What's Wrong, Cattle Drive?

On the back cover of the November Highlights is one of my favorite What's Wrong? illustrations to date. It was so much fun to research and put together. My wife and daughter can be seen on the horse to the back left.

Below is the line art. Sometimes I don't complete the background because I want to keep it free of line, that way it stays in the back. When I get the time I do finish up the line art just in case anyone ever decides to buy it.

The sketch is below. You'll probably note the major difference of the adding of the horns to that cattle but what you may look over is the removal of all of the udders. Ha ha!

Give me a home...

I don't know what my fascination with the wild west is but I'm partly convinced I was born in the wrong state and at the wrong time. In 2003 I went on a solo camping trip to Wyoming and I just never felt at home here on the east coast. Late last year I discovered that my great - great - grandfather, Luke Dillon, was an army cavalrymen stationed in Wyoming so maybe it's just in my blood.

What's Wrong, Southwest Ranch?

Yee-haw! This is my latest What's Wrong? to be published by those wonderful folks at Highlights for Children! It can be seen on the back cover of the September issue which should be available now.

This one really had me missing the Southwest. My alter ego, Ranger Kent, can be seen teaching some kids how to lasso, and my wife's alter ego, Cowgirl Pearl, is riding a reindeer. As previously posted, the famous racehorse, Secretariat, is on the lower right.

The first sketch is posted below. You can see some of the major changes that needed to done to complete this one. Most notably the switching of Pearl and the Ostrich which really did improve the composition. The funniest correction I thought was that the sunbathing roadrunner because he looked like he was dead. I couldn't make myself get rid of him entirely so I moved him next to the birds listening to the boom box in the final art.

Click here if you'd like to get your kids a subscription to Highlights for Children. Don't subject them to only seeing Highlights when they are sick or about to get their teeth drilled. That's not very nice, is it? Be a good parent.

3rd Wedding Anniversary.

Believe it or not the traditional Third Wedding Anniversary gift is leather because it is durable, long lasting, and strong. Rather than buy Daisy some boring leather passport holder I decided to make her a little portrait of our family (starring Kent, Pearl and Virginia, of course) made entirely of leather. Initially I was going to actually draw/stain the leather but I couldn't find smooth enough leather and I was limited with time. Instead I just cut simple pieces which was still equally tricky to do.

Christmas Card 2009.

I am submitting this for Illustration Friday: Trail. Forgive me if I have submitted this for another theme, I honestly can't remember if I did or not.

For the past few years I have incorporated Ranger Kent and Cowgirl Pearl (two characters my wife and I portrayed for our church's annual Vacation Bible School) into our Christmas card. This year, with the birth of our daughter Virginia, I wanted to put her in as well our dog, Charlotte. The problem I ran into was that Kent and Pearl were never married so I would have a lot of explaining to do if they showed up on the card with a baby, right? I decided to go with it anyway and added this little note on the back of the card:

Last year sometime Ranger Kent and Cowgirl Pearl got hitched and had a baby some 10 months later. Oh, and they also adopted a dog, apparently.

________

I hope that straightens things out kids!

As a little side note, if you go back and look at some of the illustrations I have done for Highlights this year, you can see Kent or some kind of cowboy in the illustration.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. God Bless you and your family and best wishes for a successful and healthy new year.

- Chuck, Daisy, and Virginia.