This week’s challenge on illustrationfriday.com is “little things“.
Things don’t get much littler than this.
SFG: winter wonderland
The challenge word on sugarfrostedgoodness.com this week is “winter wonderland“.
I hate snow.
No wait, let me reconsider.
I REALLY hate snow.
As far as I can see, snow serves no purpose. It isn’t good for crops. It kills crops. It is dangerous for driving. Earlier this year, a snowstorm closed a large section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and left hundreds of drivers stranded. Several years ago, my normal 50-minute commute home from work was increased to a tedious ten hours due to snow.
Snow causes inconvenience for workers and businesses. Shoppers, about to venture to the mall, are disouraged by TV weathermen. Instead, those same shoppers flock to the supermarket to stock up on milk, bread and eggs – fearing a lengthy snowstorm will trap them indoors for months without French toast.
I have no pleasant memories of snow. None. When I was a kid, I remember my father standing at the open front door, with a cigarette in one hand and a scowl on his face, watching the snow fall and muttering “Shit! Shit! Shit!” under his breath. Then, he would watch the evening weather forecast and curse even more as the weatherman predicted (as my father would put it) “plenty inches”.
I remember my one and only attempt at sledding. I banged the front of my sled against a large ice chunk buried in the snow, which in turn, banged into my mouth, which in turn, blew up like an innertube.
Years later, I remember having several co-workers who had grown up in Florida. During the night, six inches of snow had fallen. It made my drive to work slow and horrendous. When I finally arrived, my southern co-workers were out in the parking lot taking pictures and giggling.
Adults! Giggling like four-year-olds!
I have also spent many a weekend day shovelling snow from my sidewalk. I don’t like to shovel anything. Ever.
In addition, I have less than fond memories of sitting in the passenger seat, as my wife navigated the car through a blinding snowstorm on an eight-hour, white-knuckle trek across Pennsylvania on a return trip from Cleveland.
I hear a lot of people say, as the snow is falling, “Oh, look at the snow. It’s so pretty. It looks so nice up in the trees.” And then they are silent several days later, when the snowplows and car exhaust and dirty boots have turned the “crisp blanket of white” into a gray-black-brown, drippy, chunky sludge, piled into eight-foot high mountains in shopping center parking lots.
If Irving Berlin hadn’t have picked up a pen in 1940, no one would be dreaming of a white Christmas with every Christmas card they write.
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Monday Artday: recipe
The Monday Artday challenge this week is “illustrate a recipe“.
These barnyard residents just found out the three main ingredients in turducken.
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IF: excess
The word of the week on illustrationfriday.com is “excess“.
Some people can’t travel lightly.
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SFG: b is for…
The challenge this week on sugarfrostedgoodness is “B is for…”
…Buck O’Neil.
John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil was a first baseman and manager in the Negro Baseball Leagues. In 1937, O’Neil signed with the Memphis Red Sox for their first year of play in the newly-formed Negro American League. His contract was sold to the Kansas City Monarchs the following year. He remained with the Monarchs for the rest of his playing career. O’Neil had a career batting average of .288, including four .300-plus seasons at the plate. In 1946, he led the league in hitting with a .353 average and followed that, in 1947, with a career-best .358 mark. He played in four East-West All-Star games and two Negro League World Series.
In 1948, one year after Jackie Robinson broke the major leagues’ color line, O’Neil took over as player/manager of the Monarchs and guided them to two league titles in 1953 and 1955.
O’Neil left the Monarchs following the 1955 season, and in 1956 became a scout for the Chicago Cubs. He was named the first black coach in the major leagues by the Cubs in 1962 and is credited for signing Hall of Fame player Lou Brock to his first contract. After many years with the Cubs, O’Neil became a Kansas City Royals scout in 1988, and was named “Midwest Scout of the Year” in 1998. In 1990, O’Neil led the effort to establish the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, and served as its honorary board chairman.
Buck served on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Veteran Committee and because of his input, numerous Negro League players were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame that didn’t receive enough votes previously.
When Buck’s name appeared on the ballot for induction, he fell one vote short.
“If you ever get to meet him/Love is what you’ll feel
Give it up/Give it up/For Buck O’Neil”
– “Buck O’Neil” by Bob Walkenhorst (Click the title to hear the song.)
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Monday Artday: cowboy
The challenge word on Monday Artday this week is “cowboy“.
William Frederick Cody was an American soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was one of the most colorful figures of the Old West, and mostly famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes. Cody got his nickname, “Buffalo Bill”, for supplying Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with bison meat. In addition to his documented service as a soldier during the Civil War and as Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry during the Plains Wars, Cody claimed to have worked many jobs, including as a trapper, bullwhacker, “Fifty-Niner” in Colorado, a Pony Express rider in 1860, wagonmaster, stagecoach driver, and even a hotel manager, but it’s unclear which claims were factual and which were fabricated for purposes of publicity. He became world famous for his Wild West show. “Buffalo Bills Wild West” used real cowboys and cowgirls, recruited from ranches in the West. At first, few people shared Cody’s admiration of the cowboys. Most people regarded them as coarse cattle drivers and used the term “cowboy” as an insult. The shows demonstrated bronco riding, roping, and other skills that would later become part of public rodeos.
As a businessman, he invested in projects that he hoped might bring economic growth to the West. With his earnings he invested in an Arizona mine, hotels in Sheridan and Cody, Wyoming, stock breeding, ranching, coal and oil development, film making, town building, tourism, and publishing. In 1899, he established his own newspaper, the Cody Enterprise, which is still the main source of information for the town of Cody today. Taking advantage of his celebrity status, Cody was an early advocate of women’s suffrage and the just treatment of American Indians.
By the turn of the 20th century, William F. Cody was probably the most famous American in the world. No one symbolized the West for Americans and Europeans better than Buffalo Bill. He was consulted on Western matters by every American president from Ulysses S. Grant to Woodrow Wilson. He counted among his friends such artists and writers as Frederic Remington and Mark Twain.
Phoebe Ann Mosey, better known as Annie Oakley, was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Oakley’s amazing talent and luck led to a starring role in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which propelled her to become the first American female superstar. However, at the height of her career, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst published a false story that Oakley had been arrested for stealing to support a cocaine habit. The story spread and newspapers everywhere reprinted the account. Oakley spent much of the next six years winning libel lawsuits against newspapers. She collected less in judgments than were her legal expenses, but to her, a restored reputation justified the loss of time and money. Annie continued to set records into her 60s, and she also engaged in extensive philanthropy for women’s rights and other causes, including the support of specific young women that she knew. In a 1922 shooting contest, sixty-two-year-old Annie hit 100 clay targets from 16 yards. After her death it was discovered that her entire fortune had been spent on her family and her charities.
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IF: the zoo…. again
The challenge word this week on illustrationfriday.com is “the zoo“.
Upon seeing the word “zoo”, my first thought was an old joke. A guy works at the circus for ten years. His job is following the elephants around, sweeping up their shit. All day, every day, for ten years, all this guy does, is sweep up elephant shit. One day, his friend says to him, “Man you ought to think about changing jobs!” He answers “What?!? And leave show business?!”
I find it amusing that the two illustrations I did for the same word are both related to old jokes. Actually, I find everything amusing.
(The word “zoo” was the challenge word on Monday Artday in the beginning of October 2007. Here is the illustration I did then.)
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SFG: transportation
The weekly challenge word on sugar frosted goodness is “transportation“.
In this quick illustration, I thought of a 1950s vision of the world of transportation, circa 1987.
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Monday Artday: favorite artist
The extended challenge on Monday Artday is “draw your favorite Monday Artday contributing artist“.
I drew me.
(created entirely in Photoshop….again.)
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IF: superstition
The illustrationfriday.com challenge word this week is “superstition“.
Stevland Hardaway Judkins (his name was later changed to Stevland Hardaway Morris) born prematurely in Saginaw, Michigan to Lula Mae Hardaway on May 13, 1950. It is thought that he received excessive oxygen in his incubator which led to retinopathy of prematurity, a destructive ocular disorder affecting the retina, characterized by abnormal growth of blood vessels, scarring, and sometimes retinal detachment. Mrs. Hardaway instructed her other children to treat Stevland the same as any other child, and not to tease or over-assist him because of his blindness. The family moved to Detroit and Stevland began singing and playing instruments in church at an early age. He took to the piano, congas, and harmonica in particular. He was educated at the Michigan School for the Blind in Lansing, where he was trained in classical piano.
In 1962, at the age of 12, Stevie was introduced to Ronnie White of the popular Motown act The Miracles. White brought Stevie and his mother to Motown Records. Impressed by the young musician, Motown CEO Berry Gordy signed Stevie to Motown’s Tamla label with the name Little Stevie Wonder.
At the age of 13, Little Stevie Wonder had his first major hit, “Fingertips (Pt. 2)”, a 1963 single taken from a live recording of a Motor Town Revue performance. The song, featuring Wonder on vocals, bongos, and harmonica, and a young Marvin Gaye on drums, was a #1 hit on the US pop charts and launched him into the public consciousness. Dropping the “Little” from his moniker, Stevie went on to have a number of other hits during the mid-1960s. He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his labelmates, including “Tears of a Clown“, the number one hit performed by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.
In 1972, Stevie wrote “Superstition“. It reached number one in the USA, and number eleven in the UK, in February 1973. Stevie had actually written this song for Jeff Beck, but at the insistence of his own manager, Stevie recorded it first. Beck was instead offered “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers“, which he recorded for 1975’s Blow by Blow. Jeff Beck played guitar on Stevie’s version of the song and later recorded his own version of “Superstition” with Beck, Bogert & Appice.