Art

…is that which reaches the soul and engulfs the spirit as a beautiful perception.

Contents:

Earth and Ed – intrinsically connected
Stages – storyboarding a career life
Pluto – Disney character drawing
Mickey Mouse – Disney character
101 – Disney characters
Cougar – pencil drawing
Doodle Bug – VW Beetle drawing
Beatles – acrylic and ink on acetate
Ken’s Ride – acrylic and ink on acetate
Angle Wrangle – lithograph
Fond ‘a Honda – color film proof
Dragon One – pen and ink
Traversity – metal etching
Fireworks – watercolor on pencil
Balance – acrylic and ink on acetate
Log Cabin Church – acrylic on board
Grasp1 – pencil drawing
Grasp2 – pen and ink
Portal – sketch and digital painting
Space is Out There – photo
Space Traveler – acrylic and ink on acetate
HummerHead 1 – computer animation
Freedom’s Elation – retirement note
The Net – raster graphic
Covid – watercolor
Flames – acrylic and ink on acetate
Princess Ariel – ink on acetate
Ariel Mermaid – acrylic and ink on acetate
Archive – card art


Earth and Ed

Earth image credit: NASA
Spaceman credit: me

September 2007 – Digital Composite

This image combines a NASA photograph with my acrylic painting in a fun way.


Stages

1974 – Storyboard drawings

The six drawings above are selections from stage 1 of my young adult professional career life, whereupon I had planned to produce an amateur animated film. I was on a tight budget in 1974 and didn’t have a proper camera… just a bunch of drawings. The project was shelved.

In stage 2 of my professional life, I became an electronics technician… Officially in 1983, after having studied what looked like alien landscapes for a long time. Investigations actually began with my preteen explorations of an eight transistor radio. Whereupon, I eventually evolved into professional career life stage number 3… Circuit board design in 1986.

Within those alien looking 👀 landscapes, I eventually played a very teeny tiny part in helping with the internet in a strictly CAD role. From whence, I retired in 2020… stage 4. Whereupon, thanks to stage 4, I pretty much goof off as a professional retiree now. This resulting ArtSite website is pretty much staging little teeny bits of my accrued life. Thusly, hoping to help others better stage theirs.


Pluto

“I’m all ears!”

Ink on pencil on notepad

This drawing predates my ability to recall when I did it. Pluto is actually speaking his first words from his two dimensional flat plane domain. Pluto’s original creators did not see fit to give him an English speaking role. Pluto was oppressed. He was subservient to his master, Mickey Mouse. And to make humility more obvious, Goofy, Mickey’s friend, (also a dog) could speak English even though Pluto was way smarter.

So I’ve opted to set things right for Pluto and promoted him to a higher artistic standard. Emancipation if you will. So Pluto can hold his head (and ears) up high as he “keeps moving forward”.


Mickey Mouse

1981 – Printers Ink on White Corrugated Board

I grew up on cartoons and Mickey was one of my favorites. He was a good guy. But he didn’t finish last. He was a soft spoken hero.

The Mickey Mouse image at the bottom of the above photo and the below Santa Mickey image are cutouts from a POP display (point of purchase) for Christmas candy that I designed the graphics for during my art career. The display was made of cardboard and the candy was Lifesavers in a Mickey Mouse cartoon themed package.

Santa Mickey

I was a commercial artist before computers came along. Back then, artists worked on a drawing table. Everything was done by hand. Drawing Mickey was the most fun I had as a professional artist and is the only commercial art from that career that I’m featuring on Ed’s Art.

The Mickey Mouse POP cardboard cutouts hang on my wall along with the two Disney signs that my wife gave me to help decorate my studio, office, cave.


101

“Ok. Don’t everybody pile in at once!”

Acrylic and ink on acetate

I’m unsure what year I did this piece but it was during my commercial art career. I painted it for my sweet sister-in-law, Mary and her Dalmatian buddy, ‘Dottie’.

I worked from a print of a scene from Disney’s 1961 release, 101 Dalmatians. I used the same techniques employed by the Disney artists to render cells for the animated movie.


Cougar

1993 – Pencil on paper

Mascot study. Our daughters started playing softball in Spring 1992. The next season found me as their assistant coach. Katie was on the T-birds and Ash was on the Cougars. Katie’s team mascot was an Amiga computer drawing. (I no longer own that computer)


Doodle Bug

Ink on pencil on paper

I liked drawing cars as a kid… this is one of the cuter ones.


Beatles

1975 – Acrylic and ink on acetate

This was my first work in this medium (animation cel). I had mistakenly painted George’s pants yellow before painting the Yellow Submarine so I 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 highlights I painted on the windshields reminds me of the inevitable bug collisions. I reckon it’s a good argument for a full face helmet…

Motorcycles are great fun but not without risk. They can be very maneuverable but are no match for any automobile that swerves or pulls out in front of you.


Angle Wrangle

1982 – 11×14 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.


Fond ‘a Honda

1983 – Art Film proof from graphic artwork

This was done for fun. I imagined it would make a cool T-shirt.


Dragon One

1971 – Pen and ink on paper

Too scary for toddlers, this is 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 (thanks to my friend Dub) then I carved it out of the etch panel and painted it gold to match the LTD’s blue and gold pinstriping.

Circa 1980, me and my American built Japanese cruiser

Fireworks

1976 – Watercolor on pencil on watercolor pad

These images of “my Dragon” are photographs of the first and third storyboard set of three 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

Human art is a reflection from our senses.

Our sense of balance is sourced inside our hearing. Our senses of emotion and self are sourced inside our brain where what we hear is processed.

God designed us to hear physically AND emotionally. We “hear” physically through our sense of balance ears. We can also “hear” spiritually through our senses of emotions (spirit) and self (soul).

We can hear God Spirit and the Devil’s spirit with our own spirit. This almost makes the metaphysical physical. But not quite. Spiritual communication is not quantifiable only subjectively circumstantial. I can’t physically prove that I talk with God and the Devil beyond Art.

This animation cel started as a drawer handle sketch as I was having suicidal thoughts and evolved.

If you look closely at the center of the image you’ll notice two separate heads merging together to form a third… two looking toward the center and one looking at you, three perspectives from one source. A simple symbol for God’s three person’s. The overall image gives the impression of an evil but beautiful dragon. God and the Devil are both spiritually active in this composition.


Log Cabin Church

1978 – Pencil Drawing
This was my study for the painting below.

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 buildings as reflecting the two testaments of the Christian Bible. I took artistic license and replaced the road in front of the church with a shadow. The shadow is a metaphor. Evil is approaching the church. Satan has been after the church since day one.


Grasp1

1974 – Pencil on paper

This was an exercise in Dragon drawing. It evolved into the pen an ink below.


Grasp2

1974 – Pen and Ink on paper

Grasp as in “Get a Grip”… Evil Is out to rule the world. Always has been. Love overcomes when nothing else does.


Portal

1971 – Original pencil sketch

2008 – Wacom Intuos3 Drawing Tablet, MS Paint

We don’t know the exact birthday, but we celebrate Jesus’s Birth on December 25. Such a humble beginning. 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!

Portal is a study for a family Christmas card. The three stars are symbolic of the Trinity. Santa is symbolic of us humans. Overall, Portal is symbolizing the transition to the afterlife.


Space is Out There

“My God, it’s full of stars!”

“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 1

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.

see Starship for more


Freedom’s Elation!

January 2020 – Retirement is emotional emancipation. All of a sudden, deadlines and commitments vanish like nighttime sparks from a roaring fire. 

Now what?

Something has to take the place of the energy you spent every day for umpteen gazzillion years at work. So find a hobby… get a recreational job. Do something to reward yourself for all that career work.

You deserve it!

Back to Work

August 2021 – After twenty months of retirement, I received a phone call from my good friend Billy W. at work. They needed some CAD support and Billy wanted to know if I knew anyone who would be interested.

I volunteered to come back out of retirement with the caveat that I am old and might be temporary… When you get old, you realize just how short life really is and you’re not afraid to tell others that you’re old!

In fact, there’s knowledge in being old. You’ve already done the stupid things that youngsters have yet to experience. So you’re kind of a “stupid” guru by the time you reach “oldenhood”. And BECAUSE you’re old, you can make up words without shame or remorse.

Besides, since you’re not dead, you’re not done with doing stupid things!

Guess this old horse wasn’t quite ready for the pasture!

Back to retirement… sort of

June 2023 – Slowing down with work and speeding up with retirement. Bought a new recliner. Tuned up my motorcycle. Kids and grandkids are growing. I’m all set!


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 from where 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.


Princess Ariel

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.


Ariel Mermaid

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.


Archive

3.5” x 2” Card
November 18, 2023
Name changed from Ed’s Art Net to Ed’s ArtSite
Web address remains eds-art.net

Ed
Casting to the Net
Questions: ed@eds-art.net

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7 comments

  1. Your writing accompanying your work titled Balance is vivid. I recoiled from it before I even read what you were dealing with at the time.

    Your drawings of the dragons feel like you acknowledge there is an evil presence that you need to dominate so you won’t be subject to them.

    You have the same thorn in your side that afflicts several of my family members. Periodically they are on the dark side of the moon. After a season they return to the bright side, and have a depth of vision found in the deep. The stars shine the brighter because they don’t expect them to be a constant fixture.

    That shadow constantly is trying to swallow the church and its light.

    Have a blessed day,
    Lynn

    1. Hi Lynn,

      Thank you for your thoughtful comment. You zeroed in on the works that symbolize the heart of my website. Yes, I fight with the demon. Just like so many others. Being aware is half the battle won. I wish you and your family well in the dark to light war and hope you’re able to find sufficient healing. God bless you for speaking and understanding. And God bless your family. ❤️

    2. Thank you again Lynn, for sharing your beautiful thoughts. Your sentiments are spot on. Having an appreciative audience is very gratifying. Thank you for “seeing” me. Web friends are a blessing and your comment helps complete my website in an enlightening way.

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