Lucy Van Pelt and Peppermint Patty

 Two more for the Peanuts colletion:  Lucy Van Pelt and Peppermint Patty.  I have maye two more Peanuts girls to do, Marcie and Sally.

Linus and the Great Pumpkin 2026

 If you are less than 60 years of age, you may not be familiar with Charles Shultz or his body of work, known as the Peanuts Comic Strip. It ran in many newspapers from 1950 to early 2000, when he passed away at age 80.  One of his strips featured Linus, who had his own holiday, headed by the Great Pumpkin who would rise out of the Pumpkin Patch every Halloween to bring presents and gifts to kids everywhere.   My latest depiction of this story is below.

Linus Van Pelt of Charlie Brown Fame

 More Charlie Brown characters, drawn in in Adobe Illustrator.  Sorry for not posting more serious stuff with the world going to hell and all, but I just love doing it.  Also, you learn by doing, and to learn Illustrator, you must create many graphics and solve problems as they arise.  

I will use some of my graphic depictions in Holiday posts later on.

I do not own any "Peanuts" characters, they are owned by the estate of the late Charles Schultz, a personal hero of mine.  I recreate these images to honor the late, great Charles Schultz.  My use of these images is for educational purposes only.

Linus was always shown with messy hair and wearing a red shirt with black stripes. He is often seen clinging to a security blanket, a holdover from his early childhood that he hasn't been able to give up.   He is featured in tales of  'The Great Pumpkin," a kind of holiday hero like Santa Claus that Linus invented.  Every Halloween while the rest of the Peanuts gang are out trick or treating, Linus remains in the local pumpkin patch awaiting the arrival of the Great Pumpkin who supposedly will bring gifts to its faithful followers.  Linus is disappointed every time when the Great Pumpkin fails to appear.  Linus explains this by saying his pumpkin patch was not sincere enough and so was passed by.

Charles Schultz was a Christian and it seems he was satirizing some of the weird "Christinan" religions that have sprung up over the years, prophesying great rewards for their followers.  I won't mention who he might have been satirizing, but there are two major allegedly Christian religions that no doubt fall into this category.   

Improved Charlie Brown Image

 What the great Charles Schultz gave us with his "Peanuts" cartoons was to remind us of the joys of childhood.  That included pet dogs, baseball games and good friends.

I improved my earlier version of Charlie Brown by giving him a smile, some better shoes, a T shirt instead of one with lapels, and of course, a kite.  I may add Snoopy the dog later to make this childhood scene a bit warmer.

Added Snoopy 8/20/2026

Charlie Brown Drawn in Adobe Illustrator

Drawing Charlie Brown is harder than it looks, but here is my first effort this year.  Needs some tweaking.  I usually come back to the graphic after a day or two and make improvements.

Added Woodstock the bird 8/27/2026 

A Meme About the "Palestinians"

 I get very tired of reading about the "Paestinians" and their rants and raves.  Oh, the Israelis committed a "genocide" against the pitiful people of Gaza.  Here is some facts they never mention:

1.  The destruction of the Gaza viper's nest was payback for Islamic aggression, i.e. the October 7 surprise attack on Israel that murdered 1,200 innocent citizens for no other reason than that they were Jews.  

2.  The Gazans could have stopped the violence anytime by surrendering and agreeing to peace terms.  They refused to do so and are singularly responsible for the destruction of Gaza.  

Today i created a new version of my meme "Screw the Palestinians."

Here it is.  I post it on X as a response to Gazan propaganda.  Feel free to use it.

A Tiger Swallowtail in Adobe Ilustrator

I created this graphic of a butterfly yesterday, a Tiger Swallowtail.  It  took several hours.  This kind of activity is great for old guys like me, who need something to do to keep their minds active.

More From Adobe iallustrator; Assorted Animals

 A bird, a bat, a bunny and a dog.  Made in Adobe Illustrator.

In my Illustrator course we are instructed to draw some animals.  I am having fun doing it.

A Spooky Bat in Adobe Illustrator

 In order to learn Adobe Illustrator, you have to practice.

Just fooling around and I drew this Spooky Bat.  To make the wings bat-like, I used the Ellipse Tool.  I drew a long ellipse, then smaller ellpses to cut out the flap shapes using the shape builder tool.  

The head and ears were made with the rectangle tool and the polygon tool.  I used the pen tool to draw the eyes. 

To download the image, right click on it.

Making Memes In Adobe Illustrator

I recently began studying Adobe Illustrator again, a great graphics program for use in making graphic illustrations.  I am doing so through the "Bring Your Own Laptop" website.  I was a member of it in 2022 but let my membership lapse while I was laid up with a broken hip.

I am currently making a few "memes," that is graphics with a message.   Here is one I just made, for use on X, Elon Musk's site that was previously known as Twitter.   There is a lot of Yankee propaganda on X and ignorance of history and I see that memes of this sort are popular.