Oh Bob. You and your breathe. Bob, one of Father Duck’s classmates at Rhyming Uninursery, had a strange hunger for onions. Father Duck wrote this poem in hopes that Bob would take note and fix his problem. Mother Goose would later steal his idea, adapting it for Jack Be Nimble.
Bob Be Hungry
Bob be hungry,
Bob be dense,
Bob ate onions
And now needs mints.
Here is my studio in its temporary space. This is where I work while construction is being finished on my new studio.
Kermit watches over the studio
The Great Gonzo
Bug
My beloved guppies.
The Wildthings...and I don't mean the figures.
Chalupa the puppet
WOMAN!
My drawing desk. A hybrid of traditional and computer.
One Trick Pony
Been a while. Have not updated my blog since the birth of my baby boy, Benjamin, which was 6 months ago. With the added responsibility, had to make sacrifices and unfortunately, this is where I made them. Things seem to be slowly normalizing though and I thought it was time I made my return. I will be sharing some of the projects I have been working on over the past 6 months….lots to share.
In the future, I plan to use this blog as a sketch book. Expect to see lots more of my thought process, poetry, work and family in the near future. To start with, below is an illustration I’m working on for submission to a magazine. This is the first rough draft. Hope to bring it to life in the next few days. It is based off of a quote I came up with:
“It’s OK to be a one trick pony if your one trick is jumping through a flaming hoop on a motorcycle.”
It's OK to be a one trick pony if your one trick is jumping through a flaming hoop on a motorcycle.
Thanks for your patience. Lots more to come.
I’m proud to have finished Duck of All Trade’s newest website FrayBabyBibsandMore.com ran by the amazingly talented seamstress, Liz Davis. Liz’s site features her sewing handy work, a blog, a photo gallery, an online store and so much more. Her work is well worth checking out. It is built on the CMS platform Joomla. Joomla is a great program because it allows me to create amazing sites and then turn them over to my clients so they can act as their own web master. It’s like creating a Ferrari and then turning the keys over for client to drive. If you are interested in having a site built for yourself, you can email me at: jduckworth@duckofalltrades.com. You can learn more about my design work at www.DuckofAllTrades.com.
Here is a snippet of the front page.
Click on Image to visit site.
Following is a preview of the dummy book I created for Moo-Pig. My next steps will be:
Look forward to hearing your comments/criticism. Enjoy.
TItle Page
PCIP Data will go here
First Page of Text
Second Page of Text
Third Page of Text
Fourth Page of Text
Fifth Page of Text
I have been working on Moo-Pig for about 4 months now. That is, the newest incarnation. This is a story that I have been working on for years. 12 years to be exact. Following is a visual evolution of the character as she appears in the newest version. I will show the image and then talk about it and what influenced my next move.
Concept 1
When I first conceived the notion of Moo-Pig, she was actually a physical blend between a cow and a pig. I dropped this idea in favor of a simpler idea: A pig whom liked to do cow things. This would eliminate any confusion for my target age group and would also eliminate the need for the “what’s a moo-pig and how did she come to be?” conversation I imagined between parents and kids. This image is the first image of Moo-Pig as a pig.
This first concept featured a bloated, fat happy looking pig. This went against the story as Moo-Pig would never fall into the bloated, fat happy looking pig category.
Concept 2
Concept 2 featured a more whimsical, playful looking pig. Though I love stylized illustrations, it didn’t work for Moo-Pig. I felt she needed to retain normalcy. The idea behind this is that she would look like a normal pig while other pigs around her would look comical. This would be a twist in that the non-funny looking pig would be non-piggish and the piggish pigs would look funnyish.
Concept 3
Concept 3 Moo-Pig more closely resembles a pig. Though there are stylized parts about her, the overall impression is “pig.” I also eliminated color. At this point it struck me that this was a story about black and white. Color was not needed. I would include one color, blue, which will make sense in the end. I kept my lines playful but made them more controlled.
Final Art for Dummy Book
This is the current state of Moo-Pig. As you can see, I refined the awkward lines in her hind legs as well as a few other places. Overall, the image is consistent with the character. My lines are still loose and lively. I tried to give her motion. I want her to appear simple so that her actions and character define who she is. At this point I also added in the blue color and simplified the shadows. Simplicity is important to me for Moo-Pig.
I am now in the process of bringing all illustrations up to this level. In the end I hope to end up with a nice dummy book I can submit for publication.
With all the silly happenings lately with this blog, I thought this would be a great time to share a more serious side of myself. So without further adieu, I give you A Poem of Lo…hey! Who let that pig in here? What are you doing pig? Hey, You can’t do that. OUCH, you just did that! Wait. HELP! HELLLLLLP……
Hi. Mr. Pigworth here. Todd Pigworth. I must informed you that Mr. Duckworth won’t be able to shared his lovely poem. He is hog tied at the moment. So in his absence, I presented to you a favorite poem of Todd. It is about me, Todd. Without further doo-doo, I give you….A Poem of Todd.
By Todd Pigworth: “I writed it myself”
Hello there,
My name is Todd.
I admit
I’m very odd.
I fish for soup
Instead of cod.
I trim my clothes
I dress in sod.
And my sod
Is very mod.
I wear it here
Upon my bod.
I spit out peas
And eat the pod.
For hair I have
A dowsing rod.
So am I odd?
Yes, you can nod.
I know I am,
My name is Todd.
It has come to my attention that this blog has become skewed towards pigs. While this was not my intention, I do apologize to those I have upset. I have been flooded with email demanding animal equality. In an effort to make amends to the non-pig-liking readers I present you this: An original Jeff Duckworth illustration of a chicken.
A Giant Yellow Chicken.
I have a business update for you this Monday, but before I get to the boring stuff, here is what is going on in family life:
I ripped my pants. One of my favorite pair of pajama pants that is. It started out as a small hole with a little draft in the seat and ended up in a good laugh. I can’t resist a good laugh! I communicated with Keeley about the the hole in a way only her and I could understand. The way married couples do. This left Samuel, my son, out of the loop on what was happening so he had no idea I knew of the hole. Keeley told Samuel as I pretended not to hear. Playing dumb comes natural to me. He was having a bad day and needed a good laugh. He waited until my back was turned and I was distracted. He gripped both sides of the hole and *RIP.* What started as a small hole was now an open gash. He couldn’t stop laughing. When he finally did, I simply replied. “you mean I have had a hole in my pants? No wonder every time I tooted I heard the sound of a flag flapping.” This sent him into more fits of laughter. I think there is a moral here. Maybe take one for the team? No. When life gives you a problem, the best cure is laughter? Maybe. No, I think what I think the moral is this: Toot jokes are super funny to a six year old.”
I have put a lot of work into my freelance design business this week, mostly by working on the website. I have optimized, socialized, prioritized, adwordatized, tednerized, designatized and etceteraized www.duckofalltrades.com with one goal in mind: Create a self maintaing site that I can easily update with new content as needed that meets the needs of my target audience. I’m hoping to get it to a point where I can focus less on the business side of DoAT and more on design. I want the site to take care of itself.
When I last left you, I realized how little time people actually spent on my site. Most people were clicking on one page and then leaving. I set out to fix this problem by directing searchers to new front pages that are designed to draw their attention in more and be targeted to what they are looking for. The results are a success so far. On an average, people are staying 2-4 times longer and clicking through more of the pages. Traffic wise, I’m still averaging about the same as before. I’m hoping to increase this next week. I have a few ideas on how to do this. I’m trying to be creative about it. Should be fun. I am thinking it will be better to push this site and use ite as a launching pad to my other endeavors. I want to create something people care about.
I should have numbers to share with you next week. Right now it is still too early for them to be significant. I can tell that this site has been successful so far. Readership has doubled every other day! I already get more people on this site than the DoAT site. I have been using AdWords to advertise DoAT now for about two weeks. So far I have had little success. When I say little, I mean none. My click through ratios are HORRIBLE. On an average, they are .04%. What does this mean? Out of every 100 people that view my ad, only .04% click on the ad and go to my site. That isn’t even a whole person! That’s like a whole person’s pet gerbil. So out of 100 people, 1 pet gerbil goes to my site. Gerbils don’t need design or illustration. I think they just like to play with mice.
The hardest part of being an artist is knowing when to put then paintbrush down. When to stop? I thought I was at this point with Moo-pig. Apparently not. I had an idea yesterday that I just had to try out. Originally I had planned to do the book in black and white. Then it turned to black and white with a splash of blue. Yesterday I had the idea of adding in more color to see how it works; a pig color/texture for Moo-pig and only Moo-pig. The idea? In Moo-pig’s world, she seems out of place, not real. She isn’t one thing, she isn’t the other. But visually, she could be colorful and real in an otherwise black and white world. She is herself and that is what makes her real. Might work, I’m playing around with the idea. Here are two images. One with her in black and white and one with her in pig color. What do you think?
Moo-pig in color
Moo-pig black and white
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