Ward Kimball

I was digging through my old photos and I found this one of me meeting the late, great Ward Kimball. Since I worked at Disney Animation, famous and semi-famous people would come by for different reasons.
Ward was part of the "9 old men", the original nine guys that developed Disney Animation.
I had met Frank and Ollie, who are usually considered the big superstars of the nine, and that was cool, but Ward Kimball was by far my favorite. In addition the the classic Disney characters he brought to life, he did some of that crazy 50's modern super styly animation that I just LOVE.



here's an image from Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom

my Jedi kids

I made these because I was trying to explain to my son about editing and fx.
I used Mirage and imovie.
fun.

Figure Drawing

From a figure drawing session I attended in Pittsburgh the other day, hosted by the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators, of which I am a member.


Man... I haven't done life drawing in forever.
This is the only image out of the bunch that I liked.
j.

Pirate

AAAARRRGH!
a pirate.

j.

Batman...

a goofy batman I did for Sugar Frosted Goodness

Girl with the red hat

out of my sketchbook... random character sketch

Illustration Friday - Ghost

Here's my IF for today. Experimenting with photoshop brushes and textures.

Guitar guy

Another image from my sketchbook.

Blue beans

Here's a page from my sketchbook. Colored pencil and a dying Chartpak marker.
...had kind of a crappy day yesterday.

Laughing Critters

Here are some laughing critters for an upcoming Scholastic book series about animals.

From my sketchbook

design inspiration interview

check out my interview on the Design Inspiration blog.
click here
j.

painting with kids

This is a painting done by my 3 year old daughter, Annabeth. She loves to make a mess, and it's tons of fun to paint with her. The brushes stink, the paper's super cheap, and the paint is nasty. Tons of fun.



and these are some drawings done by my 5 year old son Mark. Mark has autism, so I'm always really interested in what kind of thing comes out of his head. I taught him how to draw himself, so now he draws pictures of himself all the time.
This outfit with the button down shirt, the red boots and the belt is his favorite "uniform"- he'd wear it every day if we let him. It's sort of a comfort thing I think. I'm just thrilled to see my kids drawing and painting. For a long time, they had no interest in coloring or drawing, much to my chagrin, but recently they have become totally interested. yay. My 7 year old son isn't interested though. He digs the Nintendo DS and Legos. That's ok, as long as I have at least one mini me I'm happy.

Here's a fish I did while painting with Annabeth

On a personal note...

Sunday, September 17 2006, our new baby girl was born. The labor and delivery went really well. Mommy is recovering nicely.
We named her Olivia Joy Elston. For those keeping track, this is baby #4 for us. Now it's 2 boys and 2 girls. She's a cute little bugaboo.




Here's a picture of our second born son holding Olivia.

Illustration Friday - Farm

A farmer... 50s style.

j.

Day job

here's a piece from the project that has been taking up all my time. I am illustrating a 10 book series for Scholastic. This one is an interior illustration from book 4.

j.

Illustration Friday - Safe

Oh robot maids are the best...
j.

Illustration Friday - Run

A runner...
j.

skate shop logo

Here are 2 graffiti-inspired logos for the local skateboard shop here in Johnstown PA. I don't know yet whether he'll use them, but I had fun doing them nonetheless. I still skateboard, at age 35 (mostly at the local skate park), although I have salt and pepper colored hair, a wife, 3 kids and a minivan, and I know all the words to most of the Wiggles' music. Kids less than half my age are ripping it up, while I throw down the slow motion old school... well, my skateboarding heyday was in the early 90s, so I guess I skate more "middle school".
One thing is for sure, I'm not 18 any more.

I don't bounce back as quickly as these little guys do.

Illustration Friday - Match

I thought I'd try something a little different.