Northwest Territories

I really enjoy history. Recently I completed a commission for a map that will be used for a film documentary about George Rogers Clark. The documentary covers the expansion of US territories shortly after the Revolutionary War. I was asked to make a few versions of the map so that the territories can morph into the present states. It was interesting to see how strangely shaped some of the states were, because the colonies had claimed huge swaths of land that no one had really explored yet—and some of those claims were disputed with England and Spain. The first map shows the United States circa 1780, and the second shows the same territories circa 1860 as states in their more-or-less present form.

There is a bit of a wonky character to most maps from that time period, because they didn't have extremely accurate ways of mapping large territories. Because of this, I didn't worry too much about getting the map as accurate as possible. And in some places, I gave preference to the drawing on older maps, especially where they were distorted. It gives it an added vintage quality, which is what the filmmakers were going for.

Watercolor process

Well, in case anyone was wondering, I'm not dead. It's just been an extremely busy six months. My son was born in November. In January we decided we couldn't afford to stay in Savannah any longer, so we moved to Omaha the first week of April. I went on some job interviews later that month. Then I gave a lecture on worship arts in Wisconsin. And now we're still trying to get settled and I'm still looking for a second job, but trying to get back into the swing of things.

This is what I was working on before the move. These are some process photos of the watercolor illustrations for "The Stick and the Stone." The paper is stretched wet and stapled onto a 1/2" plywood board. I transfer the drawing onto the paper with graphite transfer paper. With this backlit piece, I applied masking fluid to the sun and did the sky first, working from background to foreground. I usually do some minor tweaking with values and color in Photoshop for the final.

A peek at the studio

Character sculpt

Here's a little 4-inch sculpt I did of the main character from "The Stick and the Stone." Since I don't have a ton of practice drawing children, this is intended to help me keep "on model." His name is Levi, and he's an Israelite boy, age 8-10, in the time of the Exodus from Egypt.

The Stick and the Stone: Redux

Here's what I've been up to lately. These are some prelim sketches for the book, "The Stick and the Stone," that I had actually started about a year ago (original post). After finishing a number of the illustrations in watercolor for my Directed Projects class, I felt that the book was in danger of... mediocrity, I guess. For one, Moses looked too much like Santa Claus for my taste. For another, I was offered the chance to rewrite the book. After rewriting, the first illustrations became mostly unusable.

So I'm taking another shot at it, starting again from scratch. Moses will look more like a burly Jewish herdsman than St. Nick sans reindeer. The text was rewritten to be more engaging, more accessible to children, and have some sort of a conflict-resolution plot. Hopefully I'll be finished with all of the sketches in the next week, so that I can start on the finals.

Living Hope Anniversary

On August 14th, my former church, Living Hope Lutheran in Omaha, Nebraska, celebrated its 25th anniversary. I was commissioned to design a bulletin cover to celebrate the event. The motif behind Jesus is used in the church's architecture, including the window found at the apex of the sanctuary. The text is 1 Peter 1:3, from which the church took its name.