rediscovering art

When I was in first grade I received my very first "C". It was for a coloring sheet; I had colored outside the lines. I was shocked and ashamed to have received a "C"—my older sisters had been career "A" and "B" students without exception.

I had never received "C"s for my math, reading, or writing work. So I reasoned I must just not be good at art.

Like most kids, I drew quite a bit until my teen years. I never considered myself to be any good at it, but it was fun and helped me express some creativity. I went through a long phase where I drew flip-book animations in the margins of my dad's philosophy textbooks. I enjoyed this activity, and its results, greatly. I found that the illustrations didn't have to be skillful to look good: motion gave them their "zing". You might say that my flipbook obsession contributed to my eventually becoming a computer game developer.

But in the meantime, I decided that I was not an artist. I stopped drawing.

Then, a few years ago, my friend and fellow programmer Russ who has a knack for breaking boundaries both within himself and without, took up drawing after having given up on it earlier in life. He recommended the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which really is a splendid book both for its practical ability to get one drawing again and for its ideas about the human mind. I began drawing a little. Later, another friend, Dan, who is a talented artist, tutored me and helped me get past some of my bad habits and inhibitions about drawing. For instance, he encouraged me to sketch lightly and "rough out" the whole drawing first before delving into details: an obvious-seeming point, but one I had never really grasped.

The drawings I produced during this period (some of which are on the lower half of this page) gave me enough confidence to press on. For the past year and a half I've continued drawing, not every day, not even every month, but consistently, when inspiration—or boredom with everything else—strikes.

Another friend, Ernest Adams, has also contributed to the rebirth of my interest and confidence in art. When Ernest spoke at the Game Developers Conference in 1999, he reminded his audience that everyone is, quite literally, an artist. Indeed, he said, "Most tribal cultures have no word for 'art' and no word for 'artist.' They just make stuff." I like that.

I wish I could draw like James Gurney or John Howe. I don't believe I'll get as good as that during my lifetime, but it's enough just to get better over the years and occasionally create something that is something like I hoped it would be.

click any image to see a bigger version...

	Liam (my son, currently 7 yrs old) and I have started making a comic strip he has named "Funny Fakes." He is the writer—though "director" might be a more accurate title—and I am the illustrator. Here is our first strip. He told me what to draw and I drew it—I didn't even know what was coming in the next panel. The kid is a genius, and a funny one too.
	This photograph is several years old now but I just got around to scanning it. It's maybe my favorite photograph ever.
	Liam and I were drawing together while waiting for Santa late on Christmas Eve 2005. He suggested I draw a gingerbread man, and out popped this.
	This is an illustration I made for a Sunday school class I was teaching, which expresses the four soils described in the Parable of the Sower (Matt 13).
	My son told me he had a dream about a car with three stories, like a house. I drew this interpretation of that image, and when I showed it to him he confirmed that yes, that was pretty much what he had seen in his dream.
	I'm pleased to see, when I compare this drawing from New Year's Day 2003 to some of my older portraits of my son Liam, that my drawing skills do seem to be improving with practice.
	This person is very ugly.
	I had this idea that maybe yuppies could commute to work by being lobbed from catapults... ...and arrive by gently silumphing through giant socks.
	I have this thing about the Man in the Moon. I recorded a song about him once. He has also been, over the years, a regular theme in my drawings, possibly because he's very easy to draw. This is the latest iteration, and he's looking more cantankerous than usual.
	This is the parish church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Olney, Buckinghamshire. When I lived in Olney, I used to walk by here regularly and admire the view. I began sketching in the last few weeks before I moved away. This is the only rendering I made.
	This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.
	A study for a board game I have been working on.
	These drawings (some of them obviously Photoshop-enhanced), are for the prototype of another board game I am designing.
	Dan is a friend and artist. He was instrumental in getting me back into drawing for the first time since childhood.