January 5, 2007
Rained last night. Quite wet and cool out. Very soggy sunrise, but beautiful. Extremely quiet on the bike ride. No horses in the arena at the end of Old Stage Road, no back hoes, or cement truck back up beepers braying. Kind of nice.

I spent most of the day yesterday with Royal Wade Kimes. We had lunch at El Encanto, then we met Dan Harshberger, Robert Ray, Meghan Saar and Abby Pearson for a photo shoot on the crest of a hill at School House Road and the library. Got some great pics. Later met Joel and Royal at Tonto Bar & Grill. Had some fun. Solved some life. Wade has led quite a life, is good friends with Garth Brooks and Eddie Arnold, among others. Great stories, many of them "off the record" or I'd tell you right here.

Here's a photo I took of the crew shooting Royale. That's the Harsh with the camera and yes, that's Daniel's '54 Turquoise Ford truck:



Working on a WWII illustration for friends in Wyoming, and also a Salt War illustration for Paul Cool. We got in the March issue today. It's trimmed a little too tight, but I guess they had problems at Banta (our current printer in Kansas City). They have just been bought by another company so we are warily watching them.

Sketchbook Angst
One of the benefits of doing six drawings a day is a looseness that you don't see in the earlier examples. Especially in color. Here's two pages done with felt tip pens, pushing it farther than I'm normally used to. Two of the dancers on the right are "after" Degas (which is a nice way of saying copying):




Jim Clark, our friend from Tombstone, is on the cover as The Train Man: Hollywood's Go-to Man When it Comes to Trains. Subscribers should be getting their issues this week. Meanwhile we're hard at work on April, out annual travel issue, which looks to be mighty big.

Onion Headline de Jour
War On String May Be Unwinnable, Says Cat General

"The best thing you have to offer the world is yourself. You don't have to copy anyone else. If you do, you're second best. To achieve success is to be first, and that's being yourself."
—John Denver