I Love You Mom.

Please get well soon.

Borrowed Time

"Counting stars and passing cars
on the Interstate.
The end is near...I feel it dear,
but I'm not afraid.

Step...Step right over the line...
and onto borrowed time." - A Fine Frenzy

Wow. The Prodigal Son returns... It's been awhile...
I apologize to anyone who still frequents this site.
It's been close to half a year since my last post.
I blame Bettie Page. (Seriously...I didn't want to
throw anything new up till I finished her, and I just never
did..sorry to my fellow bloggers, who all produced amazing
work out of that challenge.) I will post my half-finished
rendering I started just so you know that I tried...



I'll follow that with some more McKenna sketches
drawn over the last half year...I'm going through
a lot of personal things this year, and the desire to
draw has been diminished somewhat...I'm hoping
to find that spark again, and bring it back to the
blog. Stay tuned...








Ribbit!-
FrogDaddy

You Owe Me an I.O.U.

I know, I know....I'm late with my promised Bettie Page tribute post....
Most of my fellow bloggers have already posted theirs...it's en route,
I promise...I've been drawing so much at work lately, that I've been giving
my wrists a rest on the train rides home. But here's a quick holdover, till
I'm able to better flesh out my Bettie sketch....
It's (who else?) my girl in her fly DKNY parka...she seems as over this cold
weather as I am..."Spring's just around the corner," as Frog said to Toad...
I had also meant to post my 2008 Music Playlist which always seems to
bring out comparative selections from my mates...Please feel free to post your
own top ten or anything else your listening to currently that's rocking your socks off.

The FrogDaddy 2008 Playlist

1) Time To Pretend- MGMT
2) Paper Planes- M.I.A.
3) Take Back The City- Snow Patrol
4) Attention- The Raconteurs
5) Chemtrails- Beck
6) I'm Outta Time- Oasis
7) Gallery Piece- Of Montreal
8) A-Punk- Vampire Weekend
9) Churches Under The Stairs- Brendan Canning
10) You Don't Know Me- Ben Folds (featuring Regina Spektor)

xoxo-

FrogDaddy

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Happy New Year, Party People!

Here's a special photo-filled blog story...please to enjoy...
My daughter has always had a life-long obsession with "The Wizard of Oz".
I guess most girls do...maybe because the protagonist, Dorothy, is a girl, maybe because it's
central theme of there being no place like home pulls at your inner child, or maybe it's the ruby slippers, who knows?
The point I'm making here is, she loves it...
She's been Dorothy for Halloween three times!
So when she turned seven in 2006, my wife and I decided to take her to see
the Broadway play, "Wicked". We had purchased the soundtrack so she knew a lot of the music already.
We kept it a surprise until the morning of her birthday and let her open the tickets when she got out of bed.
This is her reaction.



Since you guys are going to think "Wicked" is sponsoring my blog, I won't go into detail about the show itself,
but it was a magical night that exceeded expectations for all of us.




Shortly afterwards, I proceeded to try to paint a mural inspired by the play in my daughter's room.
I only wanted to use the existing paint colors that we'd already used in the room, with a hint of green.
Here's some of the preliminary drawings.




Elphaba-the name of the Wicked Witch of the West in the play- cut a very precise silhouette
in the poster I was recreating, so it took a lot of tape to get the shape just right.



Here's how the graphic over her bed turned out...The contrast of the black and the introduction of red
on the witch's lips felt out of place and later changed...




She's off to see the Wizard!



I wanted to use the second wall to do a grand scene with some of the other characters from
the original movie. (Who all make clever appearances in the play as well) I wanted to use the
artwork from the original Frank L. Baum stories, beautifully drawn by illustrator W.W. Denslow.



Here's how the graphic turned out when I removed the black and just made it tonal.



Action shots.




The Emerald City. (Based on the Map of Oz that acts as the curtain before the play begins.)



and, of course, Dorothy Gale.



Hopefully, this gives you an idea of the scope of the thing.



I've spent the last four days trying to finally finish what I'd originally started in 2007.
You ever have one of those things on your "To Do" list that you think you'll never get to?
My resolution this new year is to finish 'em all...
Her reaction to her new room made all the work worth it.

Now That I've Got Your Attention

"I try a subtle suggestion-
a more direct approach.
But I can't make a connection...
You're beyond reproach" - The Raconteurs

Here we are folks...the dream we all dream off...
Happy Almost New Year! I've been doing so many side projects,
I figured I may as well post 'em and finish 2008 strong.
I do an annual calendar for my family's Christmas party and
decided to take this year's cover back to the 80's when the graffiti guys
used to bomb our apartment hallways with tags.. The clan at the
bottom row beneath the title are my parents, brothers, and sisters.
It was well received at the party...



My four year old nephew Max was born on Christmas Day, so we wanted to get him something special this year. I created a stencil of him on a swing in Photoshop, and created his name using the chains. I printed it on heat transfer paper and ironed it on an oatmeal heather tee.
His reaction when he opened it was priceless-
"It's Me!!! IT'S MAAAAAAXXXXXX!!!!!!! MOMMY!! IT'S MAAAAAXXX!!!!!!"
He took off his sweater right then and put it on at the party!
Here's a little montage:




and finally, the week before we were to go to our in-law's house for Christmas Eve, I put the pencils on afterburner
and finished a portrait of them I'd been nursing since November...



Coming Soon!
The "Wicked" mural in my daughter's room that I've been working (more off than) on for over a year! I figure if I can't get it done this week,
I may as well paint the entire room over...
and I'm hoping to throw down a tribute to legendary pin-up beauty, Bettie Page, who passed away this month,
with my fellow bloggers during the month of January.
I'll also be dropping my annual 2008 music playlist, so while all the other bloggers are making
resolutions that they're bound to break, feel free to ring in the New Year
with Yours Truly-
FrogDaddy Ink
It always go down smoothly...

It's Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

"They're singing Deck the Halls
But it's not like Christmas at all
I remember when you were here
and all the fun we had last year"- U2 (covering a Phil Spector song, I think)

Happy Holidays!
Do you believe the end of the year is already upon us?
Crap! I just finished putting away the Halloween decorations!
The girl just turned nine last week...NINE!!!!
She's starting to question whether Santa really exists or not...
but she's asking it in a roundabout way in case there REALLY
is a Santa and he'll angrily pass over our house Christmas Eve because of her doubts.
I'm sure her friends at school are telling her the way things really work.
I know it seems cruel, but we're not going to tell her....
Because once that myth is busted, the whole business of the Easter
Bunny and the Tooth Fairy will be exposed as one big, fat, hairy lie.
And we've been lying to her about it for 9 years! She'll never trust us again!
She'll figure it out on her own, eventually- just like I did...three years ago...
I'm taking the last week of the month off and sincerely hope to finish
the mural I've been painting in her room, so this may be the last post
before the New Year...keep it happy and healthy my friends, and with a
lot of luck (and our new president), here's hoping that 2009 brings a lot
more joy to all of us than this year did....
Peace-
FrogDaddy

41

"At the age of twenty, we don't care what the World thinks of us;
At the age of thirty, we worry about what it is thinking of us;
At forty, we discover that it wasn't thinking of us at all." - Anonymous

Hello my fellow Scorpios!
I turn 41 today- so if 40 is the new 20, I'm now of legal drinking age? Yes!!
We're hitting the end of the year, and things start moving fast...
McKenna's birthday's is next week (the day after Thanksgiving)
my wife's- a week later, then there's Kwanzaa, Chanukah, Festivus,
Christmas, Greek Christmas, New Year's...it never friggin ends!
We're going to pierce McKenna's ears for her birthday...(she doesn't
know it yet, so don't tell her!) It's a real shocker, because her mom was
firm on waiting till she turned 10, and I fall in line with whatever Michele's
thought process is on makeup/jewelry because I'm a guy and I rarely wear both...
So- like I was saying, were closing the books on '08...last call!
I'm "cleaning out my closet" with this sketchbook, so to speak...
Certain sketchbooks can be as special to you as an old,well-worn baseball glove...
This one has produced some real gems for me this year...I've nearly filled it, now
and hope the next one feels as familiar...Here's a few new sketches that
have been lying about, and some others that I normally wouldn't post,
but I'm a warts-and-all kinda Frog...

Ribbit!
FrogDaddy