The Best of 2007





January: A downtown apex art dealer inquired about the purchase of this painting.



February: Grayson and I sketch the Tipper Tie water tower. Later, I create this piece from the sketches.



March: Book signing at Chick-Fil-a. The kids asked me to sign their books… and their cows and their water bottles and some more cows and…



April: Jackals Win FAHL C Division Championship




May: I go through my yeti phase, creating illustration after illustration.




June: After watching a video about spoon bending by using the power of the mind, I took on this new and exciting hobby.




July: The hunt for Pigrates. It was animal behaviorist Cole Saphone who spied the creature first. A large, orange animal was rooting through the sand, some 200 yards up the coast.




August: To be on an island… to be at a nest… to be there the day, the hour, the minute, when a sea turtle hatches. A once in a lifetime.



September: My fox painting won an award at the SCBWI-NC Fall conference.




October: My interface design made the Chicago Times. How very exciting. The interface I designed for TeleHealth Services has been installed in Northwestern’s new Prentice Women's Hospital.



November: my Computer Art and Animation students create some cool stuff.




December: I end the year the same way I started, painting large, multi-media paintings of water towers.

Soar



This illustration is based on an actual dream I had last night.

The house in the middle is Mrs. Glass' house on Briggs Ave where I grew up. The house to the left (you can only see the garage) was mine. I'm the guy in the red shirt.

OK, I know. Now more Tim LaHaye books before bed!

A Little Christmas...

Music

Studio version of a Christmas song recorded by my old band, Karen Ray.

What Angels Came To Say.mp3


The Video


Animation

And now for my exciting Christmas animated gif :)

Horizon

December is a crazy month. Every night, doing something. Some party. Some dinner. Fun. But still, no time to do stuff. Still, always doing stuff.

But not tonight.

So..



This is a tower I snapped a photo of on the way back from Thanksgiving dinner. It's some small town in SC or possibly right over the NC border. I don't know. I was lost. Well, sort of. I knew I was heading home.



This little water tower was right on the horizon. It was the first thing you saw as you drove into town. That, and a gas station may have been all the town had. Though I do remember there was an IGA for sale in the town we went through right before this one.

Backwards



I'm entering one of the last pages from my Computer Art and Animation class' book, Why Communism Doesn’t Work. I would enter the very last page, making it a truly backwards entry, but I don't want to spoil the ending.

Take a look at the book, you can download it for free, and I think you will see why it makes a splendid backwards entry.


Why Communism Doesn’t Work

The Computer Art & Animation class' latest book is finally available!!

Why Communism Doesn’t Work is a brilliant depiction of the ups and downs of life in Antarctica. A must read!

But don’t take my word for it. See what the critics are saying:

“Best book I’ve ever read. Better than Harry Potter!” ~ Anna

“Creative and imaginative. Sparked my inner child.” ~ Hannah

“A clear, understandable and unbiased look at the gritty government that is communism. A must read for kids of all ages!” ~ Mike

Why Communism Doesn’t Work
Buy it Today!

Computer Art and Animation: Flash

Here is a list of Flash projects my Computer Art and Animation class has been working on. Each link opens a new window.

Bubbles
The assignment was to incorporate sound with buttons. Pop away!

Musical Desk
Another assignment incorporating sound with buttons. Make sure you hold down the mouse to see the full animation.

Put the Cat Outside
Again, incorporating sound with buttons. This project also uses drag and drop as well as different scenes. Drag the cat out the window.

Chief
This student uses stop frame animation as well buttons to design a simple yet effective game concept. Click on the good guy to take out the aliens.

Forest
The assignment was to create a frame-by-frame hand drawn animation (no tweens). The project had to include at least 100 frames and incorporate music.

Computer Art and Animation



I've just posted some of the recent projects my Computer Art and Animation class has been working on. Check it out when you get a chance here.

Post Modern Impressionsim

I was asked a question about my paintings. How very exciting! Here it is in Q & A format.

Q: I've noticed that most of your paintings have a strong energy about them, like you can't sit still. And then, there are some paintings that you've done with the trains and the water tower that are so calm and peaceful and dreamy.

What I've wondered is how much of your mood reflects the way the painting turns out? How much of the painting is influenced by the actual surroundings vs. what makes up the thoughts and feelings of the creator of the painting?




click to see the whole thing

A: When I drew the trains and the water tower, I went out, looked carefully at the subject, drew sketches from life and took photos. Then I went back and painted them. So I think I was more careful about capturing the subject. I looked over my sketches as I painted and paid some attention to the photos.

With the tree paintings, I basically sat in my yard and stared at them for a long time. I watched how the sun changed the colors of the trees. I really looked at them and tried to see what color they were. I took a photo or two for quick reference but when I started painting, I didn't much look at it anymore.

Putting this into the context of art history, the trains and the water towers lean towards impressionism, stealing from Monet :) The trees lean towards abstract expressionism, stealing from De Kooning and Pollock.

More post modern impressionsim

Large Scale Painting



click to see it larger

It’s been a summer since I’ve tackled a new postmodern impressionism project. But something about late fall/ early winter makes me reach for a large-scale stage.

Wish I had a ginormous canvas to paint on. Something not measured in inches. Feet instead.



About half the painting visable to show scale with stuff

Still it was nice to get my hands dirty again. This isn’t finished but I figured I’d blog it up while I wait for this layer of stuff to dry.

You can check out previous ian postmodern impressionist paintings here:
(The new paintings will be added below)


Pine trees
Trains
Water towers

OK, here is a cropped version of the finished painting:



click to see the whole thing