Yesterday I dropped Jemma off for a playdate with her boy Jacob. From what I heard, and saw of photos, the two had a fantastic time playing and crawling around the house. Jemma eventually wore him out and needed to be picked up to wreak terror somewhere else.
Here is a quick movie I did to showcase the little girl's jumping abilities
To give my pictures a sense of realism, I am going to start 'framing' them with a mat so that the true sense of the image can come out. I do admit they look a lot more professional.
Trying to refine the technique of the Andy Warhol project, I took a picture of the family dog and tried to use a more adult color palette.
Here are two new paintings I did. Trying to keep them abstract, one is dots, and the other is lines.
Here is a new picture that I did. I tried to incorporate real images with paint. I think it looks interesting.
Yesterday was the dog's birthday and we forgot -- not like we don't have a real kid to take care of. So like Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles, Fletch went all of Valentine's Day without a pet, a cuddle, or a pat to the head. I think we even forgot to feed him. So in honor of his fourth birthday, Jemma and I decided to incorporate him into our latest video creation. Here's to you our tri-colored mutt. We still love you.
So I know that I have no real artistic talent when it comes to painting an actual image. I came to this conclusion many years ago when my talent to draw topped out at about the first grade. I had all the aspirations to succeed, but it was not in the cards. I equate my drawing skills to someone trying to throw a ball with the wrong arm, but in my case the wrong arm is always the one that draws. When I should have had pencil and paper in hand, I had an Atari joystick.
So a description of the pictures. The first is my attempt at water color and painting a grassy field with mountains in the distance. The second image is more abstract, and depicts a lone askewed pine.
So here is one more piece that I did a few months ago. I was looking through fonts and saw this cool one of stick figure people in various poses. I thought it would be fun to construct a 'family portrait' using Illustrator and features that allow you to turn fonts into alterable images. The only image missing was one of a dog, so I drew him myself. Maybe a little quirky in the whole scheme of things, but fun nonetheless. 
It amazing what some denim and pink Chuck Taylor's can do to someone's appearence. For being eight months, she looks a good 15 in this outfit.
So somehow Jemma loves to chew on electrical cords. I pull her away, turn my head, and back at it she goes in her funny worm-like movement. I figure I don't have to worry about it much until she gets teeth -- so have at it sparky.
So I don't know when I felt the need to pick up sciccors, construction paper and glue, but when I knew my wife and I had to decorate Jemma's new room, I thought of ways to contribute. One night we were walking through downtown Portland and saw a design company that had make street signs with inverse (white) images within a colored background. After searching around the internet to purchase said art, and not finding what we invisioned, I decided to make myself. Since I realy enjoy modern art, which ultimitly became the theme of Jemma's room, cuddly animal prints where not to our liking. Utilizing Adobe Illustrator, I created square images with a whimsical font.
I then cut the images to 8x8 squares and individualy mounted them on canvas. To create a stressed look to the pictures, I embalmed the pictures with a product called Mod Podge (or watered down glue) -- I later learned the technque is also called Decoupage.
I later found out about a website called Cafepress which allows you to create T-shirts. So out of boredom to see my designs on cotton, I uploaded a few pictures.
So I found a website that allows you to 'Warhol-ize" pictures. 
As cool as it was, I wanted to take it one step farther. I colorized the same photo with colors I liked, then individualy hand-cut and mounted each image to its own canvas.
I've since been 'commissioned' to make one for some friends.
