Fabulous Blogs

I've been delinquent this past week... no posts. Had a few freelance gigs on the go and just didn't have the time. I suppose as I get busier, I'll need to make a point of finding the time because I'm really enjoying posting as well as poking around the blogosphere and interacting with other artists, doodlers and the like. But I'm finding it hard to find time for it all. I don't know how Sheila does it.

I'm a bad blogger...   or am I?

Apparently James Parker doesn't think so. He bestowed upon me a "Your Blog is Fabulous" tag. (Thanks, James!) Aside from being a very active blogger, James is an artist living in Costa Rica. His web site has a great collection of his wildlife paintings.

I'm not that familiar with tagging but I'll give it a go. His rules are to name your five favorite addictions, then pass the award to five other bloggers. I'll put the tags at the end of the list.

John's top five favorite addictions (in no particular order):

1) Gardening. Last year my wife and I bought a place outside of town which was originally owned by people from a farming family. They built 10 cold beds, a huge greenhouse and a shed. Though it had been neglected by the previous owner, I felt some strange obligation to pick up where they left off even though I didn't have a clue about gardening. Anyway, long story short: I repaired the beds, planted tons of stuff and spent the rest of my summer weeding and watching it grow. Now I can't wait for the snow to clear and get back at it.

2) Art. I like looking at it, making it, giving it away, selling it, framing it, and finding just the right spots on the wall. Making it includes doodles, painting, pen and ink, linocuts, as well as digital illustration (oh stop rolling your eyes... digital counts!). I picked up a router and a chop saw a few years back so my buddy and I got into framing... good times... must get back into that... the art is piling up.

3) Publication Design/Layout. Weird huh? I bill myself as a graphic designer. I can put together ads, brochures, web sites... pretty well anything I'm asked too make. But I really love making publications. Books, magazines and newspapers: that's what I most enjoy in my work life.

4) My Fire pit. Is it weird to be addicted to a fire pit? Who knows. I sure don't. Nor do I care. I LOVE my fire pit. The week we moved into the new place, my wife went out of town and  a neighboring buddy came over. We had a few beer and the topic of a fire pit came up. We scouted the property for a prime location. It was hypothetical of course but before that case of beer was empty, we scoured the tree line for rocks, dragged our top choices to the selected area, made a big circle, then burned stuff. Instant fire pit. Last spring I upgraded to Fire Pit 2.0 by digging out the space, lining the pit wall with stone and buying some huge pointed stones to make it into a compass design. I've already got plans for the next upgrade.

5) Documentaries. It sounds snobby but I do love a documentary. Don't get me wrong, I watch more TV than I probably should. I have favorite shows (Battlestar, Lost, Heroes) that I follow and watch all genres of movies but I most enjoy a good documentary. A recent fav: A Workingman's Death.  Powerful subject matter and spectacular camera work. Also Garbage Warrior. It seemed a little flakey at first but what a fabulous story it turned out to be.

Okay, coming up with that list was harder than I thought it would be. Here are five blogs I frequent and therefore new owners of the "Your Blog Is Fabulous" award. (Rules for those tagged will be the same: list five favorite addictions, then pass it on to five bloggers)

1) Peter Yesis. Peter has great step-by-step photos of a lot of his ongoing paintings and I really enjoy seeing his process.

2) Jim Bradshaw. Fabulous doodler and artist! You should hire him!

3) John Stewart. Great portrait artist. His digital work is very inspiring.

4) Andy. Great cartoon characters. His "A Dude A Day" project is hilarious.

5) Jonathon Burton. Awesome illustration work.

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That's it... I've got to go. I'll have no more posts for the next week cause in 6 hours, I'm off with the wife to SWEDEN of all places. I was going to post on that but I've run out of time. But I have a fully loaded digital cameral, a brand new sketchbook and a fist full of pens and pencils. Hopefully I'll have some interesting material to post when I get back.

I'll leave you with a shot of Fire Pit 2.0 in all it's glory:

Oh alright, an action shot too: