Yowzers

Just "googled" myself again! Getting more hits I guess, I'm covering a couple of pages. Perks of having an unusual name.

I even had a Regan Johnson email me when he googled his name and saw I'd written a book. He thought it was a hoot.

I'm really perplexed by all the web book dealers. I guess it all gets worked out, but are some of them auctioning my books? Weird, and I totally have no time to follow up on my idle curiosity about my own google.

On the downside, I'm trying to find an artist I went to school with named Jason Longo who is living in Brooklyn and doing stuff for the Daily Show and other neat things, but the name Jason's so common, I think it tilts the search. Sigh...

Well, back to work...

this was the garden outside the theater Rhi and Jeff got married in in Portsmouth New Hampshire... it was misty and wet, but very pretty. 

that's a real tucan... they wouldn't let me on the plane with him, so he's still in Mystic at the aquarium... sigh... 

I'm REALLY hoping nobody made this connection (though it made me laugh, "He looks like a pink nightmare!") 

Here's Mike wearing the Jackalope hat! (or the horny bunny hat, heeheehee) If you don't know what the heck a jackalope is... well... then you just don't get it, do ya? 

I've learned to embrace my inner-bunniness, even if I get honked at by drivers on the way to the reception... 

This is what happens when two free-spirited artists have a wedding... sometimes they ask their friend to be a giant pink rabbit. (In all fairness this was the "fun" pose, but the costumes stayed on, even the puppets). 

Airline Alert: Don't fly American

That is unless you're that person who doesn't hold with the conventional ideal of arriving both at the destination and on the return home with some or ANY of your luggage. And since I know the world's full of all sorts, somewhere a person would pay money to be locked up on a plane full of strangers with NO AIR CONDITIONING for a couple of hours and breath in the sweat moistened air.

But Mike and I are neither type of person, and our flight going and coming back just sucked.

Going out at a wonderful 7 am (we woke up a quarter to 5am), we arrive and find it's an hour and half delay due to weather, and I'm forgiving them that, albeit we could've slept in, but oh well. We flew into St. Louis and deboarded the plane into what Mike aptly called "a pit of human despair." For one, half of the seats for the terminal were mysteriously gone, leaving some to lean on walls or sprawl on the floor third world style. All the food choices were crappy and we had to go a ways to even get up to the level of a greasy burger king with the busted soda machine. After witnessing a toddler spill a supersized milkshake and the single mother's plight, we returned to the gate to check in.

"What do you mean we don't have seats?"

I recall we paid for them. And they were real seats, we saw on the online diagram that our money, yes, had been for space on a plane.

"The plane was over-sold." That's the phrase they use now, not overbooked. "But you two are the first to call if THE OVERSOLD flight isn't FULL." Does anyone see an inherent problem with the logic here? How can an oversold flight not be full?

Meanwhile, a young highschool age girl is in hysterics because she, like us, had been on the "first to call" list for over 18 hours. If the FAA had a glass box on the wall with a traqualizer for emergencies, I'd have said she qualified for it. Then she overhears them telling us the same thing and with a fevor usually reserved for televangalists she prophetizes our doom to be stuck in St. Louis forever. Mike asked when the next possible flight was, and if we would be guaranteed a seat on that one: first answer - 7 hourslater... second answer: No, we wouldn't be guranteed a seat.


Well, we and the flip out girl all got on the plane. We arrive in CT, and find that Mike's main suitcase is MIA. We file a report and they assure us we'll get it sometime tonight at our hotel. Well we don't, not for 38 hours. Mike had to buy clothes and toiletries to get through the first two days of the trip.


Well, we figure we'd encountered all our travel demons, so going home would be smooth sailing. Wrong. We get on the plane and it's not just not cool and comfortable, it was an oven. It blew hot air in the little twisty vents. Heat was coming off the side of the plane. Why did they think it was ok to put a hundred people in an oven? Hello?!? Has history taught us nothing? I felt lower than cattle, I felt dehumanized. I felt bad for the crew of the plane, too. How bad is the airline industry doing to value it's customer's so little? And believe me, I'd wait 7 hours to fly in a workind plane having lived through that. It was an involuntary jacuzzi experience with total strangers, so bad I had to breath through my shirt so I wouldn't gag on the B.O.

And then we get off the stinking plane and NO LUGGAGE! Not one bag. No makeup, no shoes, no hair stuff for work the next day.

And all along we tried to call the airline to find out what's going on, and apparantly no humans work their phones anymore.



So, pay the extra and fly Jet Blue. Their tag line should be, "We'll treat you like the other big airlines used to treat you before they valued the price of gas and their shareholders more than their passengers."

A page in the zoo story: "A python in the plumbing" one of the many problems that the boy discovers. If you couldn't tell the tiles are bowed out in an arc above him leading from the toilet to the sink. The koala from below is hiding in the boy's shirt (I like his expression). The koala will be with the boy the whole book, adding little funny getsures (he waves at the kangaroo). By the way, this would be my mother's worst nightmare and one I'm sure she hopes never to live out in my house :) 

Wowsers! Mom #2 up in New Jersey can raise a good husband and a beautiful garden! She should be proud of both!  

this is maniacly cute, had to share :) 

And the top three winners of the international Egg Off is Annabelle winning gold, Gerdie taking silver, and a sulky Giselle with the bronze. This one's colorful which I needed in my children's portfolio. Ah, I just wanted to paint a Canadian goose shaking hands, let's be honest... 

Website mockup... thought I'd take the blog along with me as I redesign the site. The horn box would be The News window that would only appear on the home page. I'm liking the kinda victorianish design details vs the flat fields butted up against each other I have now. The white semicircular behind the logo is representative of a white linen tablecloth. The criss cross behind the table could be lattice work (rabbits, garden, ect...). Text would also go where the white table space is...  

Man I LOVE drawing animals in group shots! I know it would be a logistical nightmare for a photographer, but it's like doing a fun puzzle for me. This is a redo of the cover illustration for the Day I Won the Zoo (text copyright Regan Johnson), and I think the horizontal format will be better for all the scenes inside the story, and I just wasn't satisfied with the earlier one. The meerkat on the hippo's tooth, I've decided will have a running gag of imitating people around him... can't wait till he imitates the mom! Oh, and for those who liked that mom was passed out, she'll be on the inside flap in the same pose :) 

move over old rabbit logo! Ok, this is part of a new website banner, maybe a little much for a single logo, but this is going to be part of a bigger design... still, me likey! 

Changes

Well, I'm going through my website with the contractor, thinking of redoing a few things. Knocking out some walls, putting in some new fixtures... enough to warrant some hard hats while on site. I've been tagging websites that I really think are neat, and I'm trying to see if what I like about them could be carried over to my own.

And it's alarming how much work I have to add. All of which means I'll have to take some down. For some areas, not a problem, but then some others, it's like retiring an old friend.

But I'm really excited about the new things I'll be adding. It will be the prequel to a new and better promotional push for me. Kinda like redoing the house before the christmas parties.

Oh, and if anyone would like to comment with some neato websites, please do. They don't have to be artist's websites either. Thanks!

Trying to figure out the jacket size after figuring the different sizes for the folds, spine, jacket folds... sigh...  

This was just a little funny watercolor I did. I like the idea behind it. If you remember Jack and the Beanstalk, there was a giant and his magical singing harp. The title for this one is "Fee, Fi, Fo... Pluck?!" *insert giggles from artist* Yes, too much time around children's stories will warp anyone's mind... 

I've touched up this piece. I had wanted to make it appear antique and Old World looking, but I'd run out of time on the original (it's in a show in Plano). I've digitally made these changes, and it's more of what I'd envisioned. 

I know it's out of context and nobody knows what's going on, but I really liked this one panel of the graphic novel I'm working on. I'm in the "histories" part of it, so that's why they're not modern looking. The woman on the left is facing the big bad demon lord that her other two companion warriors couldn't face. This is all an aside as far as the story goes but I got attached to them anyway... 

Happy Birthday, America...now wake up and blow out your candles!

I love America.

One reason is all my stuff's there. All my family, and most of my friends are American, if not my car, the creators of most of the music I listen to, and my favorite foods (sushi, samosas, pizzas). My Dad, bless his "Griswold" heart, dragged his beloved family all over the US, and I've seen mind blowing beauty. National parks, big cities, the house of mud... all of it left me with an enduring love for my country that no politics can touch.

But when I think of the country, as a whole entity, I feel like we're sort of nodding off. Asleep at the wheel, catching 40 winks... Seems like maybe the country thinks, "For cryin' out loud, we built the railroad, invented everything, went to the moon... isn't that 'great' enough? Can't I catch a nap here?"

I guess what I'm saying is that what made this country great won't keep it great.

If I asked the kids I see what would make them great, I'm pretty sure I'd get:

"To win American Idol!"

"To be the #1 draft pick."

"To be rich."

ect...

I know there are better ways to be great as a country that will leave a more lasting impact on the world then spitting out American Idols every 8 weeks (sorry those who tune it to that, but it's just an example of an overall attitude).

And given the big divide in political opinions, we're also a bit bipolar as a country, too. As the country blows out it's candles tonight, I hope it wishes for better leaders in our government, both parties included. I'm sure it wants all it's citizens to vote in Novemeber and to see past the "hot button" issues all the pundits will try to wave in front of everyone, and try to see how as a whole country we could unite and be great again.