Don's New Stuff

Zero Calorie Valentine Chocolate Moose

2012-02-02T13:18:00.000-08:00

“You need to put your drawings on YouTube,” my wife told me this past Christmas, as she was peeling the last of the wrapping paper off of her brand new video camera.

“How do you plan to do that?” I asked, dutifully. “Zoom in on the picture while I stand there and talk about it?” I could tell from her contented smile that I was catching onto the idea pretty quick.

The sudden, un-Seasonable chill of stage fright was overwhelming, all the worse because I wasn’t anywhere near a stage. I was supposedly safe at home, minding my own business, in my own living room, on a Holiday, sitting barefoot in my pajamas and a Santa hat, not even through with my first cup of coffee, and here she was toying with the idea of pointing a TV camera at me. “Do I at least get to put on a clean shirt?” I wondered aloud.

“Not right now, Silly.”

Whew! One bullet dodged, but once that girl gets a good idea in her head, chances are I’ll be going along with it, sooner or later. I know. She gets lots of good ideas.

***

“Hey! You could use one of your funny voices! You know, like you used to do with the kids,” she insisted, a week or two later at the studio. That icy feeling started to creep in again, but this time I managed to shrug it off.

“Why not.”

(Click on 'Why not'.)

Creativity

2012-01-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

A trained scientist, stage performer, corporate marketer, amateur historian, gardener, fry cook and qualified diaper-changer, I have chosen to spend the last 25 years making my living as a ballpoint artist, rendering graphic puns in a style reminiscent of Arcimboldo.

The latter part of this unusual pedigree should grant me some authority on the subject of art, and what it takes to create new and unusual things, yet I find that my philosophy of creativity differs greatly from that of many friends who were trained in the fine art world, and even some of my scientific colleagues.

Recently I was asked to participate in in a panel discussion on ‘artistic inspiration’ and ‘the creative process’, where my mundane views on the subject were largely dismissed by the other panelists as an oversimplification of a profoundly complex and obscure phenomenon.

Our disagreement stemmed from a belief that creativity is something that you do, not something that happens spontaneously. My feeling was (and is) that what we call creativity is nothing more (or less) than an intentional association of ideas. The product of these associations is what we call Art. Or Music. Or Literature. Or a new brand of toothbrush.

The fact that I have been chased out of a variety of fields probably allows me to make more frequent and uncommon connections than the average person. Add an endless curiosity, a tendency toward mischievous attention-seeking, and a basic inborn stubbornness, and you wind up with someone who spends hours arranging words and pictures in his head, and doesn’t mind working overtime to get his silly ideas down on paper.

While my background may be unusual, my creative process is probably no different from anyone else’s. I imagine that most people are busy doing more practical things than making jokes with a ballpoint pen. I also imagine them doing all sorts of creative things, every day, to make themselves and their families happier. They do these creative things by rearranging their thoughts, and then acting on those unique mental connections, minute by minute, day after day.

I can appreciate that those who are unaccustomed to identifying with their internal creative machinery might feel that the product of an artist's mental labor is some form of magic – or worse, some kind of proprietary skill that is unavailable to ‘regular’ people. Why shouldn't they? Our everyday discussions of the subject of creativity are steeped in mystery and exclusivity.

As I frequently tell my friends and customers, I am creative mostly because I am unencumbered by the distractions of regular employment. Creativity and freedom are essential bedfellows. Experience counts, too – I am just as fond of saying (quite truthfully) that any six year old could do what I do, after twenty years of practice.

This practical view of creativity is finally gaining some ground in the scientific community, and may be starting to take hold in business as well. Creativity is work, pure and simple. Fun work, to be sure, but it doesn't happen if you don't make it happen. Those who take time and energy to develop the skill of thinking new thoughts and making new connections will be able to solve problems more easily, generate new products and processes, and market them more effectively. It’s all about the ideas one chooses to consider, and an individual’s comfort and experience in associating them in new, unusual ways.

My critics tell me that when I talk this way I am overlooking the wonder of art, ignoring an essential gift of inspiration – that special something that is mysteriously imparted to creative people by the ancient Muses. They could be right about that. After 25 years of indulging in this process, I’m still very much aMused.

And I’m working hard to stay that way.

Why Ballpoint Art?

2012-01-14T15:01:00.000-08:00

Most artists train for years to master a specific medium, perfecting their technique as they strive to create a consistent, recognizable body of artwork. Not me. Not intentionally, anyway.

I did spend years discovering the practical applications of the ballpoint pen, becoming an expert in the use of my chosen medium to render letterforms and images from cartoons to detailed line drawings. I just didn't do it in the art studio.

Like every other college student, I spent hours every day writing pages and pages of lecture notes, essays and research papers with a regular ballpoint pen. Because I was a science major, I also wound up drawing lots of little pictures of plants and animals for biology class, chains of bent lines and hexagons in chemistry, and all kinds of angles, arrows, ramps and pulleys for my physics courses. This process continued on through medical school, only at double the rate. In the hospital I filled reams of chart paper with ballpoint ink, writing patient admissions, physical exams, progress notes, procedural outlines, lab reports and discharge summaries.

By the end of my internship I had worn a permanent, pen-shaped groove between my writing fingers.

Ironically, the only place where I did not regularly use a ballpoint pen was in the art studio. After some difficulty convincing my college advisor to allow me to take an introductory drawing class (he felt it wasn’t the kind of thing a serious pre-medical student should have on his transcript), I tried using the ballpoint to sketch out my assignments. This unusual practice was soon discovered, however, and the lowly pen was banned from the classroom. Thereafter I was only allowed to use ‘legitimate’ art media (charcoal, pencil, and paint) in the art studio.

Of course this prohibition only increased my desire to work with the more familiar medium, though now all my ballpoint sketches had to be done outside of the art department, in my spare time. None of them would be included in my official student portfolio, and would not be considered in determining my grades.

Fortunately, my ballpoint drawings were eligible for consideration in the student literary magazine. In fact, one of them managed to take first prize – and I took home the $25 award. (I know that doesn't sound like much, but this was a very long time ago, and I was a poor college student. Twenty-five bucks was a lot of money to some people in those days, and I was definitely one of those people.)

Fast-forward five or six years, and very little had changed. I now had a degree and a medical license, but I had also made the decision to leave the hospital and become a full time artist, with very little in the bank, and a large educational loan hanging over my head. (We can debate the wisdom of that choice another time.) Suffice it to say that twenty-five dollars was still a lot of money, and the bills were piling up fast. If I were going to make a living creating artwork, it had to be with a medium I already knew how to use. There was no time to polish up my minimal painting skills, or improve upon my marginal ability to wield a pencil (which could be summed up in a single word: Messy).

Ballpoint was the only way to move ahead with any hope of success, so I settled on the happy medium I knew best.

Genetics

2012-01-01T11:23:00.000-08:00

This latest picture in my ongoing series of medical drawings is all about Genetics: Two pea vines (courtesy of Gregor Mendel, the Austrian monk who deciphered the rules of genetic inheritance by carefully observing these plants in his garden) entwined in a double helix, with pods in the role of nucleotide base pairs. The order of base pair alignment (A=T, C=G) is spelled out in the CAT TAG, while birds, bees, and a Crick-et named Watson look on. That's a jean-etic marker stuck down in the ground, with X and Y symbols, and a FISH (Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization, a fancy way of identifying genes in the laboratory) close by. The dice dangling above represent the random association of inherited traits. Oh, the little guy? He's Gene, the gnome.

My Kind of Art

2011-12-16T10:38:00.000-08:00

Whenever people talk to me about my drawings, the same questions come up again and again. At art shows, in classrooms, and in general conversation, folks are curious about the unusual approach I take to art, and how I came about drawing in this manner. From time to time I will try and offer explanations and excuses regarding my choices of style, media, and subject. Consider this my first installment.

Did you invent this approach to art?

No, I did not invent this stuff. Artists have been juxtaposing images for centuries, for their own entertainment, for practical communication, and sometimes even for pay. For example, Aztec writers often drew separate pictographs together, combining the names of those objects to make new words. (I can only imagine what the cave paintings at Lascaux or the Anasazi petroglyphs would say if we knew the languages of the artists who made them.)

Many artists have embraced this idea of drawing lots of pictures inside a larger one. Most attempt this as a harmless diversion, an innocent experiment in design and technique. The results usually sit quietly in their portfolios while the artists murmur ‘Look what I got away with’, and vow never to do such things again. Having successfully completed one of these projects, few of us are misled sufficiently to repeat the error. Fewer still foolish enough to try and make a career out of it.

What do you call this style of art?

What style is it? Beats me. If this approach to picture-making has a widely accepted name, I haven’t heard it. That’s probably because there aren’t enough artists doing it to constitute a Movement, or even to catch the attention of the people who decide on things like art trends and style names. (If you know any of these people, please invite them to visit our studio, or at least the web site.)

Perhaps the most famous artist to create these complex images is Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who painted in this style (above) back in the late 1500’s. Some historians have lumped Arcimboldo’s brand of art into a larger group called Mannerism. Dali considered him the first Surrealist, even though similar designs were created before his time. Contemporary artist Octavio Campo refers to his version of this kind of painting as “Metamorphic”. Other observers add these designs to the broad categories of Puzzle Pictures, Optical Illusions, or even Trompe l’oeil. They could just as easily and accurately be called Still Life. The designs that include double meanings or other elements of wordplay are Visual Puns.

Aren’t these just collages?

Somewhat surprisingly, my pictures are not collages. Collage is a physical assemblage of paper, photographs, news clippings and the like, all glued together to make a design. (No scissors for me, thank you. The temptation to run with them is overwhelming.)

I assemble my designs in my head and directly on paper, first in pencil, then in ballpoint ink. For lack of a better term, I call my art works Composite Drawings, Composite Images, or just Big Pictures Made Out Of Little Pictures. If you can think of a more interesting descriptive phrase, I’d be delighted to hear it.

Medic!

2011-11-27T14:08:00.000-08:00

Happily and quite surprisingly, my Iwo Jima drawing, Uncommon Valor, has been extremely popular since its release on November 11, 2010. More than any previous effort, this picture has gained nationwide attention, and has generated record sales, in addition to a number of positive comments from individuals who might otherwise have never been interested in this unusual style of artwork.

Not long ago, I received a very complimentary e-mail from a Marine who had purchased one of the Valor prints, asking me to draw a Caduceus dedicated to all Corpsmen & Medics.

"As a Vietnam Veteran and a three time recipient of the purple heart, I have a special love for OUR CORPSMEN," he told me. He hoped I could come up with a design that would cross all branches of combat service, honoring those selfless heroes known to wounded soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen respectfully as “Doc”.

In just a few hours, this sketch fell out onto the paper, and quickly met with the veteran's approval.

A few weeks passed before I could find the time to tackle the drawing in earnest. I took the pencil sketch with me during an October art show tour, and chipped away at it during idle hours in my hotel room.

The caduceus design contains a helmet with traditional red cross emblem, bandage, bandaid, blood bag, butterfly, clamps, challenge coins, corpsman’s knife, dog tags (Stan N. Harmsway), dressing pouch, oral & nasal airways, pain pills, safety pin, scalpel, scissors, side arm, stethoscope, stop watch, stretcher, sulfa, syringe, thermometer (silver bullet), tongue depressor, and a Purple Heart.

Finally completed earlier this month, the Medic drawing is now available in a limited edition of 100 digitally generated giclee prints.

Now In Paperback! Celebrating a Quarter Century of Silly Art

2011-11-27T13:59:00.000-08:00

A while back we decided to put together a coffee table book, celebrating the first twenty years of composite drawings to emerge from the DS Art Studio. What a fun idea: fifty-six of our most popular pictures, tucked neatly into a single 80-page volume.

At the time we were advised that publishing a hardbound art book was a fool’s errand. Nobody buys art books, we were told, by several big-name publishers (some of which are still in business). You do good work, but you’re unknown artist. There’s no market for unknowns. No need to rub it in. My kids think I’m famous, and that’s a start, right?

So, we decided to self-publish. Plenty of unsolicited advice followed that consideration, too. Better start small. Print on demand. Otherwise, how will you ever get rid of a thousand copies? Well, we weren’t sure. It was an academic problem, anyway, since we didn’t really have the money to get that many books printed at all, much less have them distributed to book stores all across the country.

Enter our esteemed List of Loyal Customers. It turned out that many of the people who enjoyed looking at these funny pictures also liked the idea of seeing them gathered together in a book – so much so that they actually agreed to purchase copies before the books were printed, and even paid for them ahead of time! Their response was so encouraging, in fact, that we were able to double our initial order, and produce two thousand copies. Take that, publishers!

Book dealers remained skeptical, however. Distributors scoffed. Lacking the imprimatur of a bona fide publishing house, few booksellers were willing to take on an amateur publication by a (still) unknown artist. So, aside from a handful of art galleries and neighborhood bookstores, our distribution network was quickly limited to the DS Art Studio, our web site, and our annual tour of art shows.

It took a while, but as news of the book spread, its popularity grew, and in time the waist-high stacks of book boxes that cluttered the floors of our studio melted away to nothing more than a handful of individual copies.

Which left us with an interesting dilemma: Do we undertake another massive fundraising campaign to re-print the hardbound volume, or should we try and produce a more cost-effective paperback edition? In the end, we took the cheaper way out.

That made it easier for us, and offered a significant a price break for our customers. Since 2011 marks the 25^th anniversary of DS Art, we thought it would be reasonable to price these new paperbacks accordingly, at 25 bucks each.

We are happy to report that just like before, the new books are stacked all around the studio, and they’re going fast. You can find them on Amazon, or right here at DSArt.com. (Yes, they make excellent gifts!)

This Beard Thing

2011-11-08T08:07:00.000-08:00

Or, Accidental Facial Hair as Marriage Support and Marketing Tool

Like most men, I know a whole lot more about how to screw up a relationship than I do about how to maintain one. And while there are many, many things I have discovered that will invariably deep-six a marriage, there are few absolute, positive rules I have learned over the years that, when followed, actually serve to reinforce the marital bond, at little or no cost.

One of these, of course, is frequent use of the phrase “Yes, Dear” - a conditioned response that has long been a mantra in my marital vocabulary.

Another rule is one I stumbled on entirely by accident, and one that I share freely with my married friends – just in case they haven’t already figured this one out for themselves:

If she says “I like that,” DO IT AGAIN.

I know. It seems so obvious.

Maybe it’s because we married men hardly ever do anything that brings a spontaneous smile to our beloved’s lips. Not that we don’t try, mind you. We, as a species, apparently just aren’t very good at it.

That’s why it is so important that we pay attention whenever we stumble upon something that makes the missus happy. Most of the time this is entirely unexpected. (After all, if we anticipated a positive reaction, we’d have done the thing already. Probably a lot.)

In my case, the thing that made my wife smile was whiskers. I know what you’re thinking. ‘Don’t they want us to shave?’ Yes. Definitely. Usually. I think.

Anyway, it was along weekend, and I didn’t have any place I had to be for a few days, so what the heck? Be lazy. Let the whiskers grow. When I finally did find my razor again, just for fun I only trimmed up the sides, leaving in place a scratchy goatee. This will get her attention, I thought. And I was right.

The idea was to sneak up behind her, steal a gentle hug, then tickle the side of her cheek and neck with my new crop of stubble. “Yikes!” she would say, followed by a string of unpublishable commentary and instructions regarding the shortcomings of my grooming habits.

Well not so, gentlemen. Not this time. Instead of wrenching herself away from my embrace, and ordering me back to the bathroom sink to complete the job, the girl snuggled in a little closer. “Mmmm,” she said. “I like that.”

Who’d have ever guessed? She said that she thought I would look good with a goatee. Not only that, but just maybe I might want to grow my hair out a little longer, too…

What’s a fella to say, other than Yes, Dear.

It might take some getting used to, I thought, but I could probably learn to live with chin whiskers and a ponytail. So it was that the short-cropped, clean-cut visage that had been mandated decades earlier in my hospital days slowly transformed into something more akin to General Custer.

As it turned out (as it usually does), her preference had additional advantages. B.C. (Before Chinhair), I regularly had to convince people that I was engaged in a creative profession.

“You really don’t look like an artist.”
“No? Why is that?”
“I don’t know exactly. You look a little too… respectable.”

Since I began taking my wife’s advice, looking respectable is no longer a problem. Thanks to the new hairstyles, it is now easy to pick out the Artist, anywhere in the room. On top of that, my professional credibility has skyrocketed. “He must be very good at what he does. He just looks so… Artistic.”

I like to think so, anyway. I also try to keep an ear tuned to anything my wife says that she thinks she likes about me. Whatever it might be, I plan to keep doing it.

2011 IdeaFestival: Nothing At All

2011-10-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

What did I get out of the IdeaFestival?

Permission to think? To create? To hang out with a bunch of people who are a whole lot smarter than I am, and don’t bother to act like it? IF was all of that, and lots of other things. It is hard to articulate what this mind-elevating event meant to me, what graduate-level information I learned there, and what difference it will make to me over the years. As promised in the title of the event, it really wasn’t about things at all:

http://www.ideafestival.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10812:ideafestival-about-nothing-at-all&catid=39:if-blog

What I did take away from the program was something I already had: Permission to fail. “To increase your rate of success, double your rate of failure” was a mantra that came up again and again. Think of it. Try it. Try it again. If you’re passionate about an idea, keep at it. “The better the idea,” we were told, “The harder it is to shove down people’s throats.” Now, happily, I have permission to fail even more.

One group of ‘things’ that I noticed at this year’s IF were the books. Stacks of them. As it turned out, most of the speakers were simply presenting what they had already written in their books. For these people, the path from idea to recognition usually involved a process of organization that led to a published story. Their books became the vehicle for publicizing their ideas, and for opening up new venues to spread their world-changing messages.

I draw pictures, and from time to time I even write stories. But this year’s IF challenged me to see if I really have anything to say to a larger audience – and if I do, to find a way to present that message in a publishable form. It’s an idea worth thinking about, anyway.

Don

25 Years of DS Art

2011-06-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

On June 30th, 1986, my medical degree was a year old. I had just completed an internship in general surgery, managed to pass the third and final round of national board exams, and had been granted a license to practice medicine and surgery by the state of Minnesota. At the stroke of five p.m. that day I also found myself happily and voluntarily unemployed, exiting the hospital in the middle of afternoon rounds. I did not plan to return.

It has been said - on reputable authority, I might add, by extremely important people who are widely published and thoroughly quoted in the medical literature - that I washed out of the medical profession. Petered out. Rose to my level of professional incompetence, then burned out, bailed out, dropped out.

Could be. I most certainly walked out. (Or, as I like to say, fled – in a quiet, dignified sort of way, characteristic of the noble calling of surgeons.) And on my own terms, at that.

Those who had seen this happen before (rarely, mind you; many may become disillusioned with the call, but few actually abandon this, the most sacred of learned professions) said with an awe-ful and profound certainty that I would surely be back, and sooner than later. The house bet was that I would last a year, maybe, though some only gave me six months – just long enough to get a real taste of life on the outside, stripped of the comfort and respect and social insulation of the Aesculapian mantle. After all, you don’t train this long just to throw it all away. No one does.

“He’ll be back once he gets his head straight,” they said, frowning to themselves and nodding with clinical certainty.

Well, folks, I never did get my head straight. But twenty-five years and well over a hundred brain-tickling drawings later, I'm still in the mood for a party. That’s why, during the month of June, 2011, we’re celebrating a quarter century of art and humor by offering…

A 25% Discount! Twenty-five percent off the retail price of all online print orders from www.DSArt.com, through the month of June.

DS Art Pun-zles for $25 each! Out of print since the late1990’s, these 500-piece, cork-backed, full color jigsaw puzzles were originally produced by the Great American Puzzle Factory, but can now only be found in musty attics, garage sale bins and rusty dumpsters.

Choose from King of Clubs, Jumpin’ Juke Box, and Mouse Bytes (computer) puzzles. Very limited supply. Some new, some gently used, all with a full complement of puzzle pieces. Each box signed by the artist. First come, first served.

A Party at DS Art! Mark your calendars for the quarter-century bash at the DS Art Studio, Thursday, June 30^th at 5 pm. That’s in downtown Homewood, Alabama, at the corner of 28^th and Crescent Avenues. (Come early to beat the rush hour traffic!)

Happy Birthday, USMC!

2010-11-27T13:48:00.000-08:00

Birthday Greetings from the National Museum of the Marine Corps!

After a year of research, months of planning and weeks of actual drawing time, Uncommon Valor was finally unveiled at the National Museum of the Marine Corps on November 10, 2010 - the 235th birthday of the Marines. 370 individual images are arranged in the shape of the iconic flag raising at Iwo Jima chronicle the story of the Marines from 1775 to the present.

With much pomp and splendor, an Honor Guard presented the Marines' birthday cake to a gathering of nearly 2000 people in the Museum’s Leatherneck Gallery. After the Master Gunnery Sergeant cut the cake – with his saber – I had the privilege of presenting print #10 to Col. Jay Krail, Executive Officer the Wounded Warrior Regiment. Half of the proceeds realized from the sale of Uncommon Valor prints will be donated to the WWR.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Afghanistan... Lt Col (Ret) Norman Root, the man who introduced me to the Corps and convinced me to create this picture, continues to serve as a civilian consultant in Shindand. Norm sent me this photo of their Marine Ball celebration on the same day, halfway around the globe – complete with a printout of Uncommon Valor.

Birthday Cards

A collectible Post Card announcing the release of Uncommon Valor was also created on November 10. Six hundred of these 5x7" post cards were affixed with commemorative Purple Heart postage stamps, and hand cancelled by the artist at the US Post Office in Quantico, Virginia. Fine Art prints and cards are available at the DS Art website.

USMC II: Uncommon Valor

2010-10-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

Much has transpired since the initial installment on the Iwo Jima drawing. It now has a name, Uncommon Valor (the phrase used to describe the performance of the Marines who conquered Iwo – where “Uncommon valor was a common virtue”), and a purpose: to raise awareness and funds for the USMC Wounded Warriors Regiment.

The image used in the drawing was already a compilation, even before I started placing smaller pictures into the design. The flag raising on Mt. Suribachi was recorded by four photographers, and has been recreated dozens, if not thousands of times by as many artists over the past sixty years. Each time, the original still photographs of Lowery and Rosenthal have been reinterpreted, re-worked and re-engineered to fit whatever format was needed, from War Bond posters to postage stamps, ice cream molds to t-shirts to tattoos. Even Felix de Weldon, the sculptor of the Marine War Memorial in Washington, D.C., used his artistic license to arrange the five Marines and one Navy corpsman into a more classic pose, and built at least three smaller versions of his world-famous statue. The version I chose as a model for the drawing now stands at the gate to Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia.

After more than a year of research, a dozen books on the subject and a dozen more interviews with active and retired Marines, two trips to the National Museum of the Marine Corps and a tour of the base at Quantico, the design has settled into its current form. The first century of the Marines is illustrated in the lower left section of the base, World War I and the so-called Banana Wars in the lower right, with WWII in a horizontal band across the middle. Above these, the left peak represents the Korean conflict, and the right peak the Viet Nam era, with late 20^th-century expeditionary excursions in between. The modern Marine Corps (including conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the War on Terror) are represented by the three standing figures. Left to Right, they represent Air, Sea, and Land. The figure to the right combines all three, as well as the musical tradition that remains strong in the Corps.

The drawing will be unveiled on November 10^th, 2010, the 235^th birthday of the USMC. Limited and open edition prints will be available for purchase on November 11^th. (See details at www.DSArt.com.)

As usual, I’m already running a little behind schedule, which means I will be pulling a few late nights over the next week or two to complete the inking process on time. You are invited to follow the progress of the drawing, from initial sketches to final ink on my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/dsart

Crude Humor: Special Edition - Deepwater Shellicans

2010-07-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

We just came back from a mad weekend dash to Mobile Bay, and after some effort (and a long, lazy lunch at Lulu's) we were able locate a few tar balls on the beach - way out at the tip of Fort Morgan, Alabama. These we gathered up in a mayonnaise jar and brought back to the studio, raw material for the only "oil" painting this ballpoint artist is likely to do for a very long time.

Today I also ordered a new limited lithograph edition of 16 x 20" Shellican prints - 100 of which will be signed, numbered, and remarqued with a dab of oil from the gulf.*

These "Deepwater Shellicans" should be ready by the end of July, and will be available thru the DS Art Studio, and the web site. They will sell for $100 each, with half of that amount going to support the Louisiana Wetland Watchers (see Gator Aid, below).

*My wife Sue Ellen continues to express her horror over my decision to deface my own fine art prints with crude oil. "It will make your pictures ugly," she says. Yes, it will. "The oil will spread everywhere, across the paper, and onto the Pelican." She's right about that, too. "It could make a mess of the frame and everything." Right again. In fact, that's rather the point.

Yes, this oily edition of Shellican prints will be messy. The oil will spread across the paper just as it is now spreading through the Gulf of Mexico. It has the potential to be ugly and inconvenient and even damaging - just like it behaves in the real world. As it slowly spreads across the picture, the oily mark will clearly demonstrate how acts of carelessness impact the things we care most about, in unexpected and often uncontrollable ways.

Sue Ellen is right about most things. Fortunately, she also knows a solid art concept when it washes up on the beach in front of her. She just wanted to make sure that folks had the option to obtain a clean, pristine Shellican print, if they wanted one.

If you prefer your birds (and your art) oil-free, a regular numbered series of 500 Shellican lithographs will be released later in the summer.

Camp Fire Complete

2010-04-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

The finished drawing, ready for presentation at the Camp Fire Centennial celebration.

With a hundred years of material to work with, there was no problem finding an abundance of meaningful images to include in this drawing. The challenge was to choose the few items necessary to convey a detailed timeline, highlight the Camp Fire focus on Work, Health, and Love - while still keeping a feeling of fun and celebration.

Work is demonstrated in part by the paint brush and roller, saw, flower pot, trowel, measuring tape, cookbook and keyboard. Health is noted by a First Aid kit, adhesive bandage, healthy eating and exercise (play included). Love is shown in the heart on the kite, the Salute to Veterans emblem, and the Welcome mat that invites everyone to participate in Camp Fire programs and activities.

Stones around the base of the fire reflect the changing Camp Fire logos across the century, along with early and modern emblems of achievement within the organization.

The “flames” rising out of this camp fire are formed from streamers of movie film, music, measuring tape, a bow and arrow, and strings of award beads. Tendrils of red clover, the state flower of Vermont, signify the state where the Camp Fire organization was founded in 1910. At the heart of the blaze lies today’s Camp Fire USA logo.

Sparks from the fire are mimicked by a scattering of toys, beads,bubbles and badges, donuts & candy (a significant source of fundraising over the years), pacifier (for child care), coins (for money management), a quill for education, and keys to success.

Mirroring the Camp Fire organization's focus on self-reliance and personal development, the picture includes camping gear (canteen, flashlight, pocket knife, rope, fishing pole), and toys from every decade from 1910 to 2010.

This piece will be one of a dozen works by Birmingham area artists that will travel the state to celebrate 100 years of Camp Fire USA. Originally called Camp Fire Girls, the organization continues to foster confidence and develop leadership skills for nearly a million children, youth and families every year.  The combined show will debut on April 27 at the Wynfrey Hotel in Birmingham.

A Few Good Pictures

2010-04-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

My Marine Corps picture is half finished. The drawing itself is not.

That part’s barely made it onto the paper, and there are still a couple or three months worth of actual work time ahead of me before I can claim the project to be complete. But the project is, to my best reckoning, about half done.

Last week I was asked to come and speak during Career Day at a local middle school. After showing off my work and waxing at length about the virtues of being an over-educated, self-employed artist, one of the students asked if I could show them an example of a work in progress.

“Absolutely,” I said, and picked up my copy of Bartlett & Sweetman's Leathernecks, bristling on three sides with with multi-colored sticky notes.

“This picture is about half finished”, I told the kids. “You see, my artwork starts with information. I have a lot of studying to do before my pen ever hits the paper. This is one of a half dozen books I’ve read so far to help get myself up to speed on the United States Marine Corps. I have three or four more to read before I’ll be ready to do any serious drawing.”

The kids seemed impressed, though some looked a little bit confused, and a couple of them appeared to be terrified. (These, I assume, were the ones who thought they wanted to be artists.)

To date, a pencil outline of the Iwo Jima Monument has finally been transferred to paper. By my usual standards (I like to make small pictures), at 24 x 32” this drawing is going to be a big one. This will in fact be my most ambitious undertaking by far, not only for its size and scope (the composite drawing will include somewhere around 500 individual images), but for the impact I hope it will have on the future of a few good men and women.

When complete, the Iwo drawing will be a pictorial history of the Marines. The symbolic images will be arranged (more or less) chronologically, from the Corps’ birthplace at Tun Tavern in 1775 to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Half of the proceeds from print sales of this drawing will be donated to the USMC Wounded Warriors Regiment.

Rarely do we have an opportunity to give back directly to those who have given so much to us; rarely has the need been so great.

On the plus side, while my reading so far has only taken me as far as the Korean conflict, I already have enough images in mind to fill the entire space. Maybe twice. An idea that emerged early on is to render the flag-raisers’ camo-covered helmets as globes – world maps showing every region where the Marines have served. Elsewhere in the picture will be a violin with a mameluke sword for a bow (1st Lt. Presley O’Bannon, the hero of Tripoli, was a fiddler), the Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor, and a Flying Tiger emblem with a black sheep for Pappy Boyington’s squadron.

As always, the fun part will be collating and sifting the data, assigning pictures to people and events, and then trying to arrange them all in proper order to fit both the design, and the spirit of the Corps.

ETA on this project is late September to early October, 2010 – in time for the USMC’s 235th Birthday on November 10th.

Can’t tell A Book By Its Cover

2010-02-23T09:40:00.000-08:00

One measure of an artist’s success, or at least the success of his art, is the quality of literature that accompanies it on the printed page. Over the years, a few of my drawings have been chosen by otherwise right-thinking publishers to decorate the fronts and occasionally the insides of some rather impressive volumes of text.

Mesopotamia

The floral Hummingbird was selected to grace the cover of Mesopotamia, a collection of poems by Canadian author Bruce Meyer that ‘celebrates the joy and pain of our ideas of paradise.’ Published last year by Your Scrivener Press, the book adds to the chorus of literary voices emerging from northern Ontario, and elevates this drawing to a higher artistic level.

Come Cook With Me

Dear friend and colleague Dr. Betty Ruth Speir is known all along the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay for her long and distinguished career as an Obstetrician and Gynecologist, for her poetry, and for her delight in hosting sumptuous intimate and gala gatherings in the highest Southern tradition.

Betty Ruth now shares samples of her home-cooked secrets in Come Cook With Me (Two Harbors Press, 2009), a witty compilation of delectable dishes sprinkled with a tasty helping of whimsical verse. She recently honored me by choosing my Caduceus drawing for the cover of her book, a clear indication that the contents will be good, and good for you.

Mental Mechanisms & The Great Brain Book

The Left & Right Brain drawings illustrate the cover of a scholarly tome by cognitive philosopher Dr. William Bechtel that goes way over (and through) my head. Mental Mechanisms, Philosophical Perspectives on Cognitive Neuroscience (Routledge, 2007) traces the history and development of ways scientists think about, well, how we think.

Both of the Brain pictures were also included in H. P. Newquist’s The Great Brain Book, An Inside Look At The Inside Of Your Head (Scholastic, 2004) – where they illustrated the chapter on “The Care and Feeding of Your Brain.”. Bon Apetit!

Sing Around the Camp Fire

2010-02-19T10:25:00.000-08:00

The Camp Fire USA Centennial: the latest effort in our continuing series of artworks supporting worthy charitable organizations, this drawing celebrates 100 years of building healthy citizens through the Camp Fire organization's practical application of Work, Health and Love.

When complete, the image will accompany works by other area artists, taking part in a year-long calendar of events highlighting the organization’s rich heritage of providing quality children’s programs over an entire century. The idea is to depict 10 decades of childhood, illustrating the nature of the growing-up years, and the timeless relevance and importance of healthy youth development.

This is a first-round sketch I’ve been playing with, just to see how one might incorporate Camp Fire imagery into a campfire-shaped design. So far we have an historic progression of Camp Fire logos and rank insignia, and a few items representative of the Camp Fire watchword: WoHeLo (Work, Health, and Love). Scattered among these are a few non-specific items relating to art, music, writing, creative construction, and a telescope looking toward the future. (The smoke was a challenge at first, until I tried adding few Sparks, Stars, and strings of beads. Another strip of photo or movie film and a twisting music staff might also be incorporated here.)

At this stage, nothing is set in stone. This sketch is really just a glorified thumbnail study, to give us an idea of how a full-scale design might work. Keep watching. More sketches on the way.

The Art of Dining

2010-01-14T16:09:00.000-08:00

The stereo-typical “starving artist” is a ubiquitous and enduring figure in popular culture, probably because there’s a lot of truth to a concept that embraces the extended family of creative professionals: painters, dancers, cartoonists, musicians, writers. If you sell enough of your art, you get to eat regularly.

It’s that first part that trips most of us up.

One time-honored strategy that visual artists use to overcome this dilemma is to partner directlywith restaurants. We provide them with pictures, and they feed us whatever is about to be tossed out of the walk-in. Even better, sometimes they give us real money, so we can sit down and give it back to them in return for a hot meal. Maybe two.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to see my work displayed in eateries large and small, all over the country. For more than a decade, my nautical Crab drawing has adorned the walls of the Crab House at Pier 39 in San Francisco.

Down on the Emerald Coast in Destin, Florida, sun worshippers have enjoyed burgers and wings at Beef O'Brady's, while looking at the Golf Bag and Baseball Glove.

Though I’ve never seen it myself, I am told that the Baseball print also hangs in the Ladies’ room at Glory Days Grill in Sterling, Virginia

In the New Orleans area, the Juke Box and Saxophone blend harmoniously with the local traditions at the McDonald’s restaurant in LaPlace, Louisiana. It was here that science teacher Barry Guillot discovered my work, and came up with the idea for the Gator Aid project.

The latest gourmet gallery to showcase DS Art drawings is Dyron’s Low Country in Mountain Brook, Alabama. Owner Dyron Powell commissioned two large canvas prints of gourmet favorites: The Crab returns on a grand scale, and the row of Long Stemmed Rose’s stretches a full six feet along the wall. Just a half a block from our studio here in Homewood, Alabama, a Golf Bag print decorates the wall of Sam's Super Sandwiches, right there at the end of the counter. And soon the Gator Aid drawing will be catching grits and gravy in New Orleans restaurants, as an art activity placemat.

Needless to say, I am very proud of the fact that my silly drawings have found their way to these many fine dining establishments, where they can be seen and enjoyed by so many people. If one of these restaurants is in your area, please stop by – often – to partake of excellent food, and pretty good décor, too. And if you spot one of my pictures hanging out in another eatery anywhere in the world, send me an e-mail and we’ll add it to the list.

Did they pay you in food?

While I am contractually and ethically prohibited from revealing the specific details of any of these exchanges, it is apparent to anyone who sees me that this artist has missed very few meals in the past 25 years. With any luck at all, I plan to keep up the practice for a long time to come.

Don

The Arms of Morpheus

2009-12-29T15:10:00.000-08:00

Twenty-five years ago I was assigned to a clinical rotation in anesthesia. It put me to sleep – or it would have if the docs and nurse anesthetists weren’t so much fun to work with.

For a time I was even tempted to to defect to the quiet side of the surgical drapes, until I realized that about half the time a vial of .01 solution of curare looked the same to me as a 1.0 concentration. (For the record, they don't look the same to the patient.) Far better for everyone that I found my place at the drawing board.

Now, only a quarter century later, the DS Art Studio is pleased to announce the completion of the newest drawing in my medical humor series, collectively titled fARSe MEDICA. Eventually the goal is to have something for every one of the major medical disciplines, and allied healthcare professions as well. At this rate the collection will be complete around 2050.

This new composite design is built around an Anesthesia theme, based on the poetic metaphor for sleep: Falling into the Arms of Morpheus, the god of dreams. This fictitious coat of “arms” of the family Morpheus is comprised of anesthesia equipment, medicinal plants, and the artist’s usual array of mind-numbing puns – including Spinal Tap, Cat Nap, Art Line, Axillary Block, and Ivy (I.V.). The tongue-in-cheek motto Ether-Or notes the fiduciary benefits of this lucrative medical specialty (or = gold), which basically involves sitting on a stool until quitting time (5pm, as noted on the alarm clock).

The signed, numbered giclee prints are available at the DS Art web store. Each print comes complete with a genuine Blazon of Arms cataloging the details of this fanciful feat of heraldic humor. Apologies to anyone with the surname Morpheus.

Celebrities Sign On to Gator Aid Project /DS Art Pens Presented to Corporate Donors

2009-12-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

All of us at the DS Art Studio are sincerely grateful to musicians Branford Marsalis and Dr. John, writer Andrei Codrescu, and fitness guru Richard Simmons for generously autographing copies of Gator Aid for the NOLA Wetland Watchers. Celebrity endorsements like these bring well-deserved attention and funding to a worthy service learning project.

That extra attention was realized earlier this month at the Wetlands Reveillon, when the Gator Aid drawing was ‘revealed’ to the public, and prints went on sale for the first time. The response was tremendous, with record sales and thousands raised to ensure that the work of the Wetland Watchers will continue.

The Wetlands Reveillon not only marked the unveiling of the Gator Aid drawing. It was also the debut of the first official DS Art ballpoint pens. These fine writing and drawing instruments are hand-crafted from recycled cypress wood, and are only available in conjunction with the Gator Aid print series.
Ten of the new cypress DS Art pens were actually used to draw the original Gator. These pens were engraved for the occasion, and showcased in shadow-box frames with a special set of signed Artist Proof prints of the picture. The framed “Pen Proofs” were then presented to Wetland Watchers benefactors, including the Atmos, Dow, Entergy, Norco Manufacturing (Shell/Motiva), Monsanto, and Valero companies. Additional sets were presented to the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana for his continued support of service learning, and the St. Charles Parish School District.

New DS Art Ballpoint Pens

2009-10-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

I hear it all the time in my travels around the country, from wonderful people who appreciate my quirky ballpoint pictures: “Some pen company must pay you a lot of money to endorse their product!”

From their mouths to God’s ears. After thirty years of using a ballpoint as my primary medium, I can best answer them (and often do) by quoting the young ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, when asked why he hadn’t yet performed on radio.

“I’ve been turned down by experts!”

Yes, my artwork has come to the attention of several of the big ballpoint pen manufacturers, and we have been pleased to receive favorable reviews from some of them. So far, though, none of these companies has found a place for my drawings in their strategic marketing plans.

Their collective oversight has only encouraged me to find other ways to promote my art, specifically in terms of this unusual medium. Why, for example, couldn’t I find a pen that relates in some way to a particular drawing, and then sell the pen along with the picture?

(Or vice versa: sell a picture along with the pen? This caused me to pursue another round of contact with the various ballpoint companies, with a repeat of the results noted above.)

Why not consider creating my own line of pens?

Taking the idea a step further, why not consider creating my own line of pens? It’s not the craziest thing I’ve ever done. If I could come up with some way to produce a ballpoint pen to my own specifications, and then tailor the design to reflect a certain aspect of this or that drawing, we might have a way to promote the artwork and the medium.

No time like the present to try. So I got in touch with Mike Hulsey of MikCon Creations (www.mikconcreations.com), to talk about creating a special series of pens for the Gator Aid picture, part of a fundraising effort to support Louisiana’s Wetland Watchers (see August blog entry below).

Mike obtained a small supply of recycled cypress wood, and is now hard at work turning out the first official DS Art ballpoint pens. The selection of cypress fits perfectly with the efforts of the Wetland Watchers, who plant hundreds of cypress trees each year to help re-establish a healthy ecosystem along the shores of Lake Ponchartrain.

Ten of the new cypress pens will actually be used to draw the Gator, which is currently in progress here at the studio. These pens will be framed with a special set of ten Artist Proof prints of the picture, and offered as premium presentation pieces for the Wetland Watchers fundraiser.

This is just the beginning. If all goes according to plan, we will be issuing select pen designs for any number of future drawings. If these are well received, we may be persuaded to issue a standard line of DS Art ballpoint drawing instruments – unless of course one of the major pen companies makes us a better offer first.

The Tradition Continues: New 2009 Homewood Christmas Ornaments

2009-10-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

Good news for all you locals, or anyone with fond ties to Homewood, Alabama:

The Homewood Ornaments

Are Back!

For the past six years, the DS Art Studio has provided illustrations for a series of limited edition holiday ornaments, featuring historic locations in the city of Homewood. From the Hollywood Country Club (Club Rex) to the Homewood Trolley line, these decorative collectibles were originally produced as fundraisers for the Homewood Chamber of Commerce, which ended their program last December.

Fortunately, we were able to purchase all of the remaining stock of these items, which will now be available for sale at the DS Art Studio throughout the 2009 holiday season.

More important, we have decided to carry on the tradition for another year.

Extending the series into its seventh holiday season, DS Art has produced a new edition of ornaments, featuring Homewood’s own Spotted Salamander – known locally for its annual urban migration across South Lakeshore Drive, and celebrated each year at the Homewood Salamander Festival.

Only 500 of these limited edition ornaments will be available for sale, along with remaining issues from 2003-2008. $10 each.

Call the DS Art Studio for details: 205-802-4700, or Toll Free: 1-800-372-7864

50th Birthday Celebration

2009-08-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

Yup, it's true. After 25 years wandering the hallowed halls of academia, and nearly 25 more dozing in the art studio, this artist is fast approaching the half-century mark. To mark this auspicious event, of course

We decided to throw a party!

For those of you near enough to Birmingham, we hope you can come join the celebration at the DS Art Studio on Friday, August 28th, from Noon to 8 pm. (That's 2805 Crescent Avenue in beautiful downtown Homewood, Alabama, 35209 - at the corner of Crescent and 28th Avenue. Map & Save for future reference.)

Come for the party. Come for the cake. Come help me push pre-adolescence past the fifth decade of life, and into the second half of my first century on the planet. Or, just come for the Great Discounts!

For One Day Only, we will be offering 50% Off of select prints, including all in-stock lithographs. (Books, Giclee prints & Fundraiser items will be 25% Off - our charities will still receive their full portion.)

If you can't make it to the party in person, we still want you to have a reason to celebrate. That's why we have extended the discount to online purchases too! All prints ordered through our web site, www.DSArt.com, on August 28th will be half price (or 25% off, as above). The cart system may reflect the full amount, but we will be able to apply the discount when we process your order. Promise.

Sure, some of you may be tempted to wait until my 100th birthday to take advantage of even more substantial discounts. And while you would be pursuing a shrewd business strategy, the cake will probably be awfully stale by then.

So get your holiday gift lists ready, and say goodbye to summer with a half-century birthday bash.

Hope to see you here!

Gator Aid

2009-08-05T13:47:00.001-07:00

Hello, Everyone -

Now that we have our new web site up and running (thanks to Brandon at hotSPLASHart.com), it's time to start tentatively poking my nose into the Blogosphere. For a long time we have been looking for a venue that will let us share news, post show and event schedules, and keep you up to date on current projects here at the DS Art Studio. Finally, we are able to do just that. Check in frequently to see works in progress, news clips, links to other interesting artists, and silly stuff in general.

To start things off, I wanted to tell you about a project that I have been working on with an energetic group of middle school students down in New Orleans. These seventh and eighth graders are working to preserve and expand the wetlands in their area, as part of their class work in environmental science. The students’ activities were recently highlighted by Diane Sawyer in a national television segment called “ABC Children First: Protecting Our Planet”.

You can see the video here: http://www.schooltube.com/video/37289/Diane-Sawyer-Piece

Their award-winning science teacher, Mr. Barry Guillot, is keeping track of the Wetland Watchers on their web site, www.wetlandwatchers.org.

Last April I visited Mr. Guillot and his students at Harry Hurst Middle School in Destrehan, LA. They asked me to come up with an alligator picture to help raise awareness for the Wetland Watchers program, and gave me a long list of items that they would like to see in the design. Mr. Guillot has just added a web page detailing the progress of the drawing. Take a look here to watch the ’Gator grow from preliminary sketches to the finished ink drawing, with commentary along the way:

http://www.wetlandwatchers.org/?cat=23

We are planning to release prints of the Alligator drawing in early December. Sizes and prices have not yet been determined, though we do know that half of the proceeds from print sales will be donated to support the Wetland Watchers. If you are interested in obtaining one of these prints when they become available, just let us know here at the DS Art Studio, and we will put you on our Contact List.

Thanks for Watching! We’ll continue to keep you posted as this fun new experiment develops.

Yours,
Don