Final 2020 Ornament Post

By on Dec 10, 2020

For the last few years I have been trying to end the year on a good note. I always try to do something creative that I can share with others, often family. I started this a few years ago when I made a barbecue sauce. I am never happy with barbecue sauces. They are usually too sweet or not tangy enough so I spent a year working on a sauce. I constantly tweaked it until I was happy with it. That Christmas I designed a label and called it Uncle Jerry’s Wild Hair BBQ. I spent hours drawing and redrawing pictures of rabbits and hares until I got it just right. I made up a huge batch, bottled them and gave them to friends and family as gifts. I kind of put myself out there for the first time. Up until that point I always doubted my own abilities and would keep my art and ideas to myself. Some of it is a confidence issue and some of it is an issue of trying to be humble. I think I value...

Getting into that Holiday Spirit

By on Dec 4, 2020

I am super stoked with my new project. I went from concept to finished piece in a little over 24 hours. I am really happy with how it turned out… I still have to make a box but the ornaments are done. I did a short run of only 20 so if you want one you will need to contact me. These are going to cost about $5 each to ship so I can’t just send them out to everyone. I was hoping to send them out to everyone on the list but those costs added up really quick.

Holiday Merriment

By on Dec 2, 2020

It is that time of year. Time to get out all the decorations and light up the house. Time to overload the outlets and hope to Glob that we don’t burn down the house. It is also time to knock another idea off the list of things I’d like to do someday. I’ve learned alot over the last couple years and I am doing something that I’ve always wanted to do. We have a large ledge that we started decorating as a small village. We have 3 ceramic light-up buildings that we bought at the Leinenkugel brewery of the brewery and a few more little knicknacks that we have collected over the years. I have always wanted to print some silhouettes for a background and this year I was able to make it happen… Please ignore the wires. I still have to get some clips to organize everything but I was just too excited to not share this. I was planning on attaching these to the window...

Gastly Progress

By on Nov 24, 2020

Not much going on. It is a short week. I have made a bit of progress on this guy… Other than that I don’t have much to say. Still working on selling stuff, which is a slow and sometimes disappointing process but we are still moving forward. Until later… here is a little something from the website… pranko.com

Digital Downtimes and Cute Kitties

By on Nov 19, 2020

So screens have become an issue with my girls. It is kind of a mixed bag so it’s been hard to navigate. While on their devices they are good about interacting with each other and their friends instead of just isolating themselves. They play games while Facetiming and chatting. It can be dizzying to watch. It is good to see them having fun problem-solving and playing with one another and others. The problems start when it is time to take the devices away. When taking away or even saying it is time to take a break they immediately, and often viciously, act out verbally and sometimes physically. They react the same way a food aggressive dog reacts when you get too close to their food dish. So we had to devised a credit system. To earn an hour on their devices they have to spend 2 hours offline, doing something else. There have been times I had to turn off the router and we often...

Puzzles and a Long History

By on Nov 18, 2020

The first Christmas my wife and I spent together she gave me the first season of The Simpsons and this Homer Rubik’s Cube… Cute, right? He was so much fun to play around with. I would jumble him up and then solve him. Over and over, until one day when I wasn’t able to solve him. I worked at it and worked at it but I couldn’t solve the puzzle. Literally weeks went by and then months. I would pick Homer up any time I had a moment to spare, and that was before we had kids so I had alot of spare moments. After what was close to a year I finally solved it and had my perfect little Homer bust. I actually did a little dance. When my wife asked what the little celebration was about I smiled and showed her the puzzle. She took the puzzle and congratulated me while inspecting it. She then started to absent-mindedly twist the Rubik’s Cube while starting a...

Working on Sales and Stickers

By on Nov 13, 2020

  I started making that next step. Started a Facebook Store page. Starting small with just new stuff but I think I’m going to keep pushing forward. I secretly believe that this is really an exercise in futility but who knows. If nothing else it gives me something to work on. Speaking of… I finished up my inks. I think there will be some fine tuning after the color but I am pretty happy with how this is going. I tried something a little different and I’m happy with the results so far. A few podcasts I used to listen to went on hiatus for a few years but now they are all coming back. Normally I would be really excited to binge some podcasts and get some work done but both of my girls have suddenly become interested in art. I am not complaining. My youngest has the curse. She is turning out to be really good. Like, surprisingly good. Both my wife and I have said,...

Gastly Sketches

By on Nov 10, 2020

I really dislike the character design of the gastly but I like the idea behind it, if that makes sense. There is something about the way the eyes are just hanging off the edge that drives me crazy. It’s like they suddenly become 2 dimensional even though the rest of the eyes imply they are 3 dimensional, both sunken into the body while clearly pushing outward. I started doing some preliminary sketching which has slowly become the start to the next sticker/bookmark…     I have a couple concerns for this drawing though. First, it is stylistically different from the other drawings I have done. I think I will be able to color it in a way that ties it to the other pieces. The other concern is I don’t know how it will be received. I am still a bit gun-shy after my last sticker. My friend was rather nonplussed by the magikarp. I was fairly happy with the magikarp,...