Card Duel Video

Card Duel is a short video made from slides I shot for a art assignment back in my  art school days.  I don't remember which class the assignment was for.  But I remember having fun making the playing card characters.  Enjoy.

Sunday Music Muse Day Father's Day

I started this Father's Day with some Pat Metheny music. The "Trio" and "Quartet" CD's were a great way to start the day.

King's Drum and Ekun and Opolo Go Looking for Wives - Filmstrips

This past week I posted videos of two children's filmstrip I illustrated back on the '70's and '80's.  Both, "The King's Drum" and "Ekun and Opolo Go Looking for Wives",were based on African folk tales.  Read the description on the video post for the story summary. Also, in both cases I lost the original soundtrack and narration, so I added sound new background music.  In the case of The King's Drum I used a track by the jazz group Weather Report titled "Jungle Book".

Below are some concept art for Ekun and Opolo, and storyboards for King's Drum.  With Ekun and Opolo I was attempting a different style.  It was more cartoony than I usually drew on other filmstrip assignments.  I think I used Higgins's or  Penguin colored inks  and added colored pencil lines on the figures to give them a graphic look.  For King's Drum I started using Dr. Martin's dyes, so the colors are more intense. 

I still have one more filmstrip I plan to upload, but I'm hoping to find the narration, first.  Until then, enjoy.

Space Ghost Desktop

My good friend Larry Houston emailed this Space Ghost pic done by Jerome Moore. I liked it, so I made it my desktop pic on my iMac. Sometimes when I switch over from another user the screen flip looks like Space Ghost is flying toward you. I get a chuckle out of it.

Here's the original show action pack opening,  much like the Hanna-Barbara Jonny Quest animation show.

 Enjoy.

Sunday Music Muse Day - Steve Khan

  Today I picked out a guitar duo CD featuring Steve Khan and Rob Mounsey to enjoy with my Sunday morning breakfast of waffles and bacon.  Afterward I followed that up with some of Steve Khan's other CDs (actually I owned several on albums, first).  I must admit I didn't like Steve Khan's very first album when he was doing sort of standard Rock/Fusion stuff.  But starting with "Eyewitness" and "Casa Loco" he found a unique style and musical direction.  I grabbed the tune "Guy LaFleur" from Eyewitness as an example cut from youtube.  Also the album cover art by  Jean-Michel Folon was very cool.  The "Let's Call This" and "Got my Mental"  CDs are nice Jazz trio outings with tunes by Thelonious Monk, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter and others.  Very tasty stuff.

Check these album out if you get the chance.  Enjoy

Call of the Wild - Filmstrip 1975

  I posted another another children's filmstripon Youtube, that  I illustrated back in 1975. It's an adaptation of Jack London's classic book "Call of the Wild". This is Part 1 of 2. I think this is the longest filmstrip assignment I did, about 170 illustrations. I almost didn't post this when I finished my first edit because the soundtrack sounded so bad as a result of the cassette tape being stretched out, making the narration drag. But I sped up the track by 10% and everything was fine.

I'll post Part 2 in a couple of days. Enjoy

Sunday Music Muse Day - Mother's Day

  Another Sunday Music Muse Day.  It's Mother's Day, so I picked some mellow tunes for background music as the boys and I made breakfast for their Mom, and my wife, Lisa.

  First up was the Tuck Andress - Reckless Precision.  I'm not a big fan the Tuck and Patti duo CDs, but this solo electric guitar outing has some nice tunes on it.  it worth a listen.  I followed it up with the anthology CD, Utltra Chilled 03.  I used to troll the CD racks at the old Virgin Megastore  that was near the Warner Bros building Sherman Oaks, when I worked at WB.  Before iTunes, the Chilled CDs were (and still are)  a great way for an old fart like me to keep up with some of the new groups out there.  Enjoy. 

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My Lunch Time Sketch Book

I just posted this short video on youtube. The art is no great shakes, just lunch time doodles.  I'm still working through a creative slump, so any pencil time is better than none.

There are a couple of sketches I'm thinking of working on farther, like the guy in the big battlesuit (above).  We see.  Enjoy.

Sunday Music Muse Day - May 6, 2012

Another Sunday Music Muse Day.  I started the day with another Gerry Mulligan CD, which I had in my collection already. I brought "Dragonfly" by the Gerry Mulligan Quartet mainly because of the title name.  (What can I say, I have a thing for dragonflys)  The music is a nice way to ease into Sunday morning.

The quartet includes John Scofield on guitar. Scofield is one of my favorite guitarist and I have a lot of has early vinyl records and later CDs.  I picked two to listen to today,  "Slo Sco - Best of the Ballads" and "Quiet" which features John on nylon string acoustic guitar instead of his electric.  "Spy vs Spy"  and "Gil B643" on the Slo Sco CD were tunes I used to rock my first born to sleep on my shoulder when he was a year old.  Funny how certain  tunes become linked to special memories.  As always, check these CDs out, and enjoy.

The Dragon's Teeth - Children's Filmstrip - 1981

Here's another children's filmstrip I illustrated back in the 1980's. The Dragon Teeth was part of a series of filmstrips , Monsters of the Greek Myths, produced by Spoken Arts, Inc. My favorite part of the story is the sowing of the dragon's teeth, a scene famously done by Ray Harryhausen in his film "Jason and the Argonauts" were fighting skeletons rise out of ground. Again, I'm just trying to archive and digitize these filmstrips before the film fades. They are no longer produced, long since replaced by video, DVD and Blu-Ray. Enjoy.

Sunday Music Muse Day

Sunday is my Music Muse Day, a day to listen to old favorites and discovery new ones to inspire the soul. I started the day with the gift CD from Jazz 90.1 radio for renewing my membership. Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, Carnegie Hall Concert. Great stuff!

 

 Actually I starting Music Muse Day last night by cruising youtube to find some tunes I had heard on a internet radio station but they didn't show up in itunes.  Sure enough, they were on youtube, full versions, not just short preview.  The main one I wanted to hear was this DJ Krush & Toshinori Kondo  tune "Ha Doh".  The trumpeter sound like Miles Davis.  This tune has haunted me for years.  I'll have to track down the CD.  The second track featured is Five Deez / Fat Jon - Sexual for Elizabeth, again I heard it on internet radio and could not get it of of my head.  Enjoy.

  

Eye of the Sun - Childrens' Filmstrip - 1976

Here's another children's filmstrip project I did the illustrations for back in the '70's. Eye of the Sun is a Egyptian myth about the creation of the world.   I think this filmstrip is much better shape, visually, than the Kaa's Huntings filmstrip.  The colors hasn't faded as much.  I have to admit the soundtrack is a little lame.  You can tell these weren't high budget projects. 

As before, I've included some storyboard pages with this post.  Enjoy

Children Filmstrips - Tom Thumb and Kaa's Hunting

I  posted some videos on Youtube of children's filmstrips I did the illustrations for back in the '70's, ancient history for some of you younger viewers. These were some of the first professional illustration jobs I landed.  The paid wasn't great, in fact it was pretty damn low.  But, it was great fun and let me at paid for drawing.   It also prepared for storyboard work  I would do later in the animation career.

These  educational filmstrips  were shown in schools or libraries before video tapes were around. I did several of these including adaptations of Grimm's fairy tales, like "Tom Thumb" , Greek Myths and African folk tales. I want to digitize them before the old slide film fades completely. 

The soundtrack were on cassettes.  One side has the music and narrative with a audible beep to cue when to change to the next slide frame.  The other side have inaudible beep for use with slide projectors that advanced the frame automatically.

 Here's a storyboard page for Kaa's Hunting and the sample art  I did to get the job.

Like I said, crude by today's standards, but I hope they entertained some kids for a little while.  In any rate, they did earned awards for filmstrips, so that's something to be proud of.

 I'd been thrilled if anyone remembers seeing this in school or a library. If you did please leave a comment here or on the Youtube page. Enjoy.

Old Graphic Animation Demo On Youtube

  I found this old Demo tape of mine that I wanted to save before it fell apart.   I used it for a lecture I gave at Monroe Community College, in Rochester NY, last fall.  The clips at the head of it are from record ads already posted on Youtube.    Unfortunately the original sound track on the demo didn't play properly.  The on-air network promos were done when I worked for Image Factory in New York City.  The HBO promos were done by Doros Animation.  All are crude by today's standards but back then they were cutting edge.  Enjoy.

Happy Birthday, Sam Woodyard (Jan. 7, 1925 - Sept. 20, 1988)

Here is my annual birthday tribute to my father, Sam Woodyard, drummer for the legendary Duke Ellington band.  A year before he died I visited Sam in Paris, he was very in very poor heath at the time.  His many wonderful friends there shared many warm memories with me.  They also give me these albums Sam played on as a sideman while in Paris.  I will treasure these always.  My special thanks to Gwen Persiany-Workman and Andre' Persiany (his album is shown below) who welcomed me into their home and treated me like family.  My thank to everyone.

  Happy birthday, Sam.