_Sketch and Release_

New post coming soon. Is getting old the only way to gain experience?

2010-10-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry gang, I know I haven't posted anything in a long while but I have a good reason for this. I have been really busy starting a new chapter in my life. I will be posting the whole story in the coming weeks. In short, I'm moving back to Florida, and I'm starting a fantastic new job. It is a blessing from God for sure. I'm excited but it has been tough going for me and the family. I thank you for your patience and loyalty, new post coming soon.

This is from my "Bear Period". It seems that my Bear Period has lasted about eight years of my life, maybe more. It was briefly interrupted with an ice age interlude but that did not last long. I'm moving on, but I have plenty more bear drawings to share.

This is one of the few paper drawings that I've done over the past five years. They are line roughs, one has a little value, it was add digitally. Not the most efficient way to work, old habits die hard. The ways have changed and me with it, adapt or fail.

This is a background, done totally digital.

Bee on a string, bee on string, everybody sing I got a bee on a string!

2010-06-06T21:21:00.000-07:00

Bee on a string, bee on a string, everybody sing I got a bee on a string. I sang this catchy little Diddy as I danced around holding on to a piece of thread with a black carpenter bee attached to the end. It took an entire day to catch one, but I did it and soon their I was dancing around with my children freaking out around me. I was doing the bee limbo, and I was walkin' the bee etc, etc. Look at me, look at me, I've got a little pet bee, don't worry about him stinging me, why, cause he's my very own special pet bee. Buzzing left and buzzing right dancing around with my string held tight. Bee on a string, bee on a string everybody sing I got a bee on a string.

Okay, maybe it is a little weird that a 47 year old man was so excited about a bee on a string, but let me explain. For a brief moment, just a smidgen of time, I got to revisited the innocence of my youth. I got lost in the moment and did something that, as simple as it may sound, seemed impossible to achieve, and yet their I was with a bee on a string. I wasn't thinking about anything but my bee on a string, not my house, not my job or bills, nothing but my bee on a string. Somehow, that bee on a string took me away, and their I was, eight years old again. There I stood, a cup in one hand and a long piece of grass (I called a bee tickler) in the other. Waiting for the right moment to jump into action. I am the stealthy hunter, I am the super hero, I am all those things I dreamt of being as a small boy, I am a man with a bee on a string.

Oh, how I have missed you youth, oh how you surreptitiously left me. Oh, how I have missed you innocence, oh how you indiscriminately transformed naiveté' to maturity without any warning of the disadvantages. You deceiver you! Oh how I rushed you out the door and as soon as you were gone how I longed for your return. You left without so much as a glimpse back in my direction. Now I watch the young fritter their time with you as well. I attempt to make them understand the gift that they squander but they scoff at the silly old man who tries to impart wisdom on those who have plenty of youth to waste. Oh, how the tainted ranks fill with those you have abandoned, one by one.

I know my last few posts have been kinda of downers so I wanted to share this story with my readers. I made some new friends this weekend as well, and that is always awesome.

Is it the end of the road?

2010-06-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

I love what I do for a living (Animation/Film Making). It is a very challenging career in many ways, hence a very fulfilling career as well. This may sound boastful to some, but I'll say it anyway, I am very good at my job, and not many people are diverse enough to do the jobs I'm capable of doing. I have crossed over from layout, to visual development, to design, and into story boarding. I've experienced all different aspects of the animation industry, from animation, to clean-up. All my experiences have given me an unique approach to film making.

I'll say it again, I love film making, from script writing to brain storming ideas, etc.... I love it all. I love it so much that I left the three F's, (Family, Friends, and Florida) all of which I love dearly and moved where the work was in my field. My wife and children have been by my side, never questioning me, never doubting me, only supporting me and my dreams. They picked up and moved with me leaving their friends behind and in my wife's case a career. I now find myself in this weird situation, something I'm not familiar with or even expected. I find myself at a crossroad in my life. I have had two of the hardest weeks since I got laid off by Disney Feature Animation (Florida). I have been informed that my job is in jeopardy. The weird part is that I been informed that I am one of the most valuable artist on staff, that I am one of the most diverse, that everyone that has worked with me has been very pleased if not astounded with my job performance and that I have one of the best work ethics experienced. With all that being said they are having issues casting me onto another film (project) in Story, to no real fault of my own. Some of the reasons I was given were that I am an unknown commodity, and since the up-coming projects are just getting started the directors are hand picking people they already know to work with, not enough projects are up and running to staff up story guys on who are on carrying costs and so on. This and other things I can't speak of in the company, outside of me and my abilities are have a negative effect on me getting casted.

What do I do now? Well, I can't stay here without a job, California is way too expensive to survive, even for a little while. After an extensive conversation with my wife, we both came to the conclusion that even though I could go south to Burbank and probably get work at another studio, enough is enough. Our situation has been getting harder and hard-as-I-try and maintain my career, going south is not going to improve my situation at all. So, what do I do?

I do what I can do. I pick myself up by the boot straps and move forward. I am trying to move over or switch up jobs again. To stay in the industry, I will have to get picked up in Design, at least for awhile, until things pick up at the studio. I put together a portfolio to hopefully move into Design. I will put together another portfolio to expose myself as a story artist as well. Is it the end of the road? I don't know, I'm trying not to worry; I'm trying to be optimistic, positive, and brave. I have been praying, my family has been praying, and my friends have been praying, I've turned this whole mess over to God. That's all I can do. You guys can pray for me and my family as well, thanks.

Some over weight castle guard, inspired buy the old Warner Bros. cartoon characters.

Here are some "ICE AGE II" drawings. I know you guys love production stuff, these are concept drawings.
Manie and Ellie save the day.

This was an idea presented for crossing the river. It was called rafting. It was all good until the EFX department said we have to cut 50% of the water effect out of the film.

These are some workbook drawings from "BROTHER BEAR". They are out of context, but who cares they are cool.

The panel at the top is the camera move for the Lilo and Noni chase. I was told the background was to long, so they shortened it. To make a long story short, they lengthened back out because there was enough room for the animation. I didn't say, "I told you so" until now. The panels below the "LILO AND STITCH" panel are thumbnail camera ideas from "MULAN". They are from the "Be a man" sequence workbook.

These are all camera moves from "MULAN", "LILO AND STITCH", and "BROTHER BEAR" workbooks.

Marching forward with intent!

2010-05-31T09:36:00.000-07:00

You can say a lot of things about my family, (some good and some bad) but one thing you can't say is that we are lazy. On the contrary, anyone that knows a Grasso will undoubtedly agree we are anything but lazy. We don't like to sit around, as a matter of fact we relax by doing things. I call it being a motived person, motivated to just do, to do without any reason to do. One example in my case would be that I do yard work to relax and think. Now, if you watched me while I was in the midst of the gardening you'd probably think that I'm not enjoying myself very much, you'd might even think I don't like gardening at all, but you'd be wrong. My neighbor saw me trimming my bushes in front of my house one day. He must of thought I looked miserable, so he offered for me to use his electric sheers. He said, "Hey Craig, I have some electric sheers you can barrow, it would make that job a lot easier and you'd be done in a flash." I told him no thanks, I have electric sheers (I do own electric sheers) it's just that I like to feel my way around the bush as I trim it, plus this is relaxing, he gave me a funny look and went on his way.

Yes, I can say with confidence that the Grasso's are hard workers indeed, at what ever task we may be handling at the time, to a fault sometimes. This innate (nose to the grinding mill) quality can and is misinterpreted at times as aggressive behavior, or that we are trying to show our coworkers up or that we are bucking for someone's job. This is not the case at all, you could easily see this when I work alone, I'm exactly the same way, committed to doing the very best job possible. I believe that whom ever I'm working for is entitled to the very best that I am capable delivering. To do this I need to be focus and tenacious. This behavior has prompted others to tell me that I can be a little intense, and that maybe I could lighten up bit, etc...

Me intense.... baaaa....alright so I admit it, I'm intense. Okay, I'm an intense person, but what does that even mean? Is being an intense individual a bad thing? Does it mean I'm not capable of being funny or silly? Does it mean that I never laugh or tell jokes, and more importantly that I can't laugh at myself? Well,the answer to all of the above is no, it doesn't mean any of that. The dictionary defines an intense individual, as a person that is; passionate, impassioned,ardent, fervent, zealous, vehement, fiery,emotional; earnest, eager, animated, spirited,vigorous,energetic, fanatical, committed. If this is the definition of intense, then so be it, I'm intense. The thing to realize is that I'm intense about everything, from work to vacation, happy, sad, love, fun, well......everything thing. I call it living life.

I share another quality with my siblings as well, it's the ability to follow through on what ever job we are tasked with, no matter how unlikable that task maybe end up being. It's not just finishing what we started, it finishing with the same passion that we started with. I don't know if it is an obsession or just the idea that I refuse to be defeated, I just can't quit or give up until what ever I agreed to do is completed. I call that committed, others may call it tenacity. All this and more have added up to people telling me that I am intimidating, and not in a good way either. I don't try or even want to intimidate people, but I refuse to pretend to be anything but who I am. I believe that being true to yourself is part of building character.

When I was a young man my father gave me some advice on how to succeed in life, although I don't remember exactly how he phrased it, it went something like this. " Son, if you work hard, always tell the truth and respect others you will be successful in life". I was young and naive and so I misinterpreted what he meant. I thought that he was telling me how to be successful in my career and that in-turn it would be the answer to success in my personal life. The two are sometimes intertwined but not necessarily reliant on each other. Now, I know that I'm not the perfect person or employee, but I ask you, who is? I do know that I have been true to my father's advice. As of late I find myself in an uncontrollable situation with my career and it wasn't until recently that I truly understood what my father was trying to say. In this life, jobs will come and jobs will go, you will be the hero one day and forgotten the next, careers will change and careers will end. Outside of your work ethics their are thing that will directly influences your life, such as poor management, economic down shifts, over saturation of employees and so on and so on, all of which are out of your control. It doesn't matter how talented you are or how hard you work it will not can't change those outside situation having a direct affect on your job. What he was saying was , don't gauge your success in life on a place or a job, gauge it on your character and your family.

Okay, I accept that somethings are out of my control, but here's what I know I can control, my attitude and my character. I will continue to be the intense dedicated worker that I've always been, I will not give in or give up, I love what I do and I know that I'm good at it. It is not until a man is confronted with grim and difficult adversities in life, that his true character is determine. His character's resolve will be tested and it will be determined wether he is a quitter or if he going to continue march forward with intent?

Only God knows what lays ahead for me in the next several month's. The way I see it I have two choices, I can choose to go forward with fear and worry or I can trust God and go forward with excitement, what does he have planned for me and my family next? His way has not always been easy but it has not disappointed me one iota in the end, it has been full of blessings and love and success.

Here are two character sheets of children, mostly little girls, because that's what I have for reference at home, three beautiful little dramatic girls.

This piece was for a children's book about a troll who was making a forest sick. The project was canceled before I finished this illustration, some day I'll finish it.

This was a rough for "MULAN", it is not finished as well, I believe this scene got cut from the film and I stopped working on it. I found it in my pile of papers.

This is a page from my vacation journal. We went to family camp, (Lair of the Bear) for a summer vacation, I'd never experienced that before and documented the whole holiday.

This is an illustration I did of my friend after a freak accident. He hung this caricature drawing on his wall for years, it's a funny story that I'll share with you someday.

Let your "Yes" be yes and "No", no!

2010-05-05T11:57:00.000-07:00

Is their anybody out there that is willing to just say what's on their mind anymore? Is it asking to much to expect people to be genuine? Really, I'm not asking for anybody to divulge their deepest secrets, all I'm asking for is a modicum of integrity. Does the word "Character" mean anything to anyone anymore? I don't think people believe it's okay to operate through manipulation, deceit and other untruthful manners, but I do believe they think it's okay to walk in the grey area of dishonesty. Even a little white lie will taint a barrel of truths.

Here is a novel idea right out of the good book (The Holy Bible), let your "Yes" be yes and your "No," no. I'll bet this sounds like a simple concept doesn't it? Well, as simple as this idea may seem, I know of only a hand full of people that truly understand it and try to live by it.

Everything in our current society works against this ideology. As the lines of honesty and integrity disintegrate so does our society. If people could learn to live by this simple yet seemingly impossible principle of let your "Yes" be yes and"No" no, the world would be.... well.... better, easier, nicer, less confusing, kinder and more. So, why is it so darn hard for people to do it?

Now, some of you are probably making the mistake of thinking that I'm strictly talking about telling the truth in life. Their is more to truth than not lying. before we can go any further we will have to clarify the true definition of some words we like to use instead of yes or no.

The first word I'd like to look at is "Maybe". Maybe meaning, possibly or perhaps. It does not mean "I don't want to say no to this person, so I'll say maybe and then back at at a later date". Next words to be clarify are, "We will see", again this means possibly or perhaps, not to be confused with, "I hate confrontation, so I'll tell the person asking what I think they want to hear and then back out at a later date".

There's a whole plethora of statements that are commonly misused in our vocabularies. Here are just a few examples of things people say to avoid yes or no. "I'll think about it", "Sounds like something I'd be interested in", "Let me get back to you on this". Okay, so none of those statements are bad or wrong as long as they are genuine (truthful), it's when they are used in the place of yes or no that becomes the problem. If you have commitment issues and you are not willing to say yes or no then say "I can not make a commitment to what you're asking right now".

Here is where the problems lies (no pun intend). First, passive aggressive behavior has somehow found favor in society over directness. It is masking itself as a polite way of communicating, but in actuality it is anything but polite. I find passive aggressive behavior to be dishonest, manipulative and controlling and condescending in it's nature. In my book it is just plain rude. Just because someone says something in a nice way doesn't mean that it's polite or pure in it's intent. With that being said, being direct with someone doesn't have to be unpleasant either. I choose direct over passive aggressive any day, at least there is no confusion in what the person is saying. Alright, let me be direct about how I feel about passive aggressive behavior, I hate it.

The next thing that I believe interferes with letting "Yes" be yes and "No" no, is the fear that people have of confrontation. So you don't agree with someone's ideas and/or you you don't want to do something someone asks you to do, this doesn't make you confrontational. Even if you tell them you don't agree with them or that you don't want to do what they are asking you to do, still this doesn't make you confrontational. Being hostile or argumentative, creating conflict or clashing with another party, now that makes you confrontational. So, rest at ease when you say what's on your mind as long as it is the truth and delivered in a direct and thoughtful manner you are not being confrontational. Here is another direct statement you may or may not agree with, life is full of confrontations,going through life avoiding confrontation is cowardice and self defeating.

Lastly, some people live under the guise that they are being kind when they are not direct with someone. They believe they are being loving when they tell people what they think they want to hear instead of the truth. They think the right way to handle people is to letting them down later instead of just speaking the truth right then. I believe telling someone the truth in a direct manner with kindness and love shows the proper respect everyone deserve. The next time you have the opportunity to just say "Yes" or "No", try it out. As a matter of fact if you make it a policy to operate by this standard you will be amazed how your life will change for the better.

This is the underdrawing for a piece that went on a video box. It was a documentary about this family of hemophiliacs that contracted AIDS. There community ostracized them and tried to run them out. Very sad story.

This is digital over water color.

If you are afraid of clowns this is not the page of drawings for you.

What's your perspective?

2010-04-21T17:47:00.000-07:00

My wife made a statement recently, and ever since then it has been echoing through my head. Weirdly enough it seems to keeps emerging in every deep conversation I am engaged in. It was one of those statements that is simple and yet quite profound. She said, "It's people's skewed perspective of things that makes their life so difficult." Skewed perspective...skewed perspective... skewed perspective... it keeps echoing and echoing. She is so right, a skewed perspective totally causes people have such a hard time dealing with their problems, if they would make a little adjustment they would see how easy it is to find solutions for happiness.

Some people are so thick headed (dense) or maybe just stubborn and refuse to change, but I find myself asking myself, "Why, is it so hard for people for people to accept someone else's ideas", or "What's it going take to get through to this person?" "Why can't they see this from a different point of view? Frustrating! It's beyond me how people can continually make the same mistakes in life over and over again and still point a finger outward and blaming others for their situation.

One of the definitions of perspective is; to have a true understanding of the relative importance of things; or to have a sense of proportion. Funny enough my wife and I today were discussing how some people don't have a firm grip on what their limitations are, they want to be something they are not. Example, I am not a person of multiple languages, I would love to speak Italian and I am whittling away at learning it. Point is, I don't posses the natural God given talent to pick up languages easily; hence, I knew that becoming a linguist would be a fruitless endeavor. Besides the obvious inability issues, I also lack the obsession or love of languages required to become an expert in them. This is called a reality check. I'm no less of a person for my honesty about my short comings.

Reality is defined as, the world or the state of things that actually exists. Reality isn't so hard to deal with when you put things into the proper perspective. Let's take a second for a reality check, life isn't always fair, but, let's try and remember that fair is a relative term, besides sometimes life is more than fair. Sometimes we get more than we deserve, so, not getting everything we want is part of life's reality. Good things are going to happen in life and bad things are going to happen as well, good and bad, all these things are what make life what it is. Life is an enigma, a mystery, an adventure and at best unpredictable in it's nature, but one thing is for sure it is a path to be explored, come what may.

Here's something to wrestle with, you only get out of life what you put into it, until you come to the that reality, you will live in a world of dreams and regrets. It's actually quite simple, If you approach life with a terrible attitude, life will be terrible. Try avoiding statements like "reality sucks" and try understanding that reality is what it is. How we choose to interpret and deal with life (reality) will determine the state in which you end up in life.

Sometimes we find reality favorable and sometimes we don't, regardless of what we think, it is imperative that we realize that it is an actuality, a truth. When we start living in denial of the truth, our perspective of reality becomes skewed. Altering the reality of things in our minds to suit the way we would like things to be does not change the reality or truth of the actual situation. What it does do is make it harder to find a way of dealing with what is happening in that reality.

This brings us to the idea of our status quo. The definition of status quo is defined as the current situation or existing state of affairs in which one may find themselves, regardless if they find that current state they are in acceptable or not. Sounds a lot like the definition of reality. I am dumb founded by how many people I have been aquatinted with in life that are so unhappy with their status quo. You should understand that I'm not talking about a global status quo, I'm not even talking about a national or state governmental status quo. I'm talking about a person's own personal status quo of life, you know, where they are in their career, in the relationships, in their spiritual lives, etc...

What is even more puzzling to me is how a person could be so dissatisfied with their status quo (their life), and do absolutely nothing to alter it. I want you to take notice that I did not say change the status quo, I said alter it. Adjusting one's status quo may indeed entail making some change, but understand it is change with a purpose, with true intent and a direction. Know this, change for the sake of change is pointless and it usually results in outcomes which are no better than the status quo ante, the previous existing state of affairs in which one was in originally unhappy with in the first place. A different status quo isn't necessarily better, it's just different. So, to avoid any confusion, I'll be using words like adjustment, modify, alter, etc...., instead of the word change, I think they are more suitable in any case.

I'm sure you've heard the idiom, don't throw the baby out with the bath water, it's a very suitable statement for the idea of modifying one's status quo. Why should we get rid of the whole kit and kaboodle when some of our stuff (parts of our life) is just fine? You don't go and buy a whole new car just because it needs some repairs, do you?

I digress though, another thing we both (my wife and I) had a hard time understanding is the mentality of a person that makes no effort, no stand, no attempt or even a gesture that can lead them to an adjustment or modification of their current displeasing situation. Many of these individuals have plenty of resources and support to actually achieve their goals if they just tried.

It is hard to make adjustment in life and it takes time and persistence. I am frustrated, I am discontent and growing ever more weary with the lack of stamina in people now a days. The lack of commitment and steadfastness in people is disheartening, people can't even standing by the own principles and ideologies anymore. I would even venture to say I see a lack of resolve, fortitude, moral fiber, courage, bravery, endurance,resilience, perseverance,diligence, tenacity, or commitment in our society in general. Get out a dictionary and look them up and try and argue against my point.

1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Question? Are people unhappy with their status quo or are they just having a hard time accepting reality because they have the wrong perspective on life?

Losing a best friend is like losing a part of yourself.

2010-04-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the long pause in between posts but work takes precedence over blogging. I know what your thinking, is he crazy? You must try and understand work is how I feed my family. In the future I will probably have more long breaks, just know that I'm thinking about you guys (my faithful readers), even when I can't post.

We will miss you dearly Chucky.

My best friend all through my sophomore and junior year in high school, was a heavy set kid named Charles Arthur Fountain III. Impressive name isn't it? We all called him Chuck. He was over weight but a good looking guy. He was athletic, even though he had flat feet. He was smart, sarcastic and at times so funny he would have me rolling on the ground in laughter. He didn't mind playing the fool to get a laugh. In retrospect, I think that the only thing that kept Chuck from achieving anything he wanted was a low self esteem. After he graduated and went off to join the Navy are friendship sort of faded out after a few years. I like to say that life kind of took over and we lost touch after awhile but honestly it is my fault our friendship faded out. Those few years that we spent together are some of the best times I ever shared with anyone in my life, so much so I used his name as my son's middle name (Clayton Charles Grasso). His oldest son he named Craig as well.

A few days ago I received word that Chuck passed away. I was in disbelief at first, but soon the reality of the statement took hold and the permanence of Chuck's death seeped into my mind, and into my heart. Sadness followed shortly after that. Memories began to surface and my eyes welled up with tears and I wept. I suddenly realized how much I missed him, never to be remedied. Although we hadn't spoken to each other in years the news still hit me pretty hard. Chuck was only 48, way to young not to be here on earth anymore.

I don't even remember how we became friends but we hit it off right from the start. I spent many off night over his house and vice versa. We walked to school together, heck we walked every where together (neither one of us had a car). He introduced me to comic books, The Hulk, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, Conan the Barbarian and more. He introduced me to The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean and more. We talked about school, girls and family. We played basketball and football in the park together several times a week and when challenged by other kids we usually won, I think because we knew each other so well. We were both lower middle class kids with very little money so we were very resourceful, this lead to countless hours out and about in the woods, in parks, or scouring alley ways for cool stuff (trash more or less). We walked miles of railroad tracks together, caught snakes and lizards together, one adventure after another. Chuck was never abusive, disrespectful or destructive towards anything or anyone the entire time that I hung out with him, I always appreciated that about him. Both of us had strange personalities for the most part (we seemed to have a different perspective on things than most kids) so we fit together pretty well.

He had an exceptional wit about him, not just funny but very sharp always one step ahead of me for sure. He loved to played practical jokes, but it was always in the spirit of fun and love. Even though I got mad at him from time to time, he never got offended by me and his jovial chuckle always seemed to pulled me right out of the mood I might be in. We spent more hours than I can count just sitting around sketching and drawing. He never made me feel uncomfortable or pressured me to do anything, he was okay with just being together doing nothing. He never interfered with me making other friends. He protected me as best as he knew how to, through his sharp wit and humor which he used so cleverly. He was never afraid or reluctant to point out a painful truth about my poor behavior when I was inappropriate. He was a good kid by nature and his behavior never faltered or changed around others. He was patient with me as a friend should be and stood by me when I needed him, he even stood his ground with me against some other kids in a fight on time.

We managed to maintained a strong friendship even when our girl friends made it difficult. Chuck's first true love was a girl named Amy Kellogg, he was crazy about her. She wasn't really into him at first but like all of us she too fell under the charm of Chuck's personality and they became boyfriend and girlfriend. He was one of the best friends anyone could ask for. I don't have enough time to sit down and write all the adventures we shared together but I will tell you this, I loved him like a brother and I will miss......the idea of him being out there in the world.

After I received the news of Chuck passing away I moped around a few days feeling pretty bummed out about. I shared this information with a new friend and she inadvertently helped me to understand why I felt so bad. In all honesty, Chuck and I haven't been involved in each others lives since high school, so why did it hit me so hard? She said, "You know, the hardest part of losing a best friend is knowing that the things that only you two shared, the memories, the secrets, the life long bond, everything between you guys died when your friend died. To be shared no more between two people in thought or memory again." She was right, I loved the idea that, although we may not be best friends anymore, Chuck was out there somewhere thinking of the great times we had shared, just as I reminisced about those days with him as well. Losing my best friend was like losing a part of myself. I will remember Chuck and the part of life we shared together with the greatest fondness until the day I die. I know that he is still here in me not just through memories but also through the influence that he had on my life.

My Blog, My Choice.

2010-03-02T14:00:00.000-08:00

This is the first and only post that will not have any drawings accompany it. I received a letter through email recently that in essence relayed to me that this person doesn't think I should be writing the stuff that I have been writing. I read their letter and understood what the person was getting at but I could not disagree with their point of view (opinion) more. Therefore, I exercised my right as a free thinking independent man and deleted it. With that being said, it has sparked me to write this post. I am only mentioning the letter so that my readers will understand the context of this post.

Everyone that logs onto my blog should understand that they have a choice to make. They can look at the drawings and not read the posts, they can just read the posts and not look at the drawings, or they can look at the drawings and read the posts, one, or all of the above. Life is about making choices. I choose to maintain the right to make my own choices.

Things that I post on my blog are meant to inspire people, make people laugh, make people think and most importantly make people want to be better people. I don't post anything vulgar or mean spirited. I may bring up certain things in my life to help my readers to relate to me, but the posts are about me and things that I'm dealing with, not anyone else. If someone feels that I'm targeting them, they should take a step back and understand this blog is not about them.

The one thing I can't do is make you read this blog and you shouldn't feel as though you are obligated to read it. The fact of the matter is not everyone is going to like what I have to say, and I'm okay with that. What I am not okay with is someone telling me what I can write and can't write, and how to write it. For every person in this world that is not happy there is someone who is happy. If someone reads this and they don't like what I have to say, they can log off, that's their right. I turn off the radio all the time, and I turn off the television as well, when I don't like what they are selling. What I find all to often is that we think of ourselves as the center of the universe and everything revolves around us, but in reality we are just a moon at best. Quite honestly, if nobody ever read my posts I would still write them.

Everyone has an opinion and everyone wants there opinion to be respected, I'm no different when it comes to that. You must understand that If I let everything that everyone said to me influence me, I would be a complete disaster. I'm not beyond taking someone's advice but I reserve the right to decide who's advice I will take. Things that I consider before accepting someone's advice are, what is the source it is coming from, is it relevant, is it applicable and finally is it sound advice or is it someone's opinion. Many people think their opinion is advice, not so, one size does not fit all. I think of someone's advise as a complete essay, out of that entire essay maybe only one sentence is applicable to my situation.

When I was a young boy I was very perceptive, I understood things, things that most children my age didn't. I watched people, I watched them bully other people, manipulate other people, impose their will on other people and I always understood that I had the ability to make choices in life, and those choices can either be in-sync with other peoples ways of doing things and thinking or not. Aligning my actions and thoughts or should I say falling in line with others and the way they choose to do things can make life easier, just as not aligning with the said standard, can make life more difficult. At times I have taken the easy path, I aligned myself or should I say I got in line, because it was the standard, but mostly because it was easier. In the long run things didn't usually worked out, at least not for me. We all have the freedom to make a choice, but you don't have the freedom from the responsibility that come with that choice. I try to make choices with understanding that there are repercussions that come with every choice we make.

Who am I? This is a question that many people struggle with. You'll probably find this hard to believe but I never pondered this question. I've always thought, it is not who am I but who or what I choose to be. Even as a young boy I understood that I am Craig Anthony Grasso and I can choose to become what ever I choose to be. My nature will not determine my personality but help me to build my personality, not just to change it but to improve it.

I had an epiphany. My epiphany or the awakening as I call it, came with a jolt. Many thoughts flashed through my mind, "I just got laid off, what am I going to do"? "I sacrificed so much for that place, how could they"? "What if I can't get another job, I'm scared"? As I stared teary eyed out my windshield, trying to negotiating traffic, another thought entered my mind. This is my life! Nobody else's but mine, and no business, no person, and no situation is going to take control of it. My life was given to me, I have a responsibility and the right to live it in full, no one else but me. It was time to make a choice, do I walk though life as a lion or armadillo. A lion walks forward in confidence and bravery, an armadillo scurries around in the dirt in fear and roles up in a ball when confronted. I've chosen to be a lion and face life head on without cowardice, good or bad I will persevere, because I choose to stand back up ever time I get knocked down. You don't have to be bigger or stronger to defeat or persevere over your adversaries, you just need to be willing to keep getting back up over and over again, until they give up, and trust me, they will. I been able to achieve many things in my life so far and a good portion of them were achieved through the three P"s, patience, perseverance and persistence.

So let's come to an understanding, I'm going to keep writing and sharing my thoughts the way I want to, and you can exercise your right to read or not read, as you wish. If you choose to read my posts here are some caveats, I'm religious, I'm passionate, I'm conservative, I'm opinionated and I march to the beat of my own drum. If you find that you are unhappy with what is written or have a different opinion or any opinion you want to share you are more than welcomed to post a comment. On the other hand you should understand that I don't have to post them, it is my choice. If you don't like that I choose not to post your comment you can choose to start your own blog, your choice. Everything I post is meant to effect the reader in some capacity, if you find that you are self convicting, then so be it; that is you, not me, that is doing that. Ideally, it would be great for these posts to just get you thinking about your own life and how you choose to live it.

A job performance review is a charlie horse to the ego.

2010-02-26T16:22:00.000-08:00

Before I go on this rant of mine, let me clarify a few things. First, I would like to say that I love my job and I love where I work. Secondly, I am not anti-performance review, even though it may seem like it in the following paragraphs. With that being said, as much as I love what I do, it is hard work at times, and I may let my human elements leak through. I work hard with full dedication, working towards the best job ever done and although I think that performance reviews are necessary, the current approach is antiquated and could use a tune-up.

I thought I should lay that on the table first so you understand where I'm coming from.

So, as you have probably gathered I was lucky enough to receive a job performance review as of late...... that's right, just the sound of makes your butt pucker doesn't it. Keep in mind that it was about a year and a half over due but who's counting the days for a performance review anyway? I would love to tell you I liked it, you know, because it was full of constructive criticisms to help me improve myself, but I'm going to be honest and say I didn't like it one little bit. It is like giving your ego a charlie horse, afterwards you really have to rub it out and it is sore for days. You've worked hard and your dedication is appreciated so here is a swift kick in the you know what to let you know your not what we would consider a perfect employee.

Don't get me wrong, this is not my first dance by any means. I have been get performance reviews for the last 28 years, not counting parental reviews and pre-college reviews. I have been reviewed while in the military (brutal), I have been reviewed on many assorted jobs, in college as an Resident Assistant right up to my current job as a story board artist, and I can honestly say that I have never felt good (comfortable) during or after the meeting. Now listen, I have always tried to be a great employee and I have never received a poor review, but that is not the point I'm trying to make, reviews make you feel like crap and they shouldn't.

I believe the problem lies in the paradigm in which most business use to.... uh, uh.... compare you with or better yet to grade you with, yeah, that's a better term. The paradigm is based on the perfect or ideal employee (notice I did not say human or person), one who is always happy, always loves his job even when it becomes work, one who never has an off day, never has any personal problems such as family, finances or illnesses, relationship issues and so on. The paradigm chooses to acknowledges only certain human emotions as acceptable (robot employee) and that is fine but it cannot ignore the others. Because we are HUMAN we have a full range of emotions that go with that said condition, whether we like it or not. Sometimes humans get angry, sometimes humans get there feelings hurt, sometimes humans just don't like the situation they are currently in or they are not on the top of there game. The cool thing about humans are their ability to have loyalty, passion, and concern for their employers.

We have all been in situations at work (whether we like our jobs or not), that we are not liking so much; basically, what I'm driving at is that you know when you are being jerked around and/or when you are being taken advantage of. The correct response according to robot employee is to take it as it comes, right on the chin and take it with a smile, no less.

I want you to know that I'm really good and I mean 'good' at dealing with anything that is thrown at me, even if I know it's not good for me or my career, what I'm terrible at, I mean 'really bad' at is smiling about it! It's a shame that our society would rather you be a phony yes man and only give the task 50% of your ability than to be up front about how you feel and understand that you will still give it everything your all. I'm sure I can find a middle ground here and I'm working on it, but you would think that after years of exposure to me working hard and producing great results, my over seers would lighten up a little and understand I'm gonna give them everything I can.

This sounds like I had a bad review, doesn't it? I didn't, it was actually a pretty good review as a matter of fact. The problem is, it still does not correctly reflect who I really am or what I'm capable of doing or adapting to. It didn't relay my passion for story telling or my determination to satisfy my bosses know matter what. It doesn't relay my dedication and loyalty to my project and my employer. It does make people think that I'm not capable of recognizing and changing areas that need improvement in my work habits and it never relays or recognizes that the work environment may be part of the problem, sometimes their are unrecognized or forgotten factors that are cause specific situations or behaviors in the area.

Here is one of the things that doesn't make sense to me - waiting until the end of the year to point out an area that someone can improve upon. Really, waiting to ask somebody to improve in an area that is bothering you right $%@* now is just down right silly. They would probably be more than happy to make an adjustment immediately. Most people at minimum would express their frustration and the boss might get some insight of the current situation from a different perspective.

Most performance reviews are very impersonal when it comes to your actual job performance, using words like: usually, consistently, always, needs improvement, sometimes. These usually never have any written statement that accompany them. Now, on the other hand, when you get to the critical parts of whatever didn't work for this particular group of individuals, it is written out in detail and given as much weight as possible.

I will concede that at times reviews can be helpful, but let us remember, human beings (notice I didn't say the robots) are giving you an account of situations (through their personal observations) that they have gathered through that process of memory or recall, then they try and making an assessment of how you can improve your performance. Again I will point out the idea of doing this well after the events are over. Their perspective of the whole year can be skewed by one event or situation that is current. I also want to point out that it is virtually impossible to remove personal opinion from the reviewer's perspective. They may have preconceived ideas of how a person should think, and behave. I would not want to be reviewed by a pastor or priest, would you? We also have no way of know the experiences or personal issue that a reviewer may be caring from their own past. That's another whole can of worms. Another big issue for me is that they tend to be one sided, again misrepresentative, not giving the whole picture of an employee's work existence.

With all that said, I still haven't got to the subjective managing issue. Because managers are human, it means that they will have subjective ideas about managing. There is the constantly changing of managing styles that we as employees are always trying and expected to adapt to. What I'm saying is that what is good or important to one manager may not be good to another. All managers come with their own style of managing, some are micro managers, some are politically correct crazy managers, some are buy the book (no free thinking)managers, and some are the what is it going to take to get myself promoted managers, but occasionally when we are very blessed we get a manager who really cares. A human that is genuinely concerned with the people under them, and has compassion with the human they are dealing with. A person that wants others to be at their best and to succeed in life wether it be at work or at home. A person that doesn't think of others as a number or pay check that is in the same building. That would be nice wouldn't it?

So, here are some of the things that have been said to me in the past in regards to performance reviews, these make me feel uncomfortable with the current process. I'm paraphrasing some of these but this is what they stated for the most part. "I know that you don't necessarily agree with how we have stated this but remember just because you sign it doesn't mean you agree with it". REALLY! Are you kidding me? In my world signing something means everything. "You know we don't need your signature to put this in your file, but we would really like you to sign this to make it official, then you can write an addendum to it." No thank you, I already look bad enough with out a disgruntled letter from me attached to it. "I read your resent performance review from your manager but I kicked it back, it was a little too good, I think it needed more criticisms to be helpful to you." Uhn.......ah, maybe, just maybe I was a pretty good employee this year, maybe just for once, for just a little while I got it right or as close to right as possible, just for a little while. "Before you go right to the negative stuff, read the good stuff first." Well, I wasn't thinking that the criticisms here were bad or negative until you said that, I thought this was suppose to be a positive experience to help me improve myself, not a, hey check it out you suck so bad in these areas, experience. "You shouldn't take these personal we are saying things to everyone, not these specific things, but everyone is getting something on there reviews". Okay, what.... yeah, I am taking it personal, it's about my sub-par performance not somebody else's review, besides, you never said they had anything negative on their reviews or is it standard practice to crew everyone up a bit? What ever, eventually you sign it.

I think most people have all the intentions in the world of trying to do the best job they can where ever they are for their employers. I would also venture to say that most people are striving to be better employees and better people. I don't think there are many people out there that want to destroy their reputation or damage their work environments. I understand that there is always that one guy, and I guess that one guy has made all this necessary. If I could have a sit down every once in awhile and my manager would be kind but honest about ways for me to improve myself that would be fine with me. I know for fact that the motivation and morale of an employee are to major parts in their work performance and most of the time performance reviews help little in those two areas.

I know that I just skimmed the surface of the necessity of job performance reviews in the work place. I know what they were designed for and what they are suppose to achieve, so I try not too get too bent out of shape on the criticisms or too cocky with the positive strengths pointed out. Let's face it, nobody wants to hear that they need a little polishing up, although we are all willing to admit that we are not perfect.

This is a colored sketch that I did on a road trip.

Hey, give me a break, they aren't all gonna be interesting, and besides coffee is good, lattes are good and cappuccinos are good, all I'm saying is, that I don't dig on teas, that's all.

These are from "MULAN", it was all exploration for a traveling sequence.

This a workbook drawing that I retouched in photoshop, this is what I wanted it to look like.

How to live in the Now.

2010-02-12T11:43:00.000-08:00

Let me just start out with a disclaimer; I am not trying to convince anyone or trying to sell the idea that living in the NOW means that you should sell everything you have, cash in the nest egg and just cut loose. I'm not even suggesting to forget your past, not at all; your past is your history and it is invaluable in understanding your current you, what makes you who you are, good or bad.

Here is a good example of why you should remember your past: some religious theologians might argue that we don't need the old testament anymore because we have the new testament and it negates the old one. I say, "Hog Wash", how are we suppose to put the new into the right context if we don't understand where it came from. To understand the current you have to know the past, for several reasons. One of which is so that you don't repeat (I use that terms loosely, refer to my earlier blog for the context of repeating history) your past, particularly the bad past. A second good reason, is to help you to understand the value of what you have now or who you are now, and also how far you've come as an individual. Another good reason to reference your past is that it can help you to understand or realize if you've taken all avenues available to you to resolve issues of life, not to mention it can keep you from spinning your wheels (going nowhere fast in life). I'm sure their are many more reasons that I've not mentioned but one last reason I think has to be brought up is that you should always remember family members that have passed away. Just for the sheer respect and love of the memory of your friends and family that have past away and to honor the memory of the good things they shared while on this earth.

So your probably thinking, this stuff isn't helping me to live in the NOW; if anything, it's confusing me. If you'll be patient I'll get their. I just don't want people looking ahead in life and never looking back. Like in the woods, if you don't make note of where you've been you end up walking in circles and never moving forward (you become lost).

The first rule to remember is your past is a learning tool, a compass for direction and acontextgauge. The past is not meant to be relived or recreated. Reminiscing is fine and even encouraged but be wary of the toothpaste factor.

What is the toothpaste factor, you ask? Have you ever forgotten that you've just brushed your teeth and you've come to breakfast and taken a big swig of orange juice. Arrrgghh! It's the most bitter thing you've ever drank. Well, the fact of the matter is the orange juice is just as sweet as it can be, but because of the past (brushing our teeth) it only seems bitter. You know this, and so you don't stop drinking orange juice forever, you don't hate oranges or the color orange and you don't go around telling everyone how bad orange juice is. You understand the reason for the reaction and because of this you don't let it dictate, or make you make ridiculous or bad decisions. Thinking of things in the past as the best ever or the worst ever is a huge mistake. I'm pretty sure that we all tend to exaggerate our memories in one way or the other, that's why we say things like "The best cup of coffee I ever had was..." or "The worst day of my life was....", you get the point. That's the toothpaste factor.

I would like to share a quote by Louis L'Amore "It's not the end of the trail, it's the trail that is the thing". The goal of your life should not be getting to the end, specifically since only God knows when that will be, living your life to the fullest should be the goal. Another quote by this insightful author is "For you and me, today is all we have; tomorrow is a mirage that may never become reality." All to often we, as in the average Joe, get caught up in the idea of the someday-s and when I-s. The people who fall into this trap are always preparing for a moment but never really count on it happening. They say things like "Someday I'm gonna throw my wife a big party and...." or they say things like "When I get this promotion then I will start spending more time with my family", they've allow the idea of life to move to the future and become second priority to actually doing it (living life, that is). This is like running a race with a finish line that may or may not be there and if it is there it can be moved further away just as you're about to reach it.

Second rule of the NOW is don't count on tomorrow (the future). Plan for it, hope for it, but don't count on it, it is - at best - unpredictable, and most likely it will disappoint. It rarely ends up being what you imagined it would be. Living life to it's fullest in all aspects (responsible, loving, happy, etc...) will lead to a promising future no matter how long or short that time may be. When the race is over it's over, sometime a marathon is much better than a sprint at least you had time to appreciate the run.

Third rule of the NOW is passion! Do it with passion. A passionate approach to life means being intense about experiencing what life has to offer you. When you are hugging someone, really hug them. When you believe in something support it with fervor. When you're shopping, really shop, and so on and so. Just try and remember that whatever you are doing deserves your complete attention. Every minute that goes by is a minute less you have here on earth, so try and really experience everything life throws at you good or bad. According to the way 6 year old daughter expresses herself, you can have the best day ever and worse day ever on the same day and she should know because I stopped keeping count of how many she has had. Awesome isn't it, she is living it baby. Life.

Listen, I can keep spouting out rules till I'm blue in the face and make this really complicated; instead, I've decided to give you the inside scoop. The quick and easy way to truly live in theNOW with all the ins and outs on how to do it right and all the perks that come with it. Some of you will scuff and ignore the free insight and continue on your fruitless path, but a few of you are going to check it out and you will see for yourself the change in your perspective.

Here it is, just turn the whole matter over to God, surrender your life to God's will and watch how your life will change. I was your typical, call on God as you need him Christian, going about my life however I saw fit, (my attitude was that it's a dog eat dog world out there and I was a pitbull at times). I was anything but a Christian and I refused to submit my life for fear it would change me (like I was such a good guy). Honestly, I didn't want to be held accountable for my actions, that meant I would have to start being responsible wouldn't it and what if I took a look at myself in the mirror and I didn't like what I saw? Well, it did change me, and I love who I'm becoming (A man of character, with ethics, understanding, etc...). You can call me a bible thump if you wish, I'll take that as a compliment, but I rather you call me a Christ follower. I don't think anyone can truly say they have a problem with the way he tells us to live. He was the one who gave us two simple rules to live by, Love your God with all your heart and soul and put no other gods (this encompass more than entities) before him and Love your neighbor as you love yourself. In other words, don't do anything bad to Him or anyone else, pretty simple. The endless quest to fill the void in your heart and the feeling of under achievement will be lifted away. Small moments in your life become very important and you will began to see how blessed you truly are. Things that seem insurmountable become negotiable. People become much more important than things and the love you have for others begins to grow and grow. God glasses help you see the world in a totally different perspective.

Here is another quote by Louis L'Amour, "To disbelieve is easy; to scuff simple; to have faith is harder. He was more right than he probably knew. To turn the other cheek and/or to praying for your enemy, well, that is very hard. Not acting out when you feel cheated, not worrying about what life hits you with, giving when you have little to give, it all seems impossible. Is it hard to walk the line sometimes? Yes, it certainly is at times. Is it worth it? By all means absolutely, the joy and love that God has given me is overflowing, so much so that it is reaching my children, my wife, my family and friends, it is unmeasurable. It is so awesome having Jesus Christ in my life that I want to yell from a mountain top "Come to God, join us, please, come see for yourself how great life can be"! Why wouldn't I want the people I care about the most, to experience what I'm feeling? I want my whole family and all my family to come on board and experience it as well. The thing is, we have been given free will in this world and so you have to volunteer to have it. You have to make a conscience decision to choose what you want, your way (How's that working out for you?) or God's way (You don't even know what your missing). God isn't going to impose his will on anyone, although many people feel threatened by Him that is for sure.

Okay, that covers how to live in the NOW, get on it man!

These drawings are from "MULAN", I was exploring different environments for a travel/montage sequence.

When Sable was just a baby she would growl at things or people she didn't like. This drawing of her is from a real situation. She was in the closet with me one morning as I was picking out a shirt and a spider came out of no where, she started growling at it like a puppy and backing up, when I turned around this is what I saw.

This is from "MULAN as well, it was for the same sequence as stated above. I did a whole slew of these.

Mountain drawing for "BROTHER BEAR". This was done with marker on the back of velum and then reworked on the front with prisma color pencils.

Same as above, "MULAN", travel sequence.

Walking backwards through life.

2010-02-11T12:24:00.000-08:00

So, here's a question for you to contemplate. Are you walking backwards through life? Now, if you know what I'm talking about, or you are trying to turn around, then you're probably not walking backwards in life. If you don't know what I mean, let me expand upon my statement and help you understand.
Recently, my pastor shared a interesting statement that got me thinking. It went something like this... If you spend today worrying about yesterday, you'll end up screwing up your tomorrow. I'm not sure exactly how it went but you get the gist of what he was saying. I thought, "Wow. What a cool statement." It got me thinking and I always love when something gets me thinking...

My thought you ask? "How much time am I actually looking back at the past versus looking where I am?" I realized that I am looking back much more than I thought. I know my life moves forward, that's for sure, but I asked myself, am I really looking ahead? Then it hit me! I am walking backwards through my life. Okay, I understand that you have to look back to the past as a reference point so as not to make the same mistakes again. I know where you're coming from on that point.

It's good to remember your past for several reasons; 1) as a reference for growth and 2) in case it decides to "comes back" and haunt you (which has happened to me more than once). Think of this like you're looking in the rear view mirror as you're driving. You look for a second or two, get your bearings and you make a lane change. However, if you try to drive as you continually look in the mirror, you will eventually... no let me rephrase that...you are destined to crash. Remembering your past and trying to relive or re-experience your past are two different things.

Don't get me wrong I think history is good. I love history. It's nostalgic, warm, fuzzy, and everything is sepia colored. At the same time, I know that history is an interpretation of the past and so it is not true to itself. It is either remembered better or worse than it actually was in most cases. Either way, things never remain the same. Whether we liked it or not, time goes on and things become the past and the past is slightly skewed by our present perspective.

So, what about that old adage "History repeats itself." Good point. Realize, however, that even when history seems to repeat itself, it is still different than it once was, hence, it's new, embodying a whole new batch of current perspectives to go with it. A good example is this current coffee craze where people must have a fresh ground cup of coffee because it's the only way to go. Well, let me inform you, drinking a fresh cup of coffee that has just been ground is not a new idea. It's just the opposite. In fact, it was the only way to have a cup-of-joe in the old days. What is the new part of this repeating history you ask? It's no longer inconvenient to grind the coffee, unlike the old days. The new twist on the old coffee idea is the multiple flavors, strengths, and variations of coffees you can get. People can now get a frap-a-chino, or any specialty drink, at the drop of a coin. So, I would say there are similarities to past history, yes, but the current reality encompasses much, more than the past, hence it is different.

Here's another way to look at the idea of "walking backwards in life." I noticed when I go hiking, and most hikers would probably agree, that the trail you just walked on looks completely different when you look back at where you just came from. Some things definitely look familiar, but as a whole the trail looks different. Has the trail actually changed? No, of course not. It's our perspective of the trail that has changed, and so it looks different, even though it's exactly what it was. Is this getting to deep for you?

Here's a question. Have you ever tried to walk backwards for a long period of time? You're able to go the direction you want, and you are moving forward (for the most part), but you will eventually stumble and/or fall down. When you walk backwards you are unable to get a good look at the terrain you are negotiating. Trying to look over your shoulder when you are facing the wrong direction is, clearly, not the way to walk down a path.It is the same with life. When we try to negotiate our current situation by solely looking back, gazing over our shoulder to see where we are going at present, we are not truly giving the situation all the focus it deserves.

I know many people who are truly walking backwards though life. They gauge every current event on things of the past, some good, some bad. Either way, they are not whole heartedly appreciating the now. Their "current" is always being tainted by the past in some way. They can't seem to just appreciate the present for what it is. Whether it is good or bad, it is right now. The fact-of-the-matter is, sometimes the "right now" is not as good as the past. Sometimes the past was better, than right now and sometimes now is just what it is: a new experience,no better no worse. No matter what it is, realize that in the future it will be remembered differently from a different perspective, and it will change from its original reality. People who are "walking backwards" are continually referencing the past, altering their reality so their now is never what it should, or could be. So they look back to the past again and again, stuck in a vicious loop.

So you're probably asking where is he going with all of this? Well, as much as I like some of my past and think some of it was awesome, (note that I used the words think and was because I know I've skewed it) I hate some of it too. I am not going to let it taint my now. All I really have is right now. The past is gone, and I as much as I hope and plan for a great future, I really only have right now. Here's the kicker. I know if I focus on my now(my current situations in life), my past will correct itself and my future will be a lot more hopeful and promising. Check this out, the now is a new thing of beauty, an adventure to be completely explored and experienced! How about joining the movement of the now? Let go of the past and stop worrying about the future so much. Live your now to the utmost of you abilities. Listen, I'm not telling to sell the farm and go hog-wild. I'm not even saying that the past isn't important. Some things in our past are still effecting are now. The repercussions of past actions sometimes ripple well into our current life. That's a fact. Dealing with those residual things, well, that's what we call being a responsible person. All I'm saying is get into the moment of life and stop waiting for the right moment to start living it.

Coming in a future post are ways in which you can learn to live in the now with passion and responsibility. Also the importance of reality partners, trusting in God, and God's will versus ours. I want everyone to know that God continues to open my eyes wider and wider, the more I ask to see the more he reveals me. Holy, holy, holy Lord! God O mighty, Amen.

When Sable was a little baby she was so fat she couldn't crawl very well, instead she would literally roll to wherever she wanted to go . She would prop herself up like this to get her bearings every once in a while. She was amazingly cute!

This was a water fall sketch I did during "BROTHER BEAR".

A sketchbook page of animals, one of which is chicken little after he was hit over the head by a acorn.

It's a platypus, I thought I would let you know, just incase you're not sure what this is.

A sketchbook watercolor of Ms' B, she was a wonderful cat indeed.

In the spirit of Valentines Day here is a cupid drawing.

I was intrigued by this technique, I don't know why I drew Gorillas, probably because it was around Disney's release of "TARZAN".

Practicing figure drawing without a model, sometimes you win sometimes you lose.

Getting younger on my birthday

2010-02-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since my last post, a month minus a day to be exact but I haven't had anything to say until now. Since my last post I have recovered from my PHB syndrome (refer to last post for it's definition) only to walk right into my 47 birthday. It was uneventful to say the least.(One quick side note, don't go to Carrows restaurant for a piece of birthday pie and expect anything good to come out of it, that's another story for another day). As you get older you learn that your birthday is not as important to others as you may think, your mom and immediate family maybe, but the rest of the world can give two hoots about it. In some ways that not so bad, it keeps the ego in check, you are not as important as you may think, humbling isn't it?

So, here is a story for the books. I'm creeping up on the age of 50 and so I'm freaking out a little bit about turning 47 on my birthday. I keep telling my self I'm almost 48, I'm almost 48, I'm almost 48 over and over again. I start thinking that 48 is only a hop and a skip from 50. I thought if you had 47 marbles in your hand and someone asked, "How many marble do you have?" You would say, " Oh, I guess about 50, skipping right past 48, 49 and you would go right to 50. My birthday has changed from me becoming 47 and now it is all about me being almost 50, Half of 100! I'm approaching a hundred! I told you I was freaking out a little bit. So I keep telling myself I'm almost 48 over and over again until I actually start to believe that I am turning 48 this year on my birthday. That's right I twisted reality and disposed of an entire year of my life.

Weeks go by and now I'm convinced I'm turning 48. I find myself giving myself little pep talks, you know, I tell myself things like, getting older isn't all that bad, sure my hair is thinning and turning grey and I'm having trouble controlling my mid drift more than ever but I should look at the up side. "What up side?" I asked. "Well, let me think," I said. Then out of no where I began to blurted out the most depressing stuff, " You don't have to pull out your I.D. when you order an alcoholic drink anymore and kids call you mister and sir now and, uh.... you can pass gas in the restroom while you're peeing without being embarrassed and....STOP! I screamed to myself, " I get it, I'm becoming a 48 year old middle aged man, the guy women now think that I remind them of their dad or uncle. The guy that kids start throwing the football a little softer to when playing catch. What's next, is someone going to give up their seat on the bus for me?

Forgive me, I digress. So, to add to the problem I announce to a group of new friends that it's my birthday on the 4 of February and that I'm turning 48. My wife looks at me in a curios way and says, "Your not turning 48 your turn 47," I then retort with the most cocky attitude, "Honey, I think I would know how old I am, it is my birthday after all," she backs off as not to embarrass me in front of the group. Now you can add senility to the aging process as well, I forgot how old I am and I'm adamant about my answer even though I'm wrong. Later that night my wife does the math over again in her head and figures out that I'm wrong. I already came to the same conclusion and was trying to figure a way out when she yells over the bannister and interrupts me right in the middle of watching a program on the Discovery channel (I am 46 after all). She announces, "Honey, you're turning 47 not 48, I told..." I interrupted her with, "I know, I already figured that out, I'm such an idiot, now I have to tell everyone that I forgot how old I am, isn't that just great?" She laughed.

Okay, so my birthday came and went and even though it was uneventful here is the up side to turning 47. Because I thought I was turning 48 on this birthday and I was really only turning 47 it was like I got a year younger this birthday not older. I got younger instead of older this year, AWESOME! Hey, It works for me so just let it alone and let me live in the skewed little world that I've created for myself in peace, thanks.

This an old drawing that I reworked digitally.

This is a watercolor and mixed medium of a conceptual drawing for "KINGDOM OF THE SUN" later to become "THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE"

Old world piece, I have a few more to go, sorry Jodi.

Conceptual piece from "ICE AGE II" lava tubes under the glacier.

Work book drawings from "BROTHER BEAR" of the wise woman before we had model sheets.

This is sketchbook drawing of a shack that was at the top of the Grand Canon near our hotel room. It was an awesome trip, I asked Jodi to marry me and she said yes and we rafted down the Colorado river for 8 days.

This is a drawing of a memorial stone, who knows why I drew this, it's a mystery to even me.

this is another workbook drawing from "BOTHER BEAR", Kenia was packing his stuff to leave.

This is a conceptual drawing as well as a workbook drawing for "BROTHER BEAR". Like all films you eventual run out of time and ours was no different, because of story changes and other things I'm not aware of Bob Walker allowed me to participate in designing the indian village. I did this in tandem with doing the workbook, it was a great experience, thanks for the opportunity Bob.

I suffer from PHB (Post holiday Blues).

2010-01-11T13:56:00.001-08:00

A brand new year is here, yes! It is a golden opportunity to start fresh, make changes, you know, mend the the errors of my ways and become a new and improved me. It's the time to march forward with a positive out look on life and embark on the let's make a better Craig trail. The past is behind me and all I have to do is just go forward, yeah, awesome! Only one little problem, I'm having a hard time getting into the spirit of the new year. It seems I'm suffering from PHB (Post Holiday Blues).

Don't worry, I have had this condition before and recovered, it just takes a little time. I must admit that it does seem a little worse this year than in the past years that I had it. I definitely made the mistake of over indulging in happiness over the Christmas break and now I have what I call a reality hangover. I know what leads to this condition and I could have prevented it but I just didn't care.

I didn't worry about what time I got up in the morning or what time I went to bed. I didn't carry a watch on my person the whole time so time didn't matter to me. I also took to much time off from work, as matter of fact I didn't think about work at all, big mistake. I played and I rested, and I played some more, way to much and as a result now my 8 hour work day seems like an eternity.

I also took full advantage of how nice people were over the Christmas holiday. I smiled at strangers and said hello to everyone I came in contact with and when they responded with a smile and a hello back I reveled in it. As the Bible instructs us, I was loving my neighbor and to my delight they were loving me back. I was diggin' it, the fact that people were saying excuses me, and thank you and please to me was the most wonderful feeling. It was so nice to have people let you get over in traffic, and with a smile no less. Well, I guess it's my own fault, I liked it a little to much and now getting to and from work is like going into battle zone and going shopping is like negotiating a survival course in a military zone.

My biggest mistake by far was loving my family to much. It seemed like a good idea at the time, you know, letting my heart run free and just cut loose with feelings for everyone. Yup, I just soaked in as much love and fun and attention from my family as I could stand. Now, I must suffer the feelings of love deficiency. It's like I stretched out my love pocket in my heart and now I will have to wait till it shrinks up a little.

I've got to tell you that even though moving into the new year has been a little painful and I know why I feel the way I do, I know I'll give myself PHB again the first chance I get in this new year. What can I tell you, I'm a glutton for punishment.

These are three workbook sketches from Lilo and Stitch, the top two are from a grave yard sequence that got cut from the movie. It was how Stitch learned about life and death. It was awesome, full of emotion, I wish they didn't cut it. The bottom one was a shot of him in the dog pound all lonely and stuff.

A workbook background from Brother Bear. I think this was a shot after Denhi falls in the river.

Clown angels, these guys are responsible for the funny things that happen to us.

Here is another baby Sable for you. She has always been a very unique kid, a little compulsive though, I guess she's a chip off the old block.

Wow, I blinked and a year went by!

2010-01-06T16:06:00.000-08:00

It happened again, I blinked my eyes and a whole year went by! Son-of- gun, and I was actually paying attention this year and it still got by me. Let me tell you, as a person gets older you would expect things to slow down a little bit, so you can take time to smell the roses you've work so hard to grow, if you get my meaning? If you didn't already know this about getting older, let me enlighten you, it only gets faster and faster as you age.

I can remember when I was in grade school (1st or 2nd grade) trying to imagine what I would be like in the year 2010. As I was only 6 or 7 years old I thought, in 2010 I would be very very old (ancient) but it would matter much because we would have flying cars to get around in and robots to walk our dogs and cut our lawns and do our work and stuff like that, so, life would be all good. Well, turns out in 2010 I have a beat-up Ford F150 pick-up and I'm in nose deep with a mortgage and I don't have a robot. At 46 almost 47 I don't think of myself as very very old, as a matter of fact I don't even think of my self as old at all and then I realize I'm creeping up on a half a century. How did this happen? All of a sudden I'm watching the news every morning, I'm actually paying attention to the life insurance commercials. I'm thinking about my prostate and colonoscopys and I'm constantly regulating my diet (more fiber), really what the____is going on here. I still don't read the newspaper daily and I don't do crossword puzzles and I don't share my health issues with strangers yet, so I guess I'm not, you know, old, but I am feeling more aches and pains for no reason, go figure?

A little while ago I prayed a prayer to God. I asked that he would (bless me) by allowing me to see things clearer in my life, to truly be able to experience them not just go through the motions of just doing them. I asked if he would help me to take in more of my life as I lived it, you know, help me to really absorb the moment if you will. I asked if he would help me to learn to appreciate things, wether they be good or bad.

I realized that I was doing things in my life but I was not living them. Everyone is doing things, perusing things, reacting to things but very few people actual experience the moment of them. As I lay in my bed one night reflecting on what I felt was a pretty good day I realized something. I was think about how much fun everyone else had that day. I realized that I didn't really participate in anything or involve my self in their activities, I just sat on the side lines and let them live life.

One Saturday night after a full day (not particularly a spectacular day) I was tucking in my 6 year old daughter. I was tickling her and we were going over the days events and as I gave her a good night kiss I inadvertently asked her if she had a good day. She said, "It was the best day ever, dad". She says quiet often, that she has had the best day ever, no matter what kind of day it was. How? That's what I'm talking about, I want to have the best days ever too! I don't want to look back on my life one day and think, what happened, where did it go? I want to feel, well, at least that I lived it, I lived my life to the fullest. I know God wants us to live our lives to the fullest. Why is it so hard to get in the game sometimes?

As I sat in church one Sunday the pastor preached a sermon on the the be attitudes. One of them sudden got my full attention, it actually made me sit up in my seat, the meek shall inherit the earth. Now, I've read that many times and have heard more sermons on it than I can remember, but this time it was different. In retrospect must admit that I never really understood it, probably because I couldn't see how it applied to me. I mean being meek is not one of my personality traits by any means. The pastor explained it a little different than I've heard it in the past. He interpreted the word meek in that passage as humble. Well, instantly things clicked and I understood it, I mean I really understood it. A humble man would not be worried about worldly things and because of that his focus would shift to what is important in life, God and family! A prideful man, an egotistical man would never appreciate what he has, he is always coveting what others have. Humility has had a profound affect on my life.

God answered my prayer and my life has changed. 2009 was a wonderful year, challenging at times but non the less I'm actually living my life. I'm taking it all in, appreciating it and absorbing it as it happens. I'm still a work in progress and I have a long path in front of me but it is happening. Praise God in all that he does!

On the flip side though, sometimes I wish I never prayed that prayer. Now, don't get me wrong I know that this is a blessing and glory be to God for the gift of really live your life to it's fullest, but there is a down side to the gift. With the awareness of the moment your in also comes the complete awareness of how fleeting time (life) actually is. You can feel the minutes ticking away in you life. I can actually feel a moment going by as I'm participating in it. I have noticed all kinds of changes in my behavior do to this. It is get very hard at times to contain my emotions (I tear up at the drop of a hat). I hold on a little tighter and a little longer when I hug my kids, I catch my self staring at them watching every little thing they do. I think about my family all the time, the ones that live in other states as well as my family with me. I've also noticed saying good bye or good night has become heart wrenching, for it is another day in another year that is passing by. It is harder to sit by and watch others who are letting their lives just, well, just pass on by like they are watching a movie.

Alright, I think I've shared enough, besides I have a whole year to express myself. I hope everyone had a Christmas as wonderful as mine and I hope everyone can enter the New Year with a brand new out look on things. A quote by Dr. Joyce Meyers to carry you through the year, "It's not how you start the race that matters, it's how you finish it".

A little landscape sketch from when I was on Brother Bear.

This is what all my zippers on my pants feel like right now do to over indulging during the holiday season.

Baby animals, always a hit with the kids. It kinda feels like I'm cheating when I draw baby animals because you automatically win the little ones over.

This is a sketch of...uh... some girl from some culture. Sometimes I just draw stuff, no rhyme or reason behind it, it just is what it is.

This is a drawing I did when I first started on Lilo and Stitch before we had model sheets of the characters. For the longest time we operated with minimal information on the project do to the fear that someone would steal the idea and kick out some low quality film in front of us. Eventually the power that be relaxed a little and things got easier for us to do our jobs.

This is a drawing of my fourth child Eden, I call her Sparkly Girl because she is always so happy and when she smiles it's as though she is radiating beams of light. She is a great example of living life with gusto.

The marvel of a child's perspective.

2009-12-07T15:28:00.001-08:00

One of the most spectacular things about being a parent (a Mom or a Dad) is the blessing that we receive from God to be around children as they discover and experience things for the first time in life. When we are very young and we are going through our own discovery process in life it is awesome yet difficult. We rarely take note of what we are experiencing as children but seeing it from the outside is, just.....well, marvelous! As parents we are also so fortunate to be witness to their wonderful (a child's innocent) perspective of life. Things in the world are not tainted with life's ugly pessimistic grown up view point. Things are bigger and better than real life, colors are brighter, places are cleaner, all people are equal. All baby animals are the cutest things in the entire world and every good day is the best day ever. Life and the world are a mystery waiting to be solved. For them life is greater than great yet still very simple, and for the most part every moment is thoroughly enjoyed, everyday is a spectacular adventure waiting to happen for sure. As children we live life to it fullest and somewhere along the path of maturing (growing up) we forget how. Oh, how I long for that perspective and those long wonderful days as a child, if I only knew, I would not have been in such a hurry to grow up.

Maybe that's why I love to draw so much, it's sort of similar to a child's excitement about doing something new, everything I draw looks good to me (wether it is or not) and I get to discover and/or rediscover things over and over as I sketch. It's a wonderful feeling. I have five terrific kids, all of them are my favorite, they have been such wonderful people to be around as they have grown. They have always had a great out look on things, (I could learn a few things from them), and they have always loved other people with out scrutinizing them. Life can be disappointing at times but when I look at my kids, when they give me a hug or call me on the phone I know that life is great. I've tried to explain to people who don't have children that they think they know the true depth of love for another human, but until you've held your new born baby in your hands you will never really understand.

I would have to venture that people love Christmas time so much because it's the one time of the year that we get to be children again. It is filled with such wonderful things. Colors are brighter, things look cleaner, and people are nicer, etc... Most importantly is the reminder that Jesus came into the world to save us, it gives us hope. We are reminded that we are children, God's children and we can have a child like obedience (with unquestionable devotion). We can trust in him, have faith in him and love for him with all our hearts as a child does with their parents. Here are some drawings of old Christmas cards from the past and sketches of snow-scapes and snowmen. I love snowmen but then again who doesn't?

This was one of three different graphic approaches to a Christmas card. One was a Christmas tree done in the same technique and the other was the three Magi (wise men). I don't no what happen to the other two.

Who would ever do such a thing?

This is a very small sketch about 3"x 1 1/2" out of one of my sketch books.

I drew the black and white one first in graphite and later I did another one in watercolor and color pencil. These were for Christmas Gift labels.

This piece is entirely digital, I call it "The Introduction"

A snow couple walking their snow dog.

This was another attempt at a Christmas card.

The only things that are for certain in life are death, taxes, and change!

2009-12-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

Change, I hate change, I have always had a difficult time with change, more so as a small child but I still don't like it at 46, I've just learned to deal with it. Now, I don't want to get into a philosophical argument about how mankind never changes, that man is and will always be the same. I know that as a religious man, God is the only true constant, he is the only certainty we can count on, he is the Alpha and the Omega. No, I'm talking about change on a more personal level, changes in my life. Things like changes in your work, changes in your finances, changes in your family, etc...

You've heard the age old adage that the only certain things in life are death and taxes, well I'm adding change to the list, death, taxes and change. If there is one thing you can count on (as a constant in your life) it is change. It is always present making the present the past. You would think that as a human who is changing from the day of conception to the day we die that it would be part of our DNA or mental makeup, the ability to accept and embrace change, yet most of us fight it. The difficulty with no change in your life is that you can't grow or mature or progress in any way without change taking place, they go hand in hand. Although we all understand that change is inevitable, embracing the unknown and uncertainty that comes with change is at best frightening, and sometimes even painful. The worst part is that I'd rather live in undesirable situations than to go through the scary course of change.

Okay, I'm a coward when it comes to dealing with change, I admit it, but you have to admit that change is difficult for most everyone. There are those few who are really okay with change, I admire people who are okay with change and I try to surround myself with those people who are better at dealing with it than I am. My wife is one of the only people that I know who is courageous enough to actually pursue change. Crazy isn't it! She is proactive in making change happen, you can probably understand how uncomfortable this makes me feel. I must admit that the changes have always improved our situations. So, now as a full grown adult male, I play along with the crazy attitude that everything changes eventually and we should all embrace it and even own it. Yes, I put up a great facade of confidence and assertiveness on the outside, but on the inside I'm still a chicken lilly livered little baby who is afraid of change.

Every artist has drawings of centaurs and pans in their sketchbooks and I'm no different. My wife hates these kinds of drawings, sorry honey but they were in the box, so here they are. I haven't posted my unicorns or minotaurs yet so keep an eye out.

Disgusting, sometimes I surprise myself with what's in my head.

I always find the cow thing really weird but if you are going to do centaurs then why not a uh...... what do you call this?

This is for my dad, the wizard.

Everything is personal.

2009-11-20T09:35:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since my last post but things always get hectic at this time of year. I was recently invited to give a lecture/workshop at the Hallmark, which by the way was a phenomenal experience. Between the crunch times at work I have been writing this years church play, which I am directing and acting in. So, you can see how I have not had the time to post lately. I have been thinking about this post for awhile regardless of my work load.

For the longest time I have had a problem with the idea (the philosophy) that our work life, is and should be, kept separate from our personal lives. When I was a young man and I didn't have a lot of responsibility and a poor relationship with God it was easy to be fooled into believing this philosophy. I was admittedly selfish, still I had trouble with it, it was just a little easier to swallow this ridiculous idea. As I have matured I learned that it is impossible to keep the two separate and furthermore if you try to one of the two will suffer. First, you should know that I loathe the statement "don't take it personal". Everything that happens to me wether it's at work, or at home I consider personal. If it affects me in anyway (my person), it is personal, so when someone makes that stupid proclamation I immediately get irritated with them. I find that statement impersonal and offensive. It's a coward's defense, they know in their heart they are doing something to another person that isn't so good and to try and make themselves feel better about what they just did they toss out that stupid remark.

Another statement I find completely despicable is " it's just business" and that is usually preceded by or followed by the other statement of "Don't take it personal". Most people spend at least 8 hours of their day at work sometimes more, 40 hours a week or more at their work place with coworkers. Most of the time it is more than they will spend with their families. I get 3 to 5 hours a day with my family and about 30 to 35 hours a week with them, this includes time spent cutting the lawn or shopping , etc, all the things that need to get done in the house hold. So, you can see that work is a huge part of everyone's lives and it has an affect on everyone's personal lives as well. Sometimes directly and other times indirectly. All things at work reach into our personal lives, bad things, good things they all have an effect. At the same time our personal lives have an effect on us in the work place, we can't help it. We are human with human emotions. I find it ridiculous for an employer to take on the attitude that their employees are at work because they just couldn't live without the job or career, they act as though employees should be more dedicated to their work than their own well being or families. Those people do exist but I positive that they go to their graves with huge regrets. Most people try to get work in a field they would enjoy doing but in truth it is an avenue for people to achieve a better life or lifestyle. People want nicer homes, cars, better food and so on.

Employers should understand that their is an unwritten agreement between their employees and them, I do right by you and you do right by me, unfortunately all too often the employers take on the persona of a dictatorship, (they are royalty and the workers are their slaves). They do this using excuses or under the guise of a business trying to grow, this is what it takes expand, or we have to cut back to stay a float, or we are just responding to the the bad economy, bla....bla...bla... it's all bull$#@!. If the higher ups truly believed this nonsense they feed us they too would cut back or give back, but they don't, they have multiple houses, there wives are getting face lifts, they are taking home unruly amounts of money, mean while their employees are losing their houses and they are dealing with inadequate health care. Don't get me wrong, I think that the people who started the business and the people running them are entitled to more than the their employees, but how much is enough, because it seems as though they never get enough. I know that I would feel terrible (a convicting guilt) if I herd that people under me ( people that trust me to take care of them) were living in sub-par conditions. I would make sure to take appropriate actions to rectify my negligence or my companies negligence. I only know of just a few business that try their best to be fair to their employees, and most of them are ran by or owned by God fearing individuals. Most businesses today have no conscience or conviction about anything they do, it's all about the dollar, maximize the monetary intake and it doesn't matter who they hurt in the process. Are the higher ups so detached, so removed, that they can't even see the wrong they do anymore or is it that they don't care?

Let me ask you this simple question, why is it that businesses think they have to make record breaking profits every year? Isn't it a little unrealistic to have that as a goal. Everyone of us normal citizens understand that you have good years financially and bad, and we are okay with that. When things aren't so good we adjust and cut back, we don't get rid of our family members, we pull together as a family and make it through the bad times. When times are good we share and prosper together. Businesses use to understand how important employee loyalty was, but they have sacrificed that loyalty for a dollar and now the average employee doesn't trust his or her employer one iota. Why should they, there is little to believe in or trust anymore now that God has been removed from the work place. Without God man creates his own moral guideline and worse yet his own justifications for his actions and they are usually based on what is good for his own gain not for the good of everyone. These are the things that make it really hard to deal with businesses in America today. Why do powerful people, the people running things have such a hard time doing the right thing? Why can't they embrace the idea of loving your neighbor as you love yourself? Come on, unless you hate yourself this is a pretty simple concept, ask yourself, "do I want what I am doing to someone else done to me", if the answer is yes then okay but the answer is no then don't do it. I know that life is complicated and it isn't always black and white with clarity, but this doesn't mean an individuals principals or morals have to be in the grey zone as well?

One last thing, if you have compromised your principals and or morals it doesn't mean you have to remain that way, the devil's trick is to make you believe it's okay, normal, everyone is doing it, and you are not worthy of making a change. It will, no doubt be difficult, but every great achievement always is. Life is very short and when the end comes how do you want to be remembered, and more importantly how will God think of you? The thing to remember is that people are understanding and respect anyone who decides to do the right thing and usually they will lend a hand and help. I could go on and on, but I think you understand where I'm coming from. Live in God's will, walk in the right direction. If we can't get things fixed in our country from the top down then we will have to do it from the bottom up and that starts with us.

R and R time required after visiting the family.

2009-09-28T15:33:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a 3 day trip to my old stomping grounds on the east coast of Florida. The reason for the visit was for a few reasons: one, to accept an achievement award from the community college I attended 23 years ago, two, to speak at the Fort Lauderdale Institute of the Arts and three, to celebrate my parents 50 wedding anniversary. So, I was really looking forward to this trip when I left.

I had a great time catching up with two of my old college professors (these guys really made a difference in my life) and I was also able to catch up with two of my dearest college buds. I got to play paddleball on the beach and go out to eat and just hang out and reignite old friendships; friendships that I had let laps over the years. I had a great time with them. Over all I feel as though it was a really great visit except for the family part, that part had its ups and downs and its bumps and bruises. On the five and a half hour flight home I was able to reflect on the time I spent in good old Hollywood, Florida, and all the events and conversations that I was involved.

As I sat on the plane and tried not to get to agitated with the over cramped conditions, for I was seated in a center seat between two guys a little bigger than me. My situation was compounded by the southern humidity and by the large guy sitting to my left of me. Try and imagine how annoyed I was getting when he fell asleep and was infringing on my space, and snoring. Anyway, I started to reflect on the past three day's events and realized that even though the trip was full of excitement, I was really very uneasy. After reflection, I realized that most of my stress revolved around visiting my family.

On this trip I had two speeches to prepare as well as a two to three hour keynote presentation to deliver in front of not-sure-how-many college students and faculty. Normally, this kind of stress would be more than most could handle; however, I was more stressed out about how things were going to play out with my family than I was about the presentations in front of strangers. One by one I got through my tasks and the weight of them was lifted from my shoulders but the family stress remained a constant from the beginning of the trip to the end of my trip. Why is that, I asked myself? Now, I know I’m not alone in this dilemma, many people find it stressful to visit their families, but just once I would love to go visit and not need a few days of rest and recovery time when I returned to my own home. There are situations and scenarios that always seem to some how occur during my visits to my families’ house, or should I say houses.

I will not go into details or specifics of my visit (and it was not ALL bad!) but I will expand on my thoughts here. I have some rhetorical questions to ask. Why is it that people tend to treat friends and acquaintances better their own family? Why are consideration thrown out the window when we are dealing with family members? Why do people have better manners around friends and acquaintances? Why do they extend more grace and leniency to outsiders; more importantly, why are we willing to forgive more quickly and more easily with our friends than our family? You would think that it would be the opposite of said case, and we would extend a greater window of these things, seeing that your family is from your own blood and you have more history and time vested in your family. You would think it would be different because you know more about your family so it should be easier to not offend them. You would think family would always act in love and support in everything they do toward each other, but that is not the case.

You are probably thinking, all right already, I know this stuff, what’s your point? Well, if that is what you are thinking, relax, I’m venting here. If not, then here is my point. I think the first problem is that we tend to take our families for granted; therefore, we believe that we can say and do whatever we want to each other, we think it is okay for us to step on each others toes, no let me rephrase that, we stomp on each others toes with vigor! We have no problem pointing out each other’s faults, or criticizing each others parenting skills, we don’t have a problem attacking each other religious beliefs, and we don’t have any problem belittling each other’s personality traits and/or character. We have no problem forcing or imposing our ideas and/or our opinions upon each another. These things we wouldn’t dream of doing to a friend. The reason, they wouldn’t remain a friend for very long if we did.

Here is what we forget or disregard: our families are made up of free thinking diverse people, people with feelings and issues and sensitivities like all people. We need to remember that just because they are family members it doesn’t exempt them from having the same issues that any other person in the world might be dealing with. Our families are made up of regular people with real problems and normal reactive emotions. All our families are dealing with things like religious differences, political differences, archaic or old school attitudes, parental rearing differences and so on. Most of the time, the exchanges are well intentioned and offered in the spirit of trying to help. The problem is we don’t always deliver our opinions with love and consideration and respect. We don’t respect our family members’ boundaries and we surely don’t offer our opinion as if it were only our opinion, more as a known fact which is required by our family to get on board with how we think and live.

The next thing to remember is that as families mature and kids grow up and start their own families, the old family unit become the extended family and is less influential than when the family unit began. This demands that the old way of thinking and acting toward one another must be altered, the dynamics have changed and so we must also adopt new approaches and attitudes. Each member has its own direct family as there main interest and focus and the extended family (Mom, Dad, Brother and Sister, Aunt and Uncle, Grandma and Grandpa) take a back seat in living life. It’s not that people don’t care about what their extended family thinks, it’s just that they are on a different path in life and have there own way of doing things. In addition, people try to cram tons of advice and opinions into one or two days without enough background information, a recipe for disaster.

What is the solution to this toxic dilemma? I use the term toxic because it is the perfect word to describe what our attitudes and our approaches toward each other are like, a poison. This poison, will slowly seep in and do damage that can kill a family’s unity. Resentment builds and arguments happen and eventually people just stop visiting each other, it just isn’t worth the exhausting emotional drain.

God put us in our families and I'm sure there is a reason for why each one of is placed where we are placed, with that being said, it is our responsibility to treat our family as a gift, with love and respect. So, I think I will take my own advice this time and I’m going to think about my family as friends, friends I want to keep for life. I love my family and they deserve me being on my best behavior. Friendships need love, nurturing, respect, consideration and most of all forgiveness. Next time I go home I think I’ll talk a little less, listen a little more and offer things like my opinion and ideas when they are asked for. I want to be involved in my extended family’s affairs but only as much as they want and are comfortable with. We’ll see what happens the next visit.

Sketchbook drawing pencil/watercolor/Digital.

This was an idea for a shot in an early workbook for the film "Brother Bear". Early in it's production, the story was still in flux, it was the father Chilkoot who was hunting Kenai.

This is a workbook sketch from brother bear, Kenai's brother attempts to jump across a gorge.

This was an establishing shot that turns into a dolly shot from "Mulan". They dumped the idea, this part of the story did not merit the expensive to execute the idea.

This is a rough drawing for a stained glass fireplace cover, it never got done.

These are two workbook pages from a "Brother Bear" workbook.

These are ideas from "Lilo and Stitch", originally Stitch had a gang that came to earth and he ended up fighting against his own guys at the end. These were images that were being shown at Stitch's trial in the beginning of the move; they were images of violent and destructive acts that he and his gang were responsible for.

Sketchbook drawing of Boochy.

These are inspirational sketches I did for myself when I first went on to "Brother Bear".

Sketchbook drawings pencil/watercolor/digital.

Why is it so darn hard to take advice from our kids?

2009-09-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog I had know idea what direction it would take, I wasn't even sure I would continue posting for lack of interest. As I have continued posting comments and illustrations it seems as though this blog is taking on it's own personality. I thought of the name sketch and release for the blog but it had little significance at the time. The mean of the name is now making more sense to me. Sketch and release, that's exactly what I've been doing.

I am really enjoying being able to share thoughts with whom ever logs on. I feel as though I am have a conversation with a friend which is allowing me to share my drawings and helping me to release some bottled up thoughts. Everyone knows that life can be difficult at times, with all of the responsibilities and the constant bomb bardament of the world's problems, sometimes you just need to get something out of your system and you want to tell someone but you don't know who. This is my place to do it.

I have always been some what reserved in my attitude to having a great time in life, don't get me wrong, I love to have fun but it is very difficult for me to just cutting loose and go crazy and really just having a carefree moment in in my life. This attitude has probably kept me out of trouble at times in my past but I'm sure that it has kept me from really enjoying and absorbing the full potential of events I have experienced as well. I recognized this in myself a few years back and have been trying to work on it since. I am also some what of a pessimist, something I really hate about myself, I tend to look at the negative side of things instead of the positive side instead. I have been working on that as well. I have lots of things to work on and lots of things I am working on in my life, trying to become a better person. So, why am I telling you this?

Last night, I was on the phone with my daughter, whom I get along with very well and somewhere in the conversation we started having a heated discussion, which ended with her in tears and me feeling like a real shlep. We never really argue and when we do I get extremely insecure with myself and I immediately go into the (I'm the father so I know more) posture and start preaching or disassembling my daughters argument. This is a really bad habit, I'm really good at it to so I easily fall right into doing it. I have developed this as a way to survive in the Grasso family atmosphere(crush, kill, and destroy). It is much easier to breakdown someone else's point of view than it is to solidify or defend your own position, mainly because they are so busy defending their position and don't get an opportunity to punch holes in yours. This is another thing I'm working on changing.

When I got off the phone I continued to feel poorly about our (Samantha my daughter and my) interaction, so I turned to my wife of course and continued to defend my point of view, she looked at me with the (I have no idea what you are so worked up about look), so there I was a big giant blow-hard preaching to myself in the middle of the living room. Isn't that a lovely picture, I haven't changed a bit!

Then I started thinking, why is it so hard for parents to accept that there children will evetually have a different opinion about things than them? Why is it so difficult to take advice from our children no matter how old they are? Why is it so hard to admit and when is it time to admit that our children may have out grown us in some areas. Why is it so hard to admit they may be smarter than we are or that they are more spiritual than we are, and or they are more loving than we are? Why is it so hard to accept that at some point we can learn something from our children? I mean, if you raised them right, then you're are kind of responsible for them being so worldly and so it would behoove one to take said advice or accept knowledge from them.

I thought some more and came up with this assumption. We are afraid that our children might think less of us. We think they will no longer seek our council. We distort there loving and kind direction into critical comments. We think that our children will recognize all the times in the past that we were less than a good parent. Most of all we fear that they will not respect us and love us as much as we love them. The very thought bring me to tears.

So, what do we do, we act like complete idiots and show sides of ourselves that we don't even recognize and we lash out and later we lower our heads in shame of what we portrayed ourselves to be, an ugly human being with lots of faults, the very thing we are afraid they will think we are.

This proves once again to me as in the past, that even at 46 years old I am immature and have plenty of room to learn and grow both spiritually and mentally in my life. I am and will continue my quest to be the best son, brother, husband, father, and friend that God is letting me know I can be.

Samantha you are a blessing from God, I love and cherish you not only as a daughter but as a friend and fellow Christ follower, thanks for becomeing the person you are. Love, Daddy

This an actual copy of a cleaned up background from the movie "Brother Bear". I think I may have done the original workbook drawing as well. It is long horizontally because there was a camera move that took place over the art work.

This piece is very special to me. It is the only shot in "Brother Bear" where I did the workbook drawing, the rough drawing and the clean up drawing. I also designed the tertiary characters in the background for this shot. It was an awesome experience and challenge.

This is out of my sketch book, mail boxes are also on the top of my list of things I like to draw, go figure.
This is another drawing from my sketch book, I took time on one of my visits to Disney to do a quick sketch, I practically always have my sketch book with me but I seldom take time to sketch my surroundings anymore.
This a sketch book drawing that I dressed up with some watercolor. It was during the time I was working on "Lilo and Stitch". I'd never been to Hawaii, so I did a lot of sketches to try to get the feel of the environment. It is easier to capture the surreal feeling of the worlds we create in our films when you get to go on the research trips, less guess work more artist license.

Advice from dad, it is as affective today as it was on the day I received it.

2009-09-14T16:58:00.000-07:00

When I was a small boy my father gave me some advice that has stuck with me my entire life. I don't know why it stuck so well, maybe I received it at just the right moment as a child, the perfect moment when a kid is willing to completely believe whole heartedly in what he or she is hearing. It is what I like to refer to as an all in moment. This little piece of advice was delivered to me in the most casual manner so I don't believe that my dad was even aware of the impact that it would have on my entire life. This trivial statement would serve me well in all situations in my life, from being a son to being a father.

I've only had a few all in moments in my life time, some of which were bad situations, and quite frankly I wish I had a few more good ones, maybe they would have made my life a little easier as well. One of the other all in moments that is definitely worth mentioning is when I was introduced to God and later Jesus. This most definitely has and continues to positively affect my life.

This piece of advice, which I will share with you shortly, has not only helped me to achieve my goals in life but it has also made the mundane things in life interesting, the boring things in life exciting, and the excruciating things acceptable, and in some cases it has lead me to good fortune.

Before I share this very valuable piece of info, I must, out of good conscience share a caveat if you will of the dangers that come with it as well. If you are not cautious, and if you allow it to, it will take control of you and it can keep you from completing the simplest task. It can consume you and lead you down a path of insanity. This is a serious warning, especially if you are somewhat compulsive.

Okay, here is as I received it as best as I can remember. Casually my dad said," Craig, listen to me son, I want you to remember this, no matter what you're doing in life, do it to the utmost of your ability, do it the best it can be done and you'll never regret what your doing and you will always be happy with what you are doing". I remembered dad and you were 100% right.

I've had some really crappy jobs in the past, from digging ditches to cleaning dog kennels but no matter I was doing I always approached it with fervor. I firmly believe that because of this approach I have always been able learned something valuable from every job or task. I want everyone to know that I have always walked with dignity through life with my head up because of this approach. It has helped me to understand that the work or job we do in life does not dictate nor define who we are but how we conduct ourselves in those jobs does.

I have tried to apply this advice to every aspect of my being, from my marriage to my relationship with God. Sometimes I don't apply things as quickly as I would like and sometimes it takes me a while to see I'm screwing up but I care, I care enough to change. As I go through this thing called life I wish that sometimes I could call a do over. Life would be so much easier if we could but we can't. I am continually learning knew and better ways to do thing in my life, sometimes a little to late to apply them but I remind myself I did the best I could with what I knew. I am changing and I'm working on being a better me everyday. So, there it is, do with it what you will.

This Otter piece was a school project that remained unfinished until recently. It was inspired by Lenora Baldwin's book " Ottie the Ostentatious Otter". I could not remember the original context of the piece so I split it into two and added my own text. I fell way short in my expectations when I first started this piece. It remained unfinished for seventeen years because I new not what to do with it. It can now rest in peace. Talk about compulsive behavior, this piece has been bothering me for ever.

When I got out of school I did a bunch of drawings of well know stories, with the intention that I would finish them in full out illustrations for my portfolio. Between work and getting accepted to the Disney internship program I did not get many done, no worries though, I got hired by Disney and never needed them to find work.

This piece I did for my mom as a present. I only have a photo of it, so the image is very low resolution and hard to see. She liked very much, at least she made me believe she liked it. Who knows with moms, they like everything we do, that's what makes them so great.

The amazing part of a collaborative creative work environment is the personal growth.

2009-09-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

As I promised, in today’s post I will be sharing with you what it's like to work in a collaborative work environment. All successful animation studios have collaborative work environments, but not in the sense that people think. First, let's clarify the term collaborative, as far as I know to turn any situation into a collaborative effort all you need is two or more people working in conjunction to create a finished product. So, what that means to me is that there can be no boss or overseer dictating how things will be done. That's not really possible, somebody is always going to be in charge at any given point, but this can be a give and take position. Just look how our congress gets things done and how fast they achieve their goals; okay, maybe that's not a great example. I'm so funny! Anyway, what I think people want to know is, what it's like to work in a collaborative creative environment?

I have to say that there are pluses and minuses to working collaboratively. First you must except that in this kind of work environment you never get full credit if you receive any credit for things you've done. It is truly a humble persons’ world, if you like being recognized or rewarded for every little or big thing you do, it is not the place to be. I'm not saying that people don't appreciate or acknowledge your achievements but, you're not going to get a medal for doing what is expected out of you. When you're working alongside some of the best people in your field, doing what is expected is not as simple as it sounds. Something great to realize is that you will always be challenged in your work, you will never conquer it nor will you become bored. You might burn-out but that's another chapter.

Next thing to know is that tasks or your jobs becomes more specific in nature and this means that you don't get many opportunities to get your feet wet on other parts of the business, opportunities are rear, so when they present themselves you have to go for it, even if you are not ready, you may never get another chance. You must realize, the jobs are task specific and the people doing these tasks are really, really good at them, so doing someone else's job is not easy by any means. This is one of the great things about this environment, the caliber of the people you are working with is awesome, and you get to witness them work and learn from them. Your work can and will be critiqued and improved.

Okay, the coolest part of a collaborative working environment is that you are expected to be involved. You are right in the mix of things, working things out, making suggestions, solving problems; you are a player in the game. You're not just a stooge pushing a button or someone who is waiting to being told what to do every minute. Yes, it is true that you are working under several bosses but the projects are vast and they don't always have direction or answers for you, so you have to improvise and problem solve and draw like a maniac. This leads me to the next and most important part of this kind of working environment.

Responsibility, accountability, and ownership are key elements to making it all come together and work. Along with the key elements also come the necessity for compromise, and this applies to all personnel, from top to bottom, and I mean everyone including owner, boss, right down to the simplest worker. Because these jobs are so big and everyone has a specific job to do if something breaks down the whole process is effected. You are expected to get your part done and done right. You have to take completely ownership of your task even though you may not like it or agree with it. The trick here is to make it your own somehow. Lastly we have compromise. Everyone, and I mean everyone will, at some point, have to compromise on something to get the job finished, out of all the key elements this one is the hardest and most important. If I had to explain or give a definition for collaborative work environments it would be compromise.

The greatest thing I've experienced is the personal growth that comes with the collaborative creative work environment. I could have never achieved the level of growth in my artist life so quickly without being in this environment. Thank you, to everyone that I've worked with, I know you all made it possible; I've learned so much so fast. I hope I have done the same for others as well.

This is a marker and pen sketch, this little drawing has no point but it is relaxing and fun for me to draw things like this.

This was inspired by the sketch above. Baby ducks, come on, so cute.

This was an illustration done for a poem my dad wrote. I compiled a bunch of his poems that had similar themes and made a small book for him. He's a very prolific writer with a range that varies from writing stories, educational materials to poetry. He is a very talented poet; he has brought me to tears more than once from his writings.

Speaking of collaborative work this is an illustration from a children's book I'm illustrating, it is a collaboration of five or six people, to include my wife and eldest daughter. It is not moving very fast.

I did this piece to beef up my portfolio after I got laid off from Disney, I had very little color pieces to show.

These three clown illustrations are from the poem book that I did for my dad. They have been digitally re-mastered, as they say. These were originally sketched on paper but finished in photoshop. It was my very first attempt at really working on the computer to do full out illustrations. Back then I was working on a wacom tablet, very difficult, now I work on a cintiq and I'm loving it.

Old friend, good times, great opinions?

2009-09-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

I had a dear friend visit me this past weekend, I'll refer to him as Shadrak, to protect his innocents. Jodi and I have known Shadrak for a very long time and when he comes into town he always stays for a visit. He an exceptional house guest. It was refreshing to have an old friend come and share some good times with us. He's a great cook as well but he has a screwed idea of how to make Caprese, that's another story for another time. I really admire his professionalism and his integrity both, in his professional and personal life. There is much more to Shadrak, but in the interest of time I will not share more about this kind fella. I'm honored to be his friend, plus my kids love him. I think that's enough schmoozing for now, don't you?

So, I asked Shadrak if he would please start reading my blog. Oh, and I asked him to please write some comments when he felt they were needed; then I remember what a major perfectionist he was, and when I say perfectionist, I mean the ultimate in perfection. I've always admired this in him but I've never been in the path of it's scrutiny either. What did I just do? I went in and quickly checked my grammar before I let him look at my blog, of course something got messed up in the process and the illustrations I posted disappeared. " That's just great", I exclaimed with displeasure, towards my wife, who is also my technical staff. She quickly expressed with equal emphasis,"just relax, I'll fix it later, I don't have time right now". The first time the Shadrak was going to viewed my blog, and it was already messed up. Gulp! He scanned it quickly with his skeptical eye, periodically pausing or should I say studying. I'm pretty sure I heard a sigh or a humph once or twice leak out under his breath. He turn and look me in the eye, I wiped the sweet off my upper lip as he spoke,"Maybe you could expand a little on some of the comments below the drawings." Then he got up and walked away from the computer. That's it, that's all I'm going to get?

Well, I didn't get a good read on wether he liked it or he didn't like it, but I realized that he understood that my blog is still in it's infancy and that over time it will develop into a well oiled machine and it will be respected and a often referred to forum. I
am of the opinion that comments from people like Shadrak will only make this blog better and more interesting to read. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Oh, by the way, Shadrak asked me if I wouldn't mind writing something about working in a collaborative environment, actually I think he told to write about that, what ever. I want everyone who looks at this blog to understand that comments and questions are encouraged. Next post I'll talk about working in a collaborative environment.

All three of these pieces are from when I was working at Disney on "The Kingdom of the Sun" before it became "Emperor's New Groove". I liked both versions but the big wigs at Disney thought they new better and made major changes on the project. Guess what? They were wrong and the film tanked at the box office. On a different note, it is one of the most well liked films by college students, go figure! The piece above was so large that I had to Xerox it in pieces and patch it back together, hence the seems on the art work. The whole drawing was not on the screen at the same time, there was a camera move that went along with this piece of art work. It was so large because in the old days, the size of the character animation dictated the actual size of a background a lot of the time, I'm sure now that photoshop has entered the 2D film industry things are different now.

This piece had a camera move on it as well.

It feels good to create things.

2009-09-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

When I think that some people go through their entire lives without creating anything it saddens me. Some people going through their entire lives destroying things it it breaks my heart. I wish they could experience the awesome internal feeling that comes from making something, for just a second and I know they would change their ways. I guess some of those destroyers don't have the capacity to create so they do the opposite. It feels good to create things, ask any parent how they felt when their newborn baby was placed in their hands for the first time? It is the most wonderful feeling imaginable. I got to experience that feeling five times, and all five times it was the same: LOVE, beyond any thing you can imagine, pure, deep, unconditional love. Thank you God for letting me taste a little of what you are.

People ask me, "Craig, why do you draw so much"? I wish I had some deep philosophical answer for them, but the true of the matter is, it feels good. It's as simple as that; it makes me feel good when I draw. Maybe that's why I don't want to throw any of my old drawings away. It doesn't matter if they are good or bad drawings, when I created them it felt good. When I pull an old drawing out I get a pleasing feeling, I associate feeling good with the drawings, it all makes sense now.

I have to believe that everyone has the ability to make something if they truly want to, it seems as though it is part of what makes us human. Man has been creating things from the very beginning, sometimes out of necessity and sometimes for just sheer pleasure. Maybe because we were made in God's image and he was the ultimate creator, it is in our hearts and souls as well? I've said this before and I'll say it again, I love to draw! How blessed am I? God has blessed me with a talent that I am able to use for employment as well as for pleasure. It’s something I can do when I don't feel so good, mentally and/or physically to pick myself back up, or when I'm bored, or... I think you get the idea. The other amazing thing is that I can share it with others. The drawings below are old sketches I decided to redraw and work up a little. It felt good.

The original sketch was so bad it's embarrassing for me to show anyone, but I'm glad I kept it because it lead me to this piece. My daughters are going to really like this one.

This was the first drawing I did out of this series of illustrations. For what ever reason I was inspired to write little caption to accompany the drawings.

Working for free has it's benefits.

2009-09-01T13:58:00.000-07:00

Most students that have freshly graduated from art school are so ambitious and over eager to get something in print they tend to make bad decisions; add on they're inexperience to this and you have an equation of some poor sap being shafted. In other words, they end up agreeing to work for free. I was no exception.

The first thing I told my daughter when she finished school was, never work for free or on speculation of being paid, "Samantha", I said, " Listen to me, if they truly believe in their project they can come up with a little bit of cash for you as a good will gesture." Do I take my own advise? No, of course not, I still do work on spec. (another word for free). People like to cloak the term free by calling it spec. but, working on the speculation that when they hit it big so will you, has yet to send a paycheck in my direction. Don't get me wrong, nobody ever twisted my arm to get me to accept one of these jobs, but I actually believed when I was younger that one of these was gonna pay off eventually. I'm still optimistic in that sense, you know, hoping one of those jobs from the past will someday throw some green my way, but I'm not holding my breath.

My biggest problem or the reason I end up working for nothing is that I love to draw and I love to be challenged. When a possible client approaches me with a project the first thing I react to is wether or not it's gonna be fun to draw and is it gonna be challenging for me, then I start thinking about the monetary obligations of the client. I probably should think in the opposite, but I know I would not get the opportunity to work on some of them if I did.

I've found that one of the reasons I take on some of these jobs besides the reasons I've already stated is to help people out a little bit. I think of them as pro bono publico projects, it makes it easier if you're doing them for a good cause. I find that a lot of artists who are not being paid tend to bail on these jobs quite often and it is usually near the dead lines, leaving people in quite a bind. Shame on you artists who are doing this, this creates very uncomfortable working situations (unrealistic dead line for example) for the next artist. listen, if you take a job then finish it, wether you like it or not. I will say though, one of the benefits of working on spec. or for very little money or for free is that most of the time you get a lot more creative freedom and/or input. People tend to be more responsive when your are working for diddly squat. This allows you to put a little more you in said projects.

Fortunately my really art job allows me the financial ability to take some of these project on but still it would be nice to get something back occasionally. I tend to make the best out of every job I get, I know that growing as an artist is a life times achievement and unless you are working and being challenged you will not grow. I guess I'll still be working for nothing when I'm 80 if the project excites me. I'm living a rich life, experiencing the great things that life has to offer and that's something money can't always buy but can help you to pass by.

This is Thomas the Thundering Toucan, it was a freelance book illustration job that never paid but the lady that was my client was the nicest woman you could ever meet, Lenora Baldwin, private investigator. Honestly, part of the reason this didn't work out was from my own inexperience and inabilities.
One of the habits that I still carry with me is the extreme caution and fear for my children when I'm near bodies of water. Growing up in Florida is quite an experience. I wonder how many times I've jumped into dark water where one of these fellas was sitting. Probably more than I care to think about. Now I'm in California, no gators here just great white sharks. This drawing is for my wife, she has a real phobia about this, and heights.
This was not a freelance job, I was experimenting with a new technique.
This was a character design I did for another book illustration job. I think I lost out on this to a fellow art student. The client didn't like my take on Billy the Bi-Plane, really, what's not to like?
This is an unfinished illustration, I'm still experimenting with that technique.

Given the opportunity most everyone will rise to the occasion.

2009-08-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

If given the opportunity most everyone will rise to the occasion that has been presented them and they will perform to the degree that is expected or even better than expected. When given a chance people can do things and achieve things that they didn't even know they were capable of. With this being said, I want to thank all of my teachers, friends, bosses and most importantly my family for believing in me and giving me said opportunities, at the same time I want to say I'm sorry for the times I have failed you. You know who I'm talking to and what I've done. I also want to give thanks to God the Almighty for being patient with me and giving me opportunity after opportunity.

I have been and I am very blessed. God has unconditionally grant me grace and has blessed me my entire life, even though I've acted like a spoiled child through most of it. In the past I was trying to run my own show (life) without his guidance, walking in the dark inevitably things got messy. When those times happened, I had know problem turning to him and begging for help, even though it was my own doing. Time after time he has shown the utmost integrity and patience and picked me up, straightened me out and off I ran without even the decency to look back in gratitude.

More than once I've said jokingly to my wife, "I'm God's favorite ya know?", You might say that was my way of flippantly saying that God has always taken care of me (blessed me), and has even pampered me to a certain extent. He has practically given me or allowed me to accomplish everything I have ever asked for.

Recently, I had an epiphany, God has been consistently and continually giving me opportunities throughout my life, allowing me to take my own chosen path, whether it's a good direction or bad, not so that I can have things, or to achieve things or to go places. God is giving me opportunities to shine as an individual, he grants me things I've asked for to give me the opportunity to become the person he knows I can be, great. He wants us all to be great, great friends, great neighbors, great fathers and mothers, great sons and daughters, etc... It was easy to see that God has blessed me with the talent to draw, but he has given me more. I chose not to recognize the other things he has blessed me with as well. For so long I have walked my own path in life and I have no doubt passed most every chance that God has put in front of me (I say most, I would hope that in 46 years I recognized God working in my life occasionally, probably not as much as I think I have) to shine as bright as only he knows I can. How disappointing and sad it makes me feel when I think of all the times in the past that I have not performed to the degree God knew I could. I'm sure that many people have been hurt or damaged while I chose to walk blindly though life, for this I ask forgiveness.

So here is a little advice for living a wonderful life here on earth: recognize the opportunities presented to you and present others with opportunities when you can. As for me, I'm trying to keep my eyes and ears on God now and hopefully the next 46 years of my life will be different, hopefully this time God will be smiling.

This is a concept design for Lilo's bed. It was a little to dark and too bizarre for the bosses in charge at the time, nowadays it's probably just right or a little light.

This is an old fairy character sketch, I thew together a quick background for it to give it some....some....I don't know what, I just did it.

This is just the OL/UL level, the actual piece had more elements. The background is missing. This is piece with matt reg. lines on it, a field guide and a blue sketch of one of the characters. There is also a little bit of effects water indicated.

This is one of my very first layouts for Disney. I was training under Mitchell Bernall (I may have misspelled his name) while working in Animation Services on an animated piece for The Land Pavilion in EPCOT. It was to mimic "The Lion King" look and it had Timone, Pumba, and Simba in it. The piece above is an overlay/ underlay, mean it was art on top of animation and under animation. The background is missing, who knows where that's at. The middle one has a blue sketch of where the character might have been and a possible field guide size. the original piece was fairly large about 24 inches across. The bottom one has an indication of where the effects, water, was going to be. I think the show is still running. The portfolio I built from it was what got me hired into layout.

This is a rough drawing, truthfully it is a to little clean and worked-up for a rough but I was really into this drawing.

This was an opportunity given to me by Bob Walker, he asked me to draw up a dog kennel as a concept piece/moment. A "moment", is an inspirational piece that captures a possible moment in the film. I got to design it from start to finish, freedom is awesome. The one on top was the rough and the one just above is the clean-up drawing that was sent to the background department to be painted.

This was another moment that Bob asked me to do. This is a rough drawing/ sketch. This was one of I think six attempts, I did finally get it right.

To freelance or not to freelance?

2009-08-26T18:16:00.000-07:00

"Why don't you just become a freelance artist"? I get asked this all the time. To freelance or not to freelance, that is the real question. I don't get much freelance, but when I do it's always problematic. It's either at the wrong time (I'm busy at work) or they are just crappy jobs. The ones that are missed timed are usually awesome jobs and I really want to do them, but they are very inconvenient and usually pay less than the crappy ones. The crappy ones, well, I always try to over bid them (so the client will say no), but then I end up trapping myself because no matter how crappy they are, they end up paying so well I can't not do them. Freelance is usually feast or famine anyways. I think I'll take them as they come, who can say no to extra money in this economy, but I like my steady job in the studio for sure.
These pieces are from the same drawing, I tried two different approaches. I think I like the one above better.
This was a freelance job, they needed some drawings of rope bridges. I did a bunch, as you can see, I don't think I ever delivered exactly what they were looking for. I still got payed though.

I still have a few more drawings of rope bridges somewhere, I'm sure I'll run across them sooner or later.

Tossing out old stuff is hard, maybe just one last look will ease the pain.

2009-08-25T16:05:00.001-07:00

These drawings have been hanging around for way to long. It's time to say goodbye. The greatest thing about this blog, is that it is allowing me to let go. I know if I had to, I could redraw any of these again, but I'm somewhat insecure about throwing them out anyway. I catch my self saving drawings for different reasons, sometimes it's the idea that makes me keep a drawing that I would otherwise give away or throw out. Sometimes the history of the situation of when I drew it makes me keep a drawing, whether it's good history or bad history. Sometimes it's because I intended to go back and fix them or redraw them, I hardly ever do that. I think, because they get to see the light of day one more time on this blog makes it easier for me to toss them out. Look, I even talk about them like they are alive, my babies.

The little sketch at the top was one of the first drawings that I did at the Blue Sky Studio, this looks better here than the actual piece, I fixed it up a little in photoshop, what ever, it's got history but now it is history. The poster drawing has my children in it, but the finished piece was pretty bad so bye bye kids. It's also was montage piece, very dated, so, so long to the actual drawing, I threw it out right after I scanned it. You can see why I threw out the mirror drawing, no explanation needed. I like the mail box piece, I added the squirrel in the piece via photoshop, I think it needed something, maybe a bird would have been better, I'll keep this one and go back later and work on it. Ya see, I did it again.

This was a tiny concept drawing that I did on a piece of grayish green card board. It was an idea for the giant log boat thingy at the end of of the movie. "Ice Age II"
I just graduated from Ringling School of Art and Design and I was working for Mike Peter's Creative Group as a subcontracted artist, I advise against that strongly. I was making eight dollars an hour, but after I put my Social Security and FICA tax money aside, I didn't have much left over. I made somewhere around eight thousand dollars that year. That's below poverty level. Granted, I didn't work an entire year there but if it wasn't for Jodi I would have starved. I asked for a dollar raise and they said no, when I took the job at Disney my boss actually got angry with me. Really!? Anyway, this was a freelance job I did on the side to try and survive, it ended up being a poster for some event. For the record, I really liked that job even though I got paid diddly squat.
This was an idea for a mirror frame, the cherubs were suppose to each have a season. I don't know why I drew this, sometimes I do things for know reason at all.
When I lived in Sarasota I would go running everyday, back when I was full of enough energy to waste some. I would run by this mailbox that a tree had grown around. I was inspired to draw this illustration. I'm hoping someday to suggest it as a design in one of the films that I'm working on.

Variety is the spice of life and variety is what you get.

2009-08-21T14:06:00.000-07:00

Here is another blast of different pieces. My wife and daughter both suggested that I post less piece at a time. They feel that it would be better to have less up at once so that people could really appreciate each piece. I agree. I informed them that this was the initial kick off of my blog and I wanted to spark some interest. I put an enormous amount of work up so that I would have a substantial base of work for people to look through. In the future, I will be putting fewer piece up on a daily bases, but I will be choosing stuff that I can talk about in depth. I will try to post similar things and possibly explain how I did the piece in a step by step instructional. I did not anticipate the amount of time it takes to post this stuff, with that being said things are getting busier at work, so, I will have to slow down. I have a ton of stuff to show everyone, some good and some not so good but I will keep posting until I run out of stuff. I hope in the future some of this work will spark some conversation. I will also be posting more pieces that I've done while I was employed by Disney and Fox (Blue Sky) studios. More workbook pieces, more visual development, more character stuff. I hope that my first week has been interesting and enjoyable. Posting more soon, have a nice weekend.
This is a simple drawing from a sketch pad, I draw on pads more than in my sketchbooks lately.

A little bit of character from my sketchbooks. My grandfather's favorite animal was the owl, I find myself drawing them a lot more since he pasted away. I love drawing animals, one of my favorites is the turtle.
This is a rough sketch done for a workbook on "Mulan" it's the village that was discovered by the good guys after Khan burned it to the ground. Shang also finds out his dad was killed in this sequence, heavy uh.
Just before Disney shut down the studio in Florida they gave the green light for a small crew to start exploring an idea that some the artist came up with. We called it the bunny project. I was asked to do some of the concept drawings for the project. This was the lead characters room.
This a piece I did for my daughter Eden, it was inspired by a story I wrote for her. She loves her blanket (Pink). I tried to sell some angel pieces like this one recently at an auction that Pixar held, they went over like lead balloons. On the other hand, they bought up all my centaur and pan sketches and quite a number of my figure drawings. Naked chicks, bunch of heathens! Just kidding.

This was a piece I did for my youngest daughter, Arianna. She saw me bring home the piece for Eden and jealousy took over, I threw this together to appease her. She can be extremely tenacious and very persuasive, if you get my gist.
This is a very old piece, I told you I like to drawing turtles. I'm sure my wife is gonna let me have an ear full when she sees this old drawing again. I informed her that these pieces weren't for her, then I got the look. You know what I'm talking about, the look. I'm not really scared of her, well, maybe a little.

These are completely digital pieces. I was fooling around with different brushes and textures in photo shop and this is what came out of that meaningless experiment, I can't even repeat what I did to make these. They're groovy man.

Revisiting the past, out of the box and onto the blog.

2009-08-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

A simple water color piece, nothing special, I call it a nice bathroom painting, what else do you do with these.
I drew these from magazine photos, they are color pencil on colored paper. I did these as example pieces for a children's art class I was teaching back in college.
This is a watercolor sketch from one of my sketch books. I drew it on location and colored it later. This old water tower, was in Orlando, Florida just off the road in an abandoned orange grove, I'm pretty sure they built a condo there by now. I pitched it for the design of a water tower in "Lilo and Stitch", I can't remember if they used it or not.

Back when I was in Animation Services we got tasked with helping to design the Lion King Stage Show. We were brain storming ideas, hanging animals, yeah, now there's an idea, what if different animals swooped in as part of a backdrop during one of the songs? Well? It sounded good at the time! I remember that we started with a sizable budget on this project, in the it got cut to a third of the original projected cost allotted, which in-turn removed a lot of the bells and whistle that were planned for the show.

I love doing these little environment pieces, there is know right or wrong with them plus they are very relaxing for me to draw.

Back in 1993, Jodi (my wife now but girlfriend back then) and I were renting an apartment in Sarasota, Florida. Back then there was still a lot of undeveloped land. Next to our apartment building was a creek. One day when Jodi came home from work she noticed the neighbor's cat was batting at something, she investigated and discovered a newly hatched south florida softshell turtle. She rescued it and we nursed it back to health. It was the cutest little thing you ever saw. We named it Cooter. I would catch minnows from the creek and hand feed it. We kept for a long time, as it grew it became more and more work. Turtles are dirty animals and they eat a lot, so one day I decide to let it go in the creek, when Jodi found out she was not happy, not happy at all, do I need to say more? I was thinking of doing a comic strip at one time, using Cooter as the main character, it never happened.

I draw pigs a lot, I like pigs, pigs are funny.

It's a hodgepodge from the past. A little of this and a little of that.

2009-08-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

Last night, while my wife was on the computer I mentioned to her that I posted some new drawings on the blog, I asked if she would take a look and tell me what she thought. A few minutes later she chastised me for putting such amateurish stuff on the blog. "Listen", I said,"I like to look back occasionally and see where I've come from, is that so bad"? Like I said yesterday, they were at the bottom of the box. Well, This morning my daughter commented on maybe I could post some stuff from the films that I worked on, she would really like to see that stuff. Real subtle, I get the message, but I want them to know that I'm gonna be putting more old stuff up whether they like or not, besides I like some of the old drawings, they just need a little sprucing up that's all. Anyway, here's a hodgepodge of drawings from way back and some not so way back. Are you happy now?

This drawing was the first drawing I did with the idea that I was drawing a layout drawing. When I showed it to the head of layout, Bob Walker, his reply went something like this, "where's your field guide, and your character levels, what is the the aspect ratio for this drawing, where your focal point, etc...? I told him I didn't know what any of those things were, he reply, "look this is a nice illustration but it's a terrible layout background, when you have the answers to all those questions come back and see me." I eventually had the answers and went back to work for Bob, he was one of the best bosses I've ever had, tough as all get out but as fair as the come. He helped me a lot and gave me many opportunities to shine. Thanks Bob, you're a gentleman and a good friend. The rest of graphite drawings below are not layouts either, I was working on my technique, light on dark, dark on light, my mom likes them just fine.

The drawing below was done on velum, it is an over sized background drawing that I did for a "Lilo and Stitch" workbook. It was very common for me to draw out the entire background even if we didn't need the whole drawing in the shot. This came in handy when we were required to reuse at least 10% of our backgrounds in later productions, to cut costs.

These are value studies and workbook drawings from "Mulan". Sometimes I would work out rough value sketches for my workbooks. Late in the "Mulan" production we were only doing little five by eight value drawings to accompany the full size line renderings of each shot. Normally, you would do a full size value drawings that incorporate the line and that is sent to backgrounds to be painted. It just goes to show you if you have a well oiled crew and everyone is on the same sheet of music things work out very well. Every production is it's own unique monster with it's own demands and solutions.

I worked on "Kingdom of the Sun" for six months before Disney shut the project down. They started over, somewhat, and renamed it the "Emperor's New Groove". I never got credit or even a thank you for working on the project. I'm not bitter! Above are some sketches from that fiasco. I loved the style of the film, it was fun to draw that way. By the way it had one of the best production guides I ever worked with.
This is a drawing of Gantu's ship from "Lilo and Stitch". I did a design pass at what the interior would look like, I didn't do the original design pass (rough drawing) of the interior. I went in and tweaked stuff like the lights and the instruments, etc... I was trying to get a Retro or fifties style to it.
Lastly, this was a drawing done while I was assigned to Animation Services, a department of feature animation developed to do animation projects outside of feature animation but to maintain the integrity and quality of Disney's films. It was challenging to say the least. This was for a "Pocahontas" Computer game. Well, that's it for now, I'll be posting again soon..

Here are some really old drawings.

2009-08-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, I dug really deep for these. They're not all that impressive, I know, but I wanted to start at the bottom of my pile. I found these old drawings in a box, I had to cleaned them up a little in photoshop. After years of getting knocked around they were a little damaged and some of the color rubbed off. They were all done before I had photoshop available to me, so, they were done in traditional mediums. They would have taken a quarter of the time and would have been so much easier to do with photoshop; and they would have come out better as well. Todays artists are very fortunate to have photoshop as a tool.

These three drawings were done in 1993 if I remember correctly. My plan was to mimic a wood cut or linoleum cut style. I drew them from reference pictures in pencil first, then I went over them in sharpie permanent marker, blocking in the black areas. When I felt that I had proficiently blacked in the areas required I then erased the remaining pencil lines. Then of all things, I went back in with whiteout (the stuff they used for typing) and started chopping in white areas trying to give the look of a wood cut. It was difficult because it dried very quickly. After this was all completed, I xeroxed it and cleaned it up even more. The drawing of the zebra I actually dragged on the xerox machine while it was copying to get the distorted stylized effect. I put these drawings over a colored background in photoshop to mimic the originals, the originals I would xerox on to colored paper for the same effect.
This piece was done in school I think in 1991-92 who can remember that far back. The assignment was to do alphabet cards. I chose to have them open to reveal the illustration on the inside. I don't know why I chose fish, maybe because w and x were easy to figure out? This is the only one left out of the entire alphabet.

I know these are weak but they were in the box, so you get to see them. I got a freelance job just out of school while I was employed at "Mike Peter's Creative Group". They needed an artsy drawing of the world. I did quite a number of them, here are just a few. The one at the top is the one they ended up using for a newspaper article, this was also back in 1993.

Concept drawings from "Ice Age II"

2009-08-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

I love drawing characters, Peter De'seve designed all the character in "ICE AGE II". He is a really great guy by the way. We (the visual development crew/designers) got called on to help brain storm for solutions to getting rid of some of the water in the film. It was to expensive to do the EFX on the water. So, the raging river they were going to cross became a dangerous slab of ice that the villains broke through. This is a sketch is from that brain storming session. It is vellum on top of a mustard colored piece of paper.

This is an overview of the entire Mud Bog set.

These are concept drawing for a set that was cut from the film. It was the mud bog. The characters were going to have a hugh mud fight in this part of the film. It was also one of the first places that Manny and Elly would start to bond. At the end of the sequence they were supposed to get washed a way by a flood. Remember the cost problem with EFX and water, well this didn't make into production. With each set comes a drawing (an overview) of what the entire set might look like, these are not fun to do!

Usually, I have some sort of character in my concept drawings so that we get an idea of the scale and it adds a little life to the drawings, I went back later and added the character (Fast Tony) into the drawing. Photoshop rules.

This is the first time I had to put caustics in one my pieces, it wasn't as hard as I assumed it would be. There is also the third villain in the drawing, licking the ice, he got cut from the film.

It's funny how things work out when you trust in God.

2009-08-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

When word got out that Disney was closing down their Florida studio it only took a few days for other studios to send in recruiters to grab up artists. Core, was the first shark on the scene, of course they were, they are a derivative of Disney. After that it was a feeding frenzy, all the studios showed up and it was a mad house.

Unfortunately, only a handful of the artists had portfolios ready, (I learned later that some people knew what was coming and they got ready, to bad they didn't share that information), I had an old resumé that my wife and I quickly updated and I got some of my work together to show. I spoke with all the studios including Pixar. All were hiring but not all were hiring layout artist specifically Pixar(they were the only studio that was cautious in their approach). I left resumés with all of them, but none of them showed any real interest in me. I started working on a portfolio immediately, the studio gave us a three month grace period to prepare for leaving, they allowed us access to the studio all the while. It was really hard getting copies of our work, most of it was in the Disney Morgue never to be seen again.

I got together as much art as I could, but the only studio I left work with was Pixar. I had a long and in-depth interview with the Blue Sky Studio people. The Sony studio gave more of a pitch than they tried to recruit people. It was obvious that the studios weren't really ready for this recruiting frenzy either. Blue Sky was my best interview and they were looking for specific layout artists.

I fit the bill.

Just before I agreed to work for Blue Sky I got a call from Sony, they said they would top any offer that Blue Sky made. Okay, they never saw my work and I never had an interview with them, but they wanted to hire me off of my resumé, to weird, I declined. Off to New York we went, and I became a concept/visual development artist/designer for Blue Sky Studios. Not the job I interviewed for, crazy huh..., obviously God was watching out for me because it lead me to my job at Pixar, where I wanted to work in the first place. You know, I can say that I wasn't freaking out about the whole thing like some guys were, yes, I was scared but I was really trusting in God with my future and my wife was like a rock so I oddly enough I was at peace through the whole thing. I still don't know how my wife was truly feeling during the turmoil.

What have I done to deserve this?

2009-08-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

This sketch I drew on the way to Disney Land. Guess what inspired it?

2009-08-13T17:08:00.000-07:00

This is the sketch I chose to share with you first. No particular reason, I just happened to come upon it. I do remember feeling a little overwhelmed with life when I drew this overloaded donkey, both at work and at home. This sketch isn't directly related to work (in the sense of a project) but it is in the sense of works demands. I believe I drew this around the time I started working for Fox at the Blue Sky Studio on "Ice Age II". We just left Florida after 13 years at Walt Disney Feature Film Animation Studio (I was laid off, the studio closed it's doors). I was a little scared, uncertain of my future and my career, I was in a new state (New York), in a new job with new demands and new technology, yeah, I was scared alright. I remember they asked me if I new Photoshop and Maya, they were interviewing me for a position in Visual Development, I said yes I did, and that was the truth, I did, but just enough to get myself in trouble. I put myself in the hot seat and I learned the ins and outs of Photoshop pretty quickly. Pressure, you do even know! So, I'm pretty sure this drawing reflects what I was feeling at the time, an insignificant, overwhelmed, puny ass.

2009-08-13T15:23:00.000-07:00

It's time to share some of my drawings and some of what went into drawing them. After working in the animation film industry for 16 years I have accumulated a substantial number of sketches and drawings. Some related to, but not limited to the films I've worked on. I've decided to share these drawings instead of letting them collect dust in a box. I will try to share what I was think or what was driving me to draw certain drawings when it is applicable.

I love to draw, I've always loved to draw and have been doing it since I was a small child. I would get fixated on a certain subject matter and would only draw that subject until I was convinced I had a strong understanding of what ever it was I needed to learn, then and only then I moved on to a new subject. This approach or compulsive disorder enabled me to draw at times with little or no reference material. It have developed a strong visual library in my head. It has afforded me the ability to draw many things without reference because now I can call on that stored information as reference. This doesn't seem all that important except, because I don't need to reference things to draw them I am able to get things done in a very efficient and timely manner.

Many of the sketches I will share were done to either solve a problem (assignment) for work, something that I wasn't quite sure how to resolve to accomplish my desired goal. Many of my sketch books will reflect the film I was working on at the time. My sketches are either problem solvers or stress relievers, because I'm under certain restrictions at work, drawing isn't always fun, sometimes it's work. I sketch at home to relax, no goals, no assignments, freedom! Many of my drawings, especially the small landscapes are purely for pleasure.

Unfortunately, I don't write much in my sketch books so, I will try and give some insight about the drawings when I can. These sketches are for us to look at, enjoy, talk about and hopefully learn from. In the future I hope to post some of my friends drawings as well.