Sunday, November 11, 2012

Thank You Veterans!

Sky High
Today is Veteran's Day in the US.  I'd like to give a big thank you to all the veterans out there as well as the men and women who are serving our country.  I'm very grateful to be an American citizen.  I'm grateful for all the opportunities that I have and I'm grateful to the nation that took my family in and embraced us as one of her own. 

Manny
This was a commission I did last year, I feel terrible it took this long to post about it.  This "Sky High" crayon set has to be one of my favorite pieces to date.  It came at the request of Carmen as a "Welcome Home" gift to Manny, a retired Army helicopter pilot.  In her words, "Having him come home meant the world to me as he was medivac-ed out of Afghanistan, alive".  Manny has served for +18 years in the US Army, with the last 8 years in combat.  Thank you for picking me to make such a special gift Carmen!  I wish the two of you many happy years together!

Helicopter
This is my interpretation of Manny's Kiowa helicopter. There was a lot of creative challenges on how to represent such a large object with so many details on such a small surface. I ended up wrapping the helicopter's image around the crayon. You would have to spin the crayon around to see the full image. You can click on the image to see a larger resolution.