The Tide is Rising

It's been a while since I've posted. I've had a few designs I've been wanting to post but I've just been so distracted the past month or so. For being unemployed I've sure felt very busy, with both good things and with things of no value. I've been feeling God work in my life in amazing ways the past few months as I continue to learn to trust Him with everything, not just the job situation.

I've experienced great moments of proliferation of creativity and also droughts of it, which is where I seem to be right now. And so I'm asking the Lord to help me to persevere and to be joyful no matter what the situation which corresponds with what I'm learning in Summit's new series on James and my Thursday night small group's study of Philippians, respectively.

My 30th birthday is just a few weeks away. Birthdays are always a time of reflection for me, especially this year. I struggle with not being where I want to be or where I'd thought I'd be by now. But the areas I feel lacking (job, prestige, home ownership) are being daily overwhelmed by the areas that God is shining on me (my wife, my son, new community, old friendships, spiritual growth and accountability, His Provision, and the knowledge that He loves me more than I can imagine.) Thing thing is I have to let Him overwhelm me with them on a daily, hourly, minute by minute basis or I can easily get caught in listening to the lies.

I am hopeful about what God is doing and where He is leading us as a family. I trust that it's something greater than my mortal mind can fathom. Virg sent me this, this morning. Waiting has been a huge motif in our lives of late.

Psalm 130

A song of ascents.

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

So I wait Lord.

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Flora Adversus Machina

My latest entry. Decided to go with one of my hand drawn stylings. I really like this one a lot. I look forward to pushing this style further in my work.

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Okay I lied.

Okay so I said last weeks was my last derby design but I couldn't help myself. I enjoy the challenge of being given a topic one day and having to come up with something and designing it within a 24 hour period. Good for the mental muscles. This weeks topic was school. Here's what I came up with.

Revenge De La Nerds:



Okay so this one is a little disturbing and not sure where it came from in the recesses of my mind.

Next one is an homage to my favorite Elementary School game 4 Square. Originally the design had the text "Tri-State Four Square Champs" in it. But the derby only allowed for "incidental text" so I took it out which doesn't make it as complete looking as it was before, but I still like the concept and may revamp it.

4 Square 4 Life:

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My Super Tree House

Here's my latest derby entry for shirt.woot and probably my last. The people who vote are apparently really into dungeons and dragons and skulls and nickelback so I'm not sure that my style does well with the voters. Anyways, I'm going to redo this as a full color print and start selling children's art soon. Hope you like it.

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Springdale Bulldogs shirt

I designed this shirt for The Master's Craft as a promotional item that will be shot into the stands at Springdale High School Football games. The shirt had to have a one color design, prominently display The Master's Craft logo and phone number, and be something that fans would want to wear for the rest of the season. Here's what I came up with.

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Derby days

I'm really enjoying doing these shirt derbies on woot.com. They announce a topic every thursday and you can start submitting Friday. then people who've bought stuff from woot before are able to vote on they're favorites. I like it because it forces me to come up with an idea from the theme word and execute it in a very short period of time. None of my shirts have come close to being chosen but each one is getting more votes than the last. I bought a screen printing kit about a year ago and have yet to use it but I'm thinking about finally making my own shirts. Here's to trying new things.

The theme for this week is the number 2. My first submission for this week was inspired by my love of Number 2 pencils Right now this one only has about 22 votes:



I had a second idea as well and decided to go ahead and give it a shot. I was actually thinking about doing a tandem bike for my first design but couldn't figure out how to make it interesting or visually appealing. Somehow in brainstorming I thought of Panda's on a tandem bike and came up with the riding pandem. so here it is. So far this one has 39 votes but I just uploaded last night. I don't think it has a chance of getting into the hundreds but who knows. it's growing faster than a lot of designs. If you want to vote for it click here:

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moon raker

This is a t-shirt design I entered in the shirt.woot.com derby. Each week woot gives a topic and and designers submit their tshirt designs. People vote on it and whoever gets the most votes gets their shirt sold on woot's site. The topic for this derby was outer space. I didn't win but I still really like the design. I may have it printed up myself.

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Family T

This is a design I created for my family's upcoming vacation. It's the first time we've done a shirt. The back of the shirt has things that we'll be doing on our vacation including renting a boat, shopping, eating silver queen corn, golfing, crab trapping and hanging out on the beach.

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Imagination

Created this earlier this year and had it printed on 20"x20" canvas. I wanted the characters and colors in the print to pull you in like you're a member of this imaginary world. First in a series of children's prints.

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The Beginning of the Next.

I started working on this blog about a month ago in order to showcase my work and wax philosophical on design and things that inspire me. And here I am going live the day I get laid off. How apropos :-). I'm really excited about this next stage, even though it contains so many unknowns. The past few weeks I've been feeling stuck, but today I was unstuck and pushed out of the plane. Fortunately I have a parachute. Just not sure where I'm going to land, but that's part of the adventure. So here we go.

My first piece of work is a very personal one. It's a rendering of my son, Liam. I love seeing his wide-eyed curiosity at the world around him. Everything is new to him. I like to watch him and imagine the wrinkles forming in his brain as synapses and nerves connect.



More work to come soon.

Godspeed,
Andrew

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