Starting a New 100 Somethings

A few months ago one of my past theater directors reached out to me and other friends and cast members to do a 25th anniversary reading of Charlies Aunt. We did a performance via zoom. It was a joy to work with these people again. Many of us had not worked together in years.A month later we did a reading of Present Laughter by Noel Coward and A week ago I had the pleasure of reading the part of Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey.

I have fallen in love with this play and now have added Elwood as one of my dream roles. Others include King Arthur in Camelot, Charles Condomine in Blythe Spirit, Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, and The Narrator from Into the Woods.

While Doing these readings, I was inspired for my next 100 Somethings project. I am going to illustrate and design 100 Play posters. I currently have a list of 55 plays and musicals (Including all the Shakespeare plays) that I will work on over the next who knows how long. I am not putting a deadline on this. I am counting the poster for Henry the 6th part 2 as my first.

Harvey, the Pulitzer Prize winning play of 1940 is the 2nd of 100.

Up next is Charlies' Aunt.

If you have any play suggestions, send them my way.

My Journey: Making time to Have Fun!

Making Time to Have Fun!

Being a successful artist is a wonderful balancing act. Amidst all the work, it is important to make time to have fun. Similar to daily practice the benefits are:

• Increased creativity

• Improved quality of jobs or assignments I have taken on

• Generates better ideas

• Decreased stress

Having fun can take the form of many things. It can be daily drawing that is not connected to assignments. It can be doing other creative projects or doing something that is not related to your art. 

I see great benefit in participating in projects like Inktober, Mermay, Dinovember, Dueling Banjo Pigs, and similar drawing challenges. They are great opportunities to play while still practicing your art. You can even create your own. I have participated in Dueling Banjo Pigs and hope to participate in some of the others in the future. The key with these is to not let them dominate your time. They are to have fun and increase creativity, not to stress over.

I also enjoy the 100 something challenge which pushes your ideas beyond the obvious solution. In the past I have drawn 100 bow tie guys in 100 days, created 100 elephant characters, designed 100 logos of one word, created 100 different grilled cheese sandwiches and taken 100 different photos of my bowler hat. (I am trying to figure out my next 100 somethings challenge.)

Having fun does not always need to be art related. Here are some examples of what I have been doing over the past few weeks.

I recently completed the SixFanArts challenge as a drawing and creativity exercise. I had a wonderful time taking it in a completely different direction than others. 

Here is an example of the progress of my most recent lego creation, The Gump 3.0. I am still working on it here and there. I will post the completed one when I am finished. 

Julia and hikes around Franconia Notch a few weeks ago. It was beautiful. 

On Monday, My daughter and I biked around Joe's Pond. It was so peaceful and relaxing.

I also find great satisfaction in reading. I am currently working on reading all the Shakespeare plays and reading a few other books. I love gardening and playing games with my family. Last night I lost another game of Bogle.

In every instance I have been able to come back to my art refreshed with less stress and better able to solve the art problems I have been facing.

The Final 5 Plus 1 of my 100 Blue Logos

Here is the last of my 100 Blue Logos Plus 1. This has been another incredible project. I am learning more and more about the vast number of possibilities. Since I have finished, I have thought of even more options. 

I started to do more abstract marks with two of these and some other variations. The 101st was what ended up being a delightful mashing of the letters together.

My next 100 somethings is 100 different grilled cheese sandwiches. I am posting those on my Instagram page on a regular basis. I do not have a deadline for this. The premise is that it needs to have cheese, bread and be grilled. Everything else is up in the air as to variations. It has been wonderfully delicious. I might post some of them here.

94 and 95 of 100 Blue Logos

These are a continuation of unique juxtapositioning of things with blue.

89-93 of 100 Blue Logos

Here is the last variation of the bowler hat blue logo. I then started looking at options with an elephant icon and finally created odd juxtapositions of ideas like a pineapple with blue.

84-88 of 100 Blue Logos

Playing with the blue sky a bit more and then hats and mountains.

79-83 of 100 Blue Logos

Here are a few more variations. I am realizing that I could go well beyond 100 as ideas come to me faster. AS I am looking at them now, I am seeing even more possibilities.

At 82, I thought of switching from the idea of feeling blue to the positive idea of a bright blue sky. The shift to a warmer blue helped.

74-78 of 100 Blue Logos

Here I tried something different with the diamond. I was not happy with it. I then started playing with spacing between the letters (tracking) and then coming up with the idea of spelling blue backwards.

While working on these 100 something projects, I am constantly amazed at how long it takes me to come up with a simple variation like spelling the word backwards.

69-73 of the 100 Blue Logos

Working of the idea of a bow tie I started exploring blue diamonds and flames.

64-68 of 100 Blue Logos

More playing with the bow tie. At some point it becomes just a bow.

#59-63 of 100 Blue Logos and an announcement.

It took over half of the 100 logos before I submitted to putting a bow tie on the logo. I took inspiration from Number 58 to create a face with the “L.”

Also, over the past few months, I have been working on marketing for my illustration business. My work can now be seen on the Directory of Illustration. Over the next year there will be more to come.

#54-58 of 100 Blue Logos

What happens if I put a box around one letter? What happens if I put a dot after each letter? These are  the results. It is interesting that I started seeing faces in the center one. This will come back in future designs.

#49-53 of 100 Blue Logos

Back to posting the 100 Blue Logos. Here are more explorations with line and shape. With number 53 I finally took off the e. It is funny. After looking at a word for so long it doesn't look like it is spelled right.

#44-48 of 100 Blue Logos

I was playing with the mixing the circle and the blueberries and then realized the blueberries looked like clouds as well. I enjoyed tilting the half circle.

#39-43 of the 100 Blue Logo Project

More variations of the logo “Blue” with clouds.

#34-38 of 100 Blue Logos

Finals are almost complete and I have completed all the 100 somethings for this semester. Time to do more creative work and get caught up on posting. I have learned a lot over the past few months and will be sharing some of the things I learned as I taught.

Here again is more of a thought process. The top left is a variation of a past theme. Here I am still trying to find a hue solution I am happy with. The center and the bottom left are more playing with simple shapes. As the idea comes I put it down.

The two on the left are more conceptual. I play with both of these more latter on. The blue with the cloud is creating a more depressed feel. I pulled the color from Eyore in Winnie the Pooh, to get more of the somber down feeling.

The bottom right is representative of blueberries, one of my favorite fruits. I just couldn't pass up doing that.

#33 of 100 Blue Logos

The final of my blue logos inspired by my visit to the Winnie the Pooh exhibit at the MFA in Boston. This exhibit was by far one of the best I had been to. I felt immersed in the world of Earnest H. Shepard and A. A. Milne. On the floor at one point there was this animation of words being dropped in the river like Pooh Sticks. I took the pattern in the water and incorporated it into the word.

#32 of 100 Blue Logos

This is the second of the Blue Logos being inspired by what I saw at the Winnie the Pooh exhibit at the MFA in Boston. I couldn't resist the idea of the word being lifted by the ballon.

On a side note, I am finally reading the Winnie the Pooh books. The exhibit has been inspirational on many levels.

#31 of 100 Blue Logos 100 Somethings

Part of the 100 something assignment is to take inspiration from our visit to the Boston Museum of Fine Art. We are to create at least 3 of the 100 something based on something seen while at the museum.

We specifically went to see the Winnie the Pooh exhibit. While walking around I was fascinated by the shadow on the wall of the hanging text.

100 Somethings: Blue Logos 26-30

One more variation one a theme. The center square is further exploration of color. The others are continuing to play with ideas. IT is funny the more you look at the spelling of blue the more it looks like it is spelled incorrectly.