I was always interested in art growing up. I was a shy boy without many friends, living in the country. Being pretty isolated I had to find things to do to keep myself amused and drawing filled a void. Also, my mother was an amateur artist, so I guess I came by it honestly!

But whereas my mother tended towards oil paints and portraits, I focused on comic book and cartoon characters, using pencil and ink to create sketches. At times I would color them using color pencils or pastels. Eventually I studied art in College.

In 1990, I married my wife and found that she had written a story about two mischievous cabbages that just couldn’t stop getting into trouble. This terrible brother and sister team would terrorize the garden. Below is a character study showing the brother in a tug-o-war contest with an ornery vine:

Ultimately we never completed the project. One scene had the cabbages sliding down a compost heap and that just seemed wrong! Think about it…

It’s hard to believe that I did this, along with many other character sketches for the same story, over 30 years ago! You can see another piece of my artwork here.