt), purple flowered pants, bright yellow puddle jumpers with monkeys on them, and quite possibly the ugliest greenish-yellow felt bunny hat... ever. Apparently, she's been very into opening and closing the fence gate into the backyard today. She spent a couple of minutes showing me (over and over) how good she was at it until we walked across the boggy ground to the shed so I could give her rides in the wagon.

The one nice thing about this ridiculous time change, is that there is still plenty of daylight after work to do a little playing outside before time to make supper.

Science is about ideas and preparation

A few years ago, my oldest brother got me a book for Christmas called "Build Your Own Humanoid Robots", by Karl Williams. There is a sort of pattern with the two of us... a set of gift buying rules, I guess. Generally, everything is off the beaten path, and touches on our interests and sensibilities in unobvious ways. The use for this book is nearing as Abby gets older, and some of the little boys I know are approaching an age where little fingers are less clumsy, and interest and attention can be held on a project through completion. This leads me to the title of this post.

I was thinking about making a robot. This brought to the surface of my brain a memory of my youngest brother (he was about 10 at the time) collecting old electronic junk (literally parts of VCRs, Stereos... I think he might have had part of a CPU in there) to make a robot out of. None of these things were really useful to his final goal, I think. This was an idea without preparation, and looking back on it I wonder how things would have turned out differently with a few less encouraging "mmmm-hmm"s and a little more guidance... I take my share of dropping the ball on that one. So... let's say you wanted to make a robot that had legs like a crab, and moved like one. (idea) Part of the preparation is obvious robot stuff (programming, servos, actuators... remote control), but part of it is less obvious. Stuff like biology (studying the muscles and joints of a real crab and how it moves), fabricating (parts have to be made somehow) and drawing. So many of the best ideas fall apart due to poor planning.

Mostly this post is set-up for next week. Your homework this week is to think about what the word "Subversive" means to you. I'm going to endeavor to adequately explain where I'm going with it (with a little help from my local library). There are some ideas and thoughts that have been weighing heavily on me of late, that I think I would like to share with my friends.
This weeks drawing is basically just practice for my next cover for Hex, trying out some new brushes and inking techniques, and practicing my color work. The colors on this one are still pretty rough. I'm hoping to grab a couple of minutes this week to tidy them up a little bit and push this drawing to a better finish. Her shirt was originally just going to be a big red circle... maybe with some text in it. The Eggplant graphic was totally accidental, but once I saw it it was too good to just let go.

Until next week. Take care and be good.
Your friend,
(in an effort to be more searchable) Jeffrey Johnson

Daily Life 014: A Tale of Four Penguins

Two-year-olds are funny people.

We went to the Zoo this weekend, and watched the penguin parade. All of the penguins marched out the back of their habitat, down the side-walk, and back into the front. Strutting their stuff, waving, straining their necks... one even laid down to take a nap in the sun. Abby loved it. She was so excited that Amy had to hold the back of her pants to keep her from dashing out to play with the birds.

After the parade was over, we decided that it would be fun to go to the gift shop, and let the girl pick out one of the cute stuffed penguins we'd seen earlier, to take home with her. Baby girl could care less about the four stuffed birds Mommy held out for her to pick from... She had her eye on the souvenir pen holder with the penguins that floated inside of it.

That's what we get for thinking a two-year-olds idea of "cool" is the same as ours.

Daily Life 012: Abby the Explorer

Christmas morning on the way out the door to drive to Warrensburg and see Grammy. Abby was all dressed in her PJs with a winter coat, hat and (of course) her cowboy boots. Also the Santa lantern that Daddy Jim had given her on Christmas Eve... While Amy was watching her step out the door, she commented that Abby looked like a little explorer.

Daily Life 011:Shopping Cart 2

Abby has a playschool shopping cart that she loves to push around... everywhere. And there's not really any rhyme or reason to what is actually IN the cart. The only consistent thing, is that usually either Woody or Kermit is riding in the seat.

DailyLife010:The Shopping Cart

Abby and I go shopping together. A lot. Okay, so it's really a Saturday morning thing for the most part. Mommy sleeps in, and we go maybe to the farmers market, maybe to the Home Depot, or maybe to the Walmart. Groceries is usually a part of this trip, so usually the Walmart is one of the places we go. So, it's possible that maybe I'm an over indulgent father, or maybe i just understand what the girl wants... She constantly tries to turn around in the cart to face the direction we are going (I think it's partly that she likes to accost people with demanding hellos). Because of this, I've taken to walking with the cart facing backwards so that Abby can face forwards.
She will wave at almost anyone... as long as they don't wave at her first.

Daily Life 008: Waiting

Amy had a meeting and a conference after work today, so Abby and I sat outside and waited for her. Part of the time we spent just hanging out, watching the cars and peoples go by, and drinking milk. The rest of the time we spent playing with toys out of her satchel. She's not really even talking yet, and still she seems more grown up every day...

Some More Progress: Almost finished

So I got some more work done on this Abby promo image this week. I finished all the coloring in illustrator.And then I moved over to photoshop to add in the highlights, and deepen some of the shadows as well as smoothing out some of the color breaks. I'm not 100% thrilled with with it. I think I need to do a little more work on the pants and face especially, but I'm not really sure where to go with with them right this second.
I started adding in some background elements too. Designing in photoshop is something that I rarely do, so this is a little bit of an adventure for me. If you all have any comments or suggestions about where I am, or where you think I ought to be heading, please drop me a comment. The plan for this page, is to be part of the website background, and I think also I will make it available as a downloadable desktop background too.
It's not nearly done yet, I have a vision for what it will look like, and I think I might do this weeks "What you Talkin' about?" segment relating to where I'm going with it. So'oooo please make sure to drop by for that little slice of heaven.

Okay, until tomorrow then, take care and be good.

Your friend
Jeffrey

Daily Life 004: New Boots

Abby got a new pair of boots from her Nana this weekend... She was very excited. We went to the Wal-mart after dinner, and she kept stopping to admire them.

Daily Life 002: Darth Vader

Abigail recently discovered her mothers microphone/tape player. She doesn't seem to get that you're supposed to talk into it, so she sticks the whole microphone into her mouth and does a pretty decent Darth Vader impression... Then says UH! really loud.

Abigail: A New Work in Progress

I promised myself I would try not to do this... Ha-ha-ha!

Okay, like I said. I really am trying not to post too many WIPs, but I got busy doing some freelance work and other stuff (by "other stuff" I mean that I have a new Xbox in my house... do with that what you want) and didn't get what I wanted to show you today done.
This is another drawing of Abby that I started on in the spring, and am working on getting the colors done. This one is a promo illustration that I plan on using in a couple of different places including my myspace page, the website, and brochure. I'm doing the initial colors in illustrator, and then I plan to export it to photoshop to add highlights and some background effects.
Gotta run now, but I'll be back again tomorrow for the next "Daily Life". Until then, take care and be good.

Your friend
Jeffrey