Origami Saturday – Princess and the Frog

By on Mar 27, 2017

“Lousy Smarch weather…” Homer J SimpsonSaturday was lousy. We try to keep busy. During the winter we often go to Milwaukee’s Public Museum. We get a membership so visiting doesn’t cost anything (at least at the time) and it allows the girls to run around while looking at things and being mentally stimulated. The only problem is our membership always seems to expire around the end of January. We usually don’t renew it until the following Fall because we also have a Zoo membership. We go to the Zoo all the time. Saturday was horrid. The temp was just above freezing and it was lightly raining or misting all day long. The zoo is great for just about any weather with the exception of that. So we took the kids to the mall. The girls like to eat at Red Robin so we often take them there for lunch, partake in an alcoholic beverage and then let the kids...

Slaughterhouse Five

By on Mar 15, 2017

Here we go with another post about things I should have done long before I actually did. I suppose waiting on Kurt Vonnegut isn’t quite as bad as To Kill a Mockingbird or some of the others I’ve been catching up on, but I wish I had read it sooner.Slaughterhouse Five was put into my head by the movie “Footloose”. I’m pretty sure it was “Footloose.” It was a throwaway joke about how cultured the big city boy was. Just the name of the book captured my imagination. I somehow mingled it with the Chicago Seven. I Assumed it had something to do with an incident involving 5 African-American kids and a slaughterhouse. I created a plot that now sounds much like the plot of To Kill a Mockingbird but with the children on trial.My brother-in-law likes reading classic books. We talk about books with one another and I appreciate hearing his insight. I had...

Beer Talk

By on Mar 6, 2017

Just look at that beauty. I have discovered a new cooler at my local liquor store. I primarily focus on micro-brews and specifically Wisconsin micro-brews but the cooler I’ve been exploring lately has imports. Honestly, I don’t know enough about import beers. I’ve heard rumors that there are no “true” import beers in America. There are foreign recipes that are then brewed here which is why our Guinness doesn’t taste like the real thing, but that could be totally wrong……OK, I’m back. Just did some fruitless research and I still know no more about importing beer. Anyway, this new cooler has some interesting new options. I was going to a friend’s house for an evening of drinking and Dungeons & Dragons so when I saw this I knew it just had to be.All-in-all it wasn’t bad. The alcohol content was pretty high so it was a...

Another Quiet Saturday Morning

By on Feb 7, 2017

Every once in a while the stars align and I get a Saturday morning to draw. The girls were content with their over-sized cinnamon rolls and new animated feature so I was able to scribble out a quick sketch. We were at the Zoo the other day and they had a new cardinal. It was a little grey guy the likes of which I had never seen. It is smaller and more angular than the typical cardinal. I couldn’t remember what kind it was or where it was from but while trying to find it I did find some neat pictures of grey cardinals.While in school I took a technical illustration class. It was a good experience because it helped me develop my observation skills. Just taking the time to focus on every detail of the subject. Trying to figure out what makes it unique before even starting to draw. I had a professor who would talk about how labeling things makes us lazy. When you look at a chair, you...

Faulty Memories

By on Jan 31, 2017

When I started college, I was working at a big department store in their shoe department. I worked really early hours starting around 3am. I had several radios positioned throughout the stock room all tuned to the local indy station. 3am wasn’t the busiest time for the DJs so I would often call in and they would play my requests. I would win free tickets to shows almost weekly until they put a rule in place saying you could only win once a month.Those were the early days of craft breweries. One local brewery that made a hard push was Henry Weinhard’s. Henry Weinhard’s had a Red Lager. I was not of age but even then the independent nature of the brewery appealed to me. They expanded their advertising to include a Root Beer. The root beer was from the days of prohibition. Weinhard’s started brewing it to keep the brewery from going under. Being that...

Newest #inktober

By on Oct 19, 2016

I started my next drawing. My daughter is still into the #inktober thing but I can tell she is losing interest. She asked if we can do origami next month. I remember being her age and being obsessed with origami. My mom’s friend’s husband (that seems convoluted) was an engineer who was amazing at origami. When he found out I was interested, he gave me paper-planes that were so complex I swore he had used scissors and glue.My daughter and I went to see Kubo and the Two Strings and I’m sure this added to her curiousity. Kubo and the Two Strings is the latest Laika picture. It is all done in stop animation which is so remarkably beautiful you will swear it is CGI. Kubo plays a magical lute(?) that brings paper to life. It is a wonderful film. It seemed a little scary at times but my daughter thought it was great.Online Printing and CalendarsMilwaukee’s Best...