Doc Ed Update

Just in case your in the neighborhood, Doc will be at the Witte museum on Tuesday, July 20th for one presentation at 2p.m. Hope to see you there.

Evolution of a Book Cover

In developing the cover art for "The Miracle of Monterrey/Milagro de Monterrey" book, we went through several versions before arriving at the final art. The sketch above is the first in the series and is a gritty and dark image.







Still keeping to the gritty theme this one is more dynamic. We needed to get a finished cover as soon as possible so it could be used to advertise the book's release and hopefully tie it in to the movie before it's release. As it turned out the film release was delayed for a couple of years and the book was released long before the film. Bummer.The movie finally opened this past April to good reviews but by then the book was surviving well on it's own.




This time around it was decided try a "cartoonier" (if that is a word) look that might appeal to a younger crowd.


We finally arrived at this composition which both the art director and author liked so the next step was to put some text to the layout.



I have to mention that the book went through almost as many titles as art. It's pretty hard to come up with a good title.



I thought I was ready to paint when it was decided to go for a vertical format so it was back to the drawing board, quite literally, for a little while longer.



This a color study with text. There's still lots more to do but at least the composition and format are set.



The latest cover with the latest title which was not chosen because it sounded too much like the "Boys from Brazil".


We arrive at the finished product with all the bells and whistles in place. The final image was done mostly in photoshop. As I'm sure is the case with a good many illustrators I wish I had a chance to repaint this one. We artist are a picky bunch. Oh well. My wife still loves me anyway.

Circus Memories

That's Pammy and I in the bottom left corner of the picture with the entire Clown Alley of the 131st Edition of the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Good morning. Happy Wednesday to all. I found this postcard of our Clown Alley from 2001 the other day while I was organizing my photo albums. I've also got a couple dozen disposable film cameras I've yet to have developed. I don't even remember what's in them. Shame on me.

When I ran across this card I thought about all the fun Pammy and I had that year. As different as the show had become from the time Pammy and I were first on the road we found that backstage things never change. Backstage pranks were still common as were all the characters one would expect to find in a circus.

There was Bello Nock, daredevil clown extraordinaire and the featured star of the show who wasn't above taking a pie in the face for his birthday as was the circus tradition, courtesy of Pammy after an extended backstage water gun battle.Those are the memories that stick with you. Once I develop those rolls of film I any photos that are from the road that I find... but that will have to wait till payday or as soon as I can sell a painting. We'll see.

Toot, Toot, Chugga, Chugga Big Red Bus

The Scholastic Publishing bookmobile inside the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center at the National Latino family Expo this past Sunday where I did my presentation on illustrating Raining Popcorn Media's "Milagro de Monterrey" book.


This bus, which is sponsored by Scholastic Publishing and staffed mostly by volunteers from the teaching community, travels around the San Antonio area two to three times a week distributing free books to school-age children.


That's me inside the bus in the middle of my presentation. The boxes that surround me are filled with the free books for the kids. They also provide a space for arts and crafts too. Amazing. It was cozy in there but the kids and grownups were great and I had my best presentation yet. I wished I had video taped it.


When I do these presentations I bring along as much eye candy for the kids to look at. It's difficult to see from the photo but I had several stacks of sketches, paintings, various versions of the cover and text portion of the book, paints, brushes and palette. Space was extremely limited so most of what I had was tucked under my chair, behind my chair and on the boxes around me. Oh, and the photos are courtesy of Art Avila, half of the big enchilada ( Lisa is the other) at Raining Popcorn. Thank you Art and Lisa for making me a part of the event.

COOKIE! COOKIE! COOKIE!

A few years back, around 1997, I got a job at a educational television expo. I'd be posing for pictures at the Children's Television Workshop section as the Cookie Monster. I'd done work as costumed characters before and it's always a challenge especially when you can't speak and your face is covered. Of course, it is also a tad bit warm. I can't recall how I got the job. I'm pretty sure it wasn't through an agency. More than likely it was because of a word- of- mouth recommendation which have gotten us a lot of work over the years.

This job was special to me, though, because it was as close as I would get to being a puppeteer on Sesame Street( which has always been a dream) seeing as how we had no plans to live in New York. Before I went out into the performing area I was instructed to keep the spirit of the character in mind and at no time would I speak. No problem. I had a lot of fun playing the part of this lovable character that I grew up watching. I kept my movements slow, small and simple, keeping in mind the presence of children and posed for loads of pictures.

The costume itself seemed very light and relatively comfortable. The neat thing about it was that concealed inside one hand was a control cable that operated the mouth. The folks in charge were very nice and at the end of the day I was given a Sesame Street t-shirt which I still have as a momento of that day.

Sunday in Paradise

This afternoon I had a very enjoyable time talking to an audience of kids and adults about illustrating for the Milagro de Monterrey book. I talked and joked and got some great laughs. It was at the Henry B. Gonzales Convention Center. I had a very good time but while I was there Pammy and the kids were enjoying themselves at a birthday party with loads of this kind of food of the gods (pictured above). Such is life. Drool.

Fallen Angels Fun

Review for the play "Fallen Angels" at the Alamo Street Restaurant and Dinner Theatre. Pammy got a good write- up.




In the early nineties, specifically November of 1992, there was some decent theater work happening in downtown San Antonio. Nestled deep in the heart of the King Williams neighborhood, was Bill Larson's Alamo Street Theatre and Restaurant (now Casbeers) , that was running Noel Cowards "Fallen Angels"as it's inaugural play. It was directed by Danny Spear and the cast consisted of company members including Pammy who recalls it being a fun show and received a good review for comedic role as the "know-it-all" maid.

The place is reputedly haunted and on the evening of the anniversary of Eddie Raffel's death (a legendary San Antonio actor, theater mover/shaker and theatrical entrepreneur), Pam dedicated the evening's performance to him and a split second later the lights went out. There were no storms or any other reasonable cause for the power outage except perhaps Eddie playing a prank as he often did in life. Nonetheless, the show went on. Pam entered the stage, in character, to explain that during her travels to Africa or Asia, such occurrences were not permitted to interfere with any theatrical presentation. With that, the show went on in candlelight until just minutes before the end of the play when the lights came back on. Life is so much more fun with theater.