I have always loved the night. I love the way synthetic light changes the environment around us. I love the electric buzz of neon lights spilling their firey glow onto every surface within reach. The seemingly painted spots on the road from street lights. The soft glow of signs lit up by florescent lights and the red dots of tail lights that are scattered on the roadways.

I have also discovered that most creatives, like me, do their best work at night. What does that say for us? Are we a bunch of artistic vampires inspired by the moonlight? I think it has mostly to do with the environmental changes in lighting and the way everythying slows down and becomes quiet.

I have taken an interest in capturing night images around my home town. Here is a small sample of what I see on a summer night in Frederick, Maryland.

West End Laundromat

This is a laundromat I pass frequently. When I shot this image there was a solitary customer doing his laundry that night. I thought that was appropriate for this shot and the garbage bags out on the curb add to the feeling of night as well. I really like the architecture of the building and the retro design of the sign. I am thinking about doing a painting of this building because I like the retro feel it has.

Late Night Bail Bonds

This is one of a few bail bonds offices around the downtown area. I thought it was interesting how the neon sign says open, but there is no sign of life. The entry to the right with its nicely trimmed trees also has a nice feel to it.

Sleeping Giants

Another area I pass frequently is the MARC (Maryland Rail) yard. I have passed this spot on weekends and noticed the four locomotives parked and patiently waiting for the work week to begin so they can tug cars filled with commuters into the DC and Baltimore metro areas. I wanted to capture them at night to give a realistic impression of sleeping giants.

Labels: Experimental Work, Photography

I recently shot some images for a client who owns a machine shop in the local area. As I was walking through the various sections and taking shots of the products in various stages of production, I came across this huge ball of tape. I just had to take a picture of it.

I resumed shooting and upon finishing and putting away my gear, I asked the owner if he knew how long it took to make that ball of tape? The owner looked at me like my Border Collie does when she hears a strange noise and said, "what ball of tape?" I proceeded to show him to his surprise. He must have walked by it a thousand times without noticing it. He then started querying the guys that worked in that section of the shop about the mysterious ball of tape. It turns out that this ball was started about 10 years ago when a worker was tired of messing around with the sticky-stuff every time he tried to put the tape in a trash can. Various workers have been adding to it little by little over the years.

I thought to myself what a great way to visually measure time. Like a snowball rolling and accumulating more and more. I would love to see a cross-section of this ball with all it's layers. As Edward Tufte would say, "That would be high-res information."

I hope you enjoy this strange but interesting image.

Labels: Personal, Photography

After working for the same organization as an in-house designer, using the same branding guidelines, same color pallet, and same direction for the past five years I have had to come up with alternative methods, outside of doing freelance gigs, to keep myself motivated creatively while on the job. Through networking and discussion groups such as the HOW Design forum, I have learned of people and groups that offer exercises in creative play. Some exercises are fun and whimsical. Others are challenging and require you to use some critical thinking to solve the problem presented. I am going to highlight just a couple of the projects I have involved myself in to keep my creative batteries charged.

The Bran Man Project
While lurking in the design forums back in July of 2005, I came across a post by Jim Stafford. No, he's not the guy that sings "Spiders and Snakes," but a fellow designer that wanted to foster an exercise in creative play. His post was short and to the point with a link to a site called Bran-man. Out of curiosity I clicked and found myself quickly wanting to play along.

His rules and directions were simple. Download the template and illustrate a concept with the guidelines of the template. This seemed like a fun exercise, so I downloaded the file and opened it to find something that was begging to be colored in, like the coloring book outlines we all did as kids.

What could I do within this outline that would get a reaction or draw some attention? I was hopelessly blocked. Later that evening I shared my discovery with my wife who has always been a great source of idea generation and inspiration for me. After volleying back and forth for a few days, we both came up with the idea of the butt flap from an old pair of Long-John underwear. The pink ones. You know, the type the cowboys wore in the old western movies. Here is Drafty Bran on the website.

After being the 33rd person to submit my illustration, I would pop back in a few times a month to see what other illustrators had done. It wasn't until January 2006 that Jim sent me an email stating he wanted to publish my Bran-man in his 2006 Bran Book. I was thrilled to be asked and said yes. The book presents 75 characters out of more than 150 that were created during the six months of this project. I check the site regularly and to date there are now close to 300 characters.

The HOWiezine
What is a HOWiezine? According to the site, HOWiezine is a limited edition, handmade collaborative book project created by HOW forum members, also known as HOWies. There is a theme and participants create two pages based on their interpretation of that theme. Only participants are eligible to receive a copy of the HOWiezine, and when they're gone, they're gone.

When I joined the HOW Design forum, I was primarily there to network with other designers and gain further knowledge of processes in problem solving. After some time I noticed a buzz about the latest HOWizine. I had to investigate. I visited the site and had the opportunity at a local HOWie meet-up in the DC area to see a few of the past HOWiezines up close and personal. Wow! What diversity in design, paper, binding, and concept. I was immediately excited and wanted to jump in on the next "zine."

The book is produced 4 times a year and the themes are presented well ahead of time. I joined in on HOWiezine 8, theme - Pirates. I downloaded the template and started working on a concept. I always carry around a pad and pen for sketching or a digital voice recorder to collect my ideas as they come to me. This assures that I don't lose a thing, no matter how lame or great the idea is. I had about 2 months to work up a final concept, then design and produce close to 40 pages (page count is based on the number of participants plus a few extra).

Update: The HOWiezine 8 - Pirates issue is out. Click here for more information.

These exercises have now become a part of my regimen and I strongly recommend that every designer participate in some kind of creative play to stay motivated and creative.

Labels: creative play, design issues

I have developed, over a long period of time, a passion for aviation and the history around airplanes. I guess it all started when I was a boy growing up just outside the gates of an Air Force Base in Utah. I remember hearing the jets fire up their turbine engines and taxiing out the long and seemingly endless runway. I would run out the back door just time to see a group of F-105 Thunderchiefs lift off with huge pillars of fire thrusting out the rear end of each one ending with a signature earth-shaking thud. Wow! What a sight that was. It was 1967 and we were at war in Vietnam so I saw quite a few of these sorties (jets going out on training missions).

I remember sitting outside with a pencil and paper, trying to capture these moments with little to no success. Much of my early work was primitive to say the least. But my parents recognized my passion for art and pushed me to keep at it.

In 1990 after going through a major identity crisis and trying to establish a style and purpose in my paintings, I reverted back to my childhood days and the excitement I felt every time I saw an aircraft either on the ground or in-flight. I had also read about an artist named Keith Ferris who did nothing but paint scenes involving aviation. Right then and there I decided that was going to be my niche.

I worked hard and quickly discovered that there was much more to the art than painting pretty airplanes. You had to know the intricacies of each aircraft from the landing gear to the rudder. Then there were weather conditions, what the earth looked like from various altitudes, knowing cloud structures, and many other variables. The aviation art buyer is very critical and will point out mistakes in a New York minute. Like everything else in life, hard work and dedication eventually pay-off. I learned to research every minute detail of the mission, the aircraft, the pilot, and the story.



My latest piece is probably my best work so far. Not because I am painting better or have mastered color theory and composition, but because of the subject and history the art documents. September 11th, 2001. It hit all of us pretty hard.

In this painting I wanted to show the two Massachusetts Air National Guard F-15 Eagles flying patrol along the New Jersy shoreline with the smoking towers in the backgroud. Too little -- too late. What a horrible and confusing day that was for all of us. Due to the air traffic which was mainly helicopters and small aircraft from various news organizations, the Eagles couldn't fly over Manhattan for fear of a collision.

I'm still working on it after starting on it over a year ago. It is important to me to finish but I get to a point where I have to put it away for another day. I'm working on it again and hope to finish it in the next few weeks. In time for the 5th anniversary of that fatal terrorist attack.

Labels: Illustration

It's really amazing how much I don't pay attention to the environment around me. Now before you come to the conclusion that I am somehow suffering from AADD (adult attention deficit disorder), please let me clarify my point through a visual means.

I walk past this tree everyday when entering the building where my office is located. Funny, I never noticed it had flowers on it. Until today. I also like the contrast between the natural and the man-made with a slight hint of the utility pole in the background.

As I was walking around the building during my lunch break, I started to notice other things that were interesting. This is an old engine block that is in a strip of dirt that separated my building from the local country club golf course. I thought it was cool the way the light coming through the trees highlight the two cylinders.

At the end of the work day I wanted to take one more look around my building for anything that I might have missed. Then I saw the gas pipes. Mother nature can really make some interesting changes to the things we build. Here I focused on the rust and the flaking paint on the pipe.

I have taken these three images and printed them, placed them in black frames, and put them up on the wall in my office. My boss came in this morning and asked me where I got the neat pictures. He was pleasantly surprised to find out that these things are right outside the front door of our building.

This exercise has got me looking at the world again as an artist. What a refreshing kick in the pants.

Labels: Experimental Work, Photography