Adobe illustrator: Drawing Charlie Brown and Linus

I took an online course to learn Adobe Illustrator, a graphic art and drawing program.  I think it will be an asset for making memes, illustrations, cartoons, logos and what-not.  My first practice exercise after completing the course was to draw Charlie Brown and Linus, standing behind the stone wall in the snow.  I added animated snow using Photoshop, but the drawing itself is all Illustrator.  (Click on the picture to see a larger version.)

My Drawing of Charlie Brown (#Illustrator)

I figured I could study or draw Charlie Brown.  Charlie won.  I drew him in a blue shirt instead of the usual orange or yellow.

Charles Schultz, the cartoonist who invented the comic series "Peanuts," knew well the cares and concerns of grade school kids.  There were kite-eating trees, baseball teams that never won a game, little Red Haired girls that captured your heart.  There was an obnoxious brunette (Lucy) who tricked you into kicking a football that was drawn away at the last minute.

 The upside of childhood, however, was a loyal dog with a great imagination (at times assuming the role of a World War I Ace pilot, a lawyer, or a writer), and whose best friend was a bird who often flew upside down.  There was Peppermint Patty, a kind of young hippie/tomboy who wore sandals and played great baseball, and Linus, a kid who was overly attached to a blanket and who believed in The Great Pumpkin.

Charlie Brown, however, was the chief protagonist in this drama of life, always screwing up, failing at everything he tried, enduring one humiliation after another, but who never quit trying.  Alas, he never was able to connect with the little Red-Haired girl whom he loved from afar.

There are a lot of us who can identify with Charlie Brown.

Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here" (Video)

I have been noticing a growing number of visitors looking for information on the late, great jazz pianist, Vince Guaraldi.  I have two previous posts on Guaraldi that honored him on the anniversary of his death, here and more importantly, here.  It seems the Christmas season revives interest in the Vince Guaraldi Trio, since the trio was famous for its music in "A Charlie Brown Christmas," recorded in 1965.

Below is a video (of music only) featuring Vince Guaraldi's instrumental version of "Christmas Time Is Here."

Remembering Charles Schultz and Charlie Brown

I didn't have much to do at work today so I drew this cartoon of Charlie Brown instead. It's a tribute to Charles Schultz, left and Vince Guaraldi, Right. Charlie's the guy in the middle.

Spring is on the way and with spring comes baseball. Kids will don their oversized baseball mitts and head out to the playing field in search of athletic glory.

Charlie Brown was the perpetual loser, never winning a single baseball game. Life gets discouraging at times and we all feel like Charlie Brown on occasion.

I miss him, his creator the great Charles Schulz, and Vince Guaraldi, the jazz artist who wrote so much of the cool music for the television cartoon series.  It sucks to know that there won't be any more Charlie Brown cartoons and there won't be any more Vince Guaraldi jazz.  What we have now is all we're going to get.

What has this got to do with politics and the current events of the day? Not a damn thing. Ain't it great? You'll have to excuse me, I'm a bit bored with it all and in a rather strange mood today.

In Memoriam: Vince Guaraldi Died 33 Years Ago Today

One of my biggest music heroes is the famous jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi. Vince died 33 years ago today - on Friday, February 6, 1976. He was playing a gig at Butterfield's nightclub in Menlo Park, California. While relaxing between sets in a room at the Red Cottage Inn, he died of a sudden heart attack. He was 47 years old.

Guaraldi was born in San Francisco and was a Bay Area resident his whole life. He began recording with his jazz trio in the early 1950's and became famous in the 1960's for two reasons: (1) he wrote and recorded an all-time jazz super hit, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" and (2) he was asked by cartoonist Charles Schultz to write and perform musical scores for television shows about Charlie Brown of "Peanuts" cartoon fame. Guaraldi went on to record such hits as "A Boy Named Charlie Brown," "Linus and Lucy" and others. On the morning of his death, he recorded the score to "It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown," which is available for viewing on YouTube.

Snoopy sometimes played "Joe Cool" ("hangin' round the water fountain playin' the fool") wearing shades, but Vince Guaraldi was the real Joe Cool.

Vince's death was sudden and unexpected and cut short a great music career. No doubt he had much more to give the world had he lived his full life span.

I am off work today so plan to make a pilgrimage to Vince Guaraldi's grave near San Francisco, even though it's raining hard today. But first I will stop by the Red Cottage Inn in Menlo Park. The hotel still exists, though Butterfield's nightclub apparently does not. I will take some pictures.

It's something I feel I have to do. Maybe remembering Vince Guaraldi doesn't mean that much to Vince, who's trying to figure out how to tune harps to play jazz somewhere above the clouds. But it means that much to me.

God bless you Vince Guaraldi. I'll visit you later today.

Meanwhile, you can all listen to Vince Guaraldi play the Peanuts theme in the video below.