Dennis Jones
eclectic artwork & other random things
A Day In The Life
A job came in on Friday, I opened it on Monday and it was 50 spot illustrations due in one week. Fifty of anything takes forever, so I got busy, and then the phone rang. It’s the music leader at my church. The bass player that was supposed to play this Sunday is out because of an emergency, can I fill in for him this Sunday? I said sure…
Now I have 50 spot illustrations AND five new songs to learn before Sunday. I download the church songs and try to drag them into iTunes, but I accidentally drag them into Photoshop instead. I figure Photoshop will not open mp3’s but much to my surprise the mp3’s open and I see something I have never seen in Photoshop before… some sort of a video editing interface.
I know I have 50 illustrations due in a week and 5 songs to learn by Sunday, but I drop everything, grab a stop motion puppet I’ve been working on, shoot some really bad footage with my iPhone and start playing with the Photoshop video editor because having the ability to edit video in a program that I actually know how to work is pretty darn awesome.
I don’t know if I will be able to make the 50 spot illustration deadline or if I will torpedo the band on Sunday because I don’t know how to play the songs, but at least I figured out how to make videos in Photoshop this week!
An After Effects Experiment
I have a ton Adobe programs, but the only one I ever use is Photoshop (which is pretty ridiculous because these programs are awesome) but I don’t know how to run any of them. Over the last couple of weeks I have been trying to teach myself InDesign, Media Encoder and Premiere Pro. Tonight I was fiddling around with After Effects and came up with this little video. The program itself doesn’t seem to be very intuitive, but it will really do some neat tricks. All I was trying to do on this experimental video is see if I could insert some music into a clip… and I did it!
Law And Order
Curiosity killed the cat… but for a while I was a suspect…
Brother Thomas
Steve Leeper asked several of his artistic minded friends to send in a picture of the main character from his upcoming stop-motion animated film. Those images are just now starting to roll in and this was my take on Brother Thomas. You can see the other artists interpretations in the Brother Thomas Artist Gallery.
No Bull
Scientists tell us that the fastest animal on earth, with a top speed of 120 feet per second, is a cow that has been dropped out of a helicopter. -Dave Barry
Sailor Suit
A character development sketch.
Mousetrap
The early bird might get the worm, but it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Ostrich
A quick Saturday morning sketch before I go out and mow the yard. We finally got some rain here in Indiana so the grass is growing again. Too little, too late for the farmer’s corn. Forget about investing in gold, I’m stockpiling Frosted Flakes before they are ten dollars a box.
Dog Days Of Summer
The heat has kept me inside most of the summer. I can hardly wait to see what temperatures August has to bring.
Katniss Everdeen
OK, OK, this is not Katniss Everdeen… but it is a cat and I did read the Hunger Games books just to see what all the whooplah was about. Turns out they are a pretty good read and I’ve discovered my comprehension level of juvenile fiction is off the charts.
Dogged By Bad Weather
We here in Northeastern Indiana are currently going through the worst drought in ages. Get ready to pay through the nose for corn in the next few months.
Monday Morning
Monday morning… back to work.
Daniel Cover
This is the cover to a little soft cover book on Daniel I did a while back.
It’s Alive… And Eating Popcorn!
Jones brothers, sisters, inlaws, outlaws, nieces, nephews, kids and miscellaneous others traveled from all over the country to my Mother’s house last week for the 4th of July. With over 30 people in Mom’s house a bunch of us had to find other places to sleep when evening rolled around. As my family was leaving for the hotel the first night, my nephew Kyle said, “Hey Uncle Dennis, can I play around with that puppet of yours tonight?” I said sure and left it with him. When I showed up the next morning he had created this test clip with his MacBook. I love the way my goofy little sock puppet snaps to life in it. I think it’s fabulous!
Catapult
This is a picture I did quite a while back, but it’s still one of my favorite cats…
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