mrbiggstuff

Some designs from my brother's bowls

2011-02-10T15:53:00.002-05:00

Worth watching if you missed it.....

2008-11-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

2008-11-03T10:32:00.000-05:00

Tumbling Dice

2008-08-24T13:24:00.003-04:00

A Day at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo

2008-08-23T10:00:00.002-04:00

Yesterday G and I took Ruby and her friend "Special K" to the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

a couple of images

2008-07-23T21:51:00.002-04:00

Newspaper Rock -- Where Native America Meets Pop Culture

2008-07-06T11:24:00.000-04:00

Newspaper Rock -- Where Native America Meets Pop Culture

"The Exiles"

2008-07-06T11:17:00.002-04:00

Happy Fourth

2008-07-04T08:57:00.002-04:00

This sketch was done while sitting at our garage sale. Now that was a great opportunity for drawing a still life. To bad I didn't think of that until just now.

This past Wed. Ruby had to go in for a hearing test and this is the booth she was in while the test was being conducted.

This is the shop where I work. It's from the breakroom which looks down on the floor from the second floor.

These sketches are based on another artist's work on the internet. I'm sorry but I can't recall the site.

2008-05-17T12:45:00.001-04:00

Some Things I've been working on...

2008-03-02T21:10:00.002-05:00

I worked with a steel nib and holder on this one.

I am inspired by Bill Waterson's work.

mrbiggstuff

2008-02-25T07:12:00.001-05:00

I CAN NOW POST VIDEOS???

2008-02-23T12:31:00.003-05:00

This is a little movie I made quite a few years ago when we were visiting my mother at her assisted living facility.

where have I been???

2008-02-23T12:23:00.002-05:00

I can't believe it's been over a year since I last posted. That doesn't mean I haven't been doin' stuff, it just means I've haven't done anything worth publishing or maybe it's been too big to publish or something like that.

another contribution for no one

2006-12-03T20:43:00.000-05:00

NEW SCHEDULE

2006-11-23T12:41:00.000-05:00

I've rearranged my schedule to make room for drawing and painting. Instead of going to the gym at lunch I go to the library instead. I look for books with interesting (to me) pictures and I grab desk with side panels and draw and paint for about an hour.
The bottom drawings are from a book about local houses that have been saved from the wrecking ball. Both of these houses are in the neighborhood where I grew up. I'm not always in favor of "preserving history" but they make for nice images to draw.

2006-11-12T09:22:00.000-05:00

Link

2006-11-12T09:18:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to take a simple shape with one color to do a value study.

This is one of my daughters toys placed on a kitchen towel. I walked away from this still life for a few minutes and someone thoughtfully put it away while I was gone.

Someone from the newspaper

This is a toy that my wife has on her dresser. It's from the movie, "Monsters Inc.". I wanted to depict a model of a charactor and have it retain it's plastic attributes. If that makes any sense to any one.

An Apache buckskin cap found in the book, "500 Nations" by Alvin Josephy. I lost the contrast and started using prisma pencils to dig myself out of the mud. I'm using a small moleskin watercolor sketchbook and I'm falling off the page because I'm not planning for the small surface.

Link

2006-11-11T21:53:00.003-05:00

Link

ALMOST FORGET THIS ONE......

2006-08-27T22:11:00.000-04:00

">Link

Giving It A Chance

2006-08-27T13:43:00.000-04:00

">Link

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

2006-08-18T17:22:00.000-04:00

">Link

Friday Afternoon

2006-08-18T17:13:00.000-04:00

">Link
Tomorrow is Ruby's birthday. She will be nine years old.

recent developments

2006-08-07T07:30:00.000-04:00

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Lunchtime @ Blandford Nature Center

2006-07-28T17:59:00.000-04:00

Lately, on my lunch hour, instead of going to the gym I'll bring my pen or pencil and sketchbook and go to Blandford to do some drawing. These are just a small collection since I started doing this.

COUNT THE BIGGS IN ON THIS ONE!!!

2006-07-14T11:09:00.000-04:00

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

Who: Ted

What: Birthday

Where: *

Why: BECAUSE WE LIKE YOU!
When: Thursday, July 27th, 2006:anytime after 5:00 pm-(??)

How: Plane, Train or Automobile

Clarifications:

Bring yr kids if you got em...., Dead Animals to grille or Vegetables to stir-fry , if you eat it,.... liquor, beer or wine, if you drink it, .....a swimsuit or Birthday suit, .....if you have one. A white Elephant B-day gift,.... if yr generous.

Ye olde Ted, thee 34 yeare olde Towne Cryer!

(sung to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Theme song)

Who's the leader of the club
That's made for you and me
T-E-D-*-*-*-*
/ G - / A7 D7 / G C GD7 G /

Hey there hi there ho there
You're as welcome as can be
T-E-D-K-L-U-G
Ted *(Donald Duck)
Ted * (Donald Duck)
Forever let us hold your banner high (high, high, high!)

/ C - / G - / A7 - D7 - /

Come along and sing a song
And join the jamboree
*-*-*-*-*-*-*

[Ending theme, much slower:]

Now it's time to say goodbye
To all our company

T-E-D-, See you real soon
A-L-L-E-N, Why? Because we like you
*-*-*-*

3-16-2006

2006-03-19T19:38:00.000-05:00

fun with charcoal

2006-03-15T20:32:00.000-05:00

I started this drawing last friday and rediscovered a medium I only used in figure drawing classes. I think the secret to this is to start out simple in terms of values and refine as you go as far as you want to go. I could've finished a lot more projects in one the many art classes I flunked had I just started out in a very general way and refined the work as time allowed.

Robert Biggs @ the Museum

2006-02-16T17:57:00.000-05:00

mrbiggstuff's day off

2006-02-16T17:50:00.000-05:00

I took the day off and went to the Grand Rapids Public Museum today. I took my sketchbook with me and decided I would ignore anyone who wants to tell my how wonderful me and my drawings were. I mean, I had a lot of drawing to do in a short amount of time and I could not be bothered by the masses who want to touch me and marvel at my talent. There were kids of all ages there and a large gaggle of seniors and none of which showed the least bit of interest in what I was doing. Who needs them anyway.

Today's accomplishments

2006-02-12T21:17:00.000-05:00

My daughter Ruby agreed to stand still for me while I drew her.

Lois, my niece, also agreed to stand still long enough for me to draw her. She spent the day with us today and we all had a great day.

I finally made a decent transfer. Now I just have to learn how to use it as part of the whole.

An Evening With Winona Laduke

2006-02-05T07:46:00.000-05:00

Last thursay evening it was my honor to attend a talk given by Winona LaDuke @ Grand Valley University downtown campus. I sketched her while she spoke and asked her to sign my sketch for me which she happily complied. Miigwetch, Winona.
To learn more about Winona please click on the "Native Harvest" link in the column on the left.

What I Do

2006-01-26T21:11:00.000-05:00

TABLES FOR LADIES BY HOPPER

2005-12-22T21:41:00.000-05:00

CHRISTMAS OBJECTS

2005-12-20T21:23:00.000-05:00

THE INSIDE OF MY JOURNAL

2005-12-08T21:04:00.000-05:00

Doing work that is "liked" is no longer a concern.
If you don't like it
I don't care
Whether anybody "likes" it or not is no longer what motivates me.
It's no longer an issue I want to bother myself with.
I want to take my name out of that race.
I just want to do it.

MY JOURNAL COVER

2005-12-07T21:29:00.000-05:00

I'm venturing into the world of journal art and altered books. Why not?

AGAIN WITH THE HOPPER?

2005-12-03T14:06:00.000-05:00

Another painting influenced by Hopper.

FEEDING THE LOCAL WILDLIFE

2005-11-30T21:24:00.000-05:00

MORE OF NOTHING BETTER TO DO

2005-11-26T21:36:00.000-05:00

Just in case you're wondering it's not a mullet. It may look like one but it's not. It was cutting edge style.

NOTHING BETTER TO DO

2005-11-26T21:32:00.000-05:00

After a Long Absence

2005-11-23T12:22:00.000-05:00

I think I'd like to try doing a little more pencil. I don't see a lot of it these days and that was always the one item I could put my hands on when I wanted to draw as a kid. This image was taken from a book.
Yesterday I went to a local bookstore and found a Hopper on clearance for only six bucks. I was trying to choose between it and a how-to magazine. I decided I could learn more by painting from Hopper reproductions than I ever could from a magazine.
Stuff on a Table

Sometimes I get a little uptight about what I should sketch. This time I loosely applied watercolor to objects just sittin' around and then I added more layers of watercolor until I lost control. At that point I found some white and black prisma color pencils and tried to dig my way out of the mud.

Gourds

What more can I say?

From the past week.

2005-11-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

Ruby's Halloween treats.
While waiting for my new tires.

From a photo

Heavy Equipment on Wealthy Street

2005-10-25T20:43:00.000-04:00

Construction equipment on site in the D&W parking lot

Dylan

2005-10-22T08:36:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday to Me

2005-10-19T16:14:00.000-04:00

Today is my birthday so I took the day off and went outside on this sunny day to do some sketching at the local nature center. One of these is a doctored printout of a picture of my grandfather and my nephew.

2005-10-04T18:02:00.000-04:00

A couple more. These were meant to be for paint to be applied but Gretchen suggested that I may want to post them as line drawings first. I wonder why?. I kinda enjoyed drawing these flowers. I didn't worry too much about drawing from life. I just took whatever I wanted from the vase and put them wherever I wanted.

My sabatical

2005-09-27T20:59:00.000-04:00

Wow, it's been a long time. I almost forgot my password to get in here. The last time I posted some sketches was getting ready to set up at our local pow wow and do some caricatures in my brother's booth. I was a wary about doing this because i'm not very confident about my skills but Courtney, my brother, told me to get over it and come set up with him. So I did and I had a great time. Because I had so little experience with this I charged only five dollars a "head" and made about three hundred dollars over the weekend. It was cool. Pow Wows are a great place to meet people of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors and most are in a great mood. When the weekend was over I went home and set up my large sketch book and continued to draw more caricatures from memory. It was weird but I made great strides in skill after my weekend and during my practice.
I finally went out and bought some watercolors. I got a cotman field set. I thought this would be a great starter and I could easily use at home and outside with excuses. I have a lot to learn but I think I'm going to have learning and I'll worry about the Smithsonian Pieces some other time.

CHECKING IN

2005-09-15T11:17:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted any drawings for a while but I've got new stuff I'll put up soon, but first I want to just something while I've got my mind on it.
Regarding Native American mascots.
I'm really intrigued by this issue and why america is so resistant to letting them go. I think the reason is because in order to do that Native Americans may have to be recognized as U.S. citizens or maybe even as real people and not symbols of some mass fantasy of a "noble savage". And if Native Americans are seen as real people then African Americans, Latinos and poor people may have to be recognized and accepted as humans and if that happens then we may find ourselves seeing Iraqis as real people who love and fear and hope just like us. If all that occurs, we may just then realize what we are doing, have done and plan on doing. And that insight may be too overwhelming at this point in our country's history. Yeah, that's it. Thats why america clings to these idiot mascots the've constructed, it keeps the truth out of their reality just a little longer.

yet more biggstuff

2005-09-07T18:41:00.000-04:00

It's been a while

2005-09-07T18:31:00.000-04:00

This is an example of what happens when I fixate on a particular subject. In this case it's the hand. It occured to me how the hand is connected to the arm. How the wrist might work and what the relationship is between the hand and the thumb. I learned this all years ago in some Art School I flunked out of but for some reason it clicked today.
A diagram. What happens to us when we can't connect and why does it happen?
Courtesy CNN.com
Me obsessing with hands again.
Heroes out of ordinary folks.

The week at a glance

2005-08-27T09:01:00.000-04:00

Well, here's a collection of drawings in a format I chose arbitrarily full of subjects I sketched with no apparent relationship to each other. Take it or leave it.

John Lennon

2005-08-20T09:59:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid I would sit down at the table with a stack of notebook paper (taken from my older college student brother) and draw pictures of the Beatles. I spent 3 hours shading the upper lip of Ringo Starr.
My favorite was always John Lennon. I could never draw his guitar quite right or his face ( and I still can't) but I knew if I could get the way he stood while performing I was halfway to a good drawing. I remember one time, with my brother Courtney, doing a drawing of them performing and cutting out the figures and placing them in my grandparents headboard, which had a light, and playing the recently released, "P.S. I Love You" over and over again and pretending we were at a concert. Excellent.
His lyrics were more biting and creative causing me to think more. He was more of a smart ass ( which was a quality that went a long way with me), and you've got to love a famous artist that can flip off the world and do his or her own thing.
I think that the best thing ever said about him after his death was in a song by a punk band I can't remember in a song called "dead rock stars" and it goes like this, " I never cared much for John Lennon, but at least he didn't die in his own vomit". What an honor.

Catching Up

2005-08-19T10:48:00.000-04:00

These are just a few of the things I have been doing since last I posted. I'm looking at the pencil as an alternative. I would like a little more variations in my line weight that my one pen is not giving me. I can see myself buyin a larger sketch book real soon. That doesn't mean I'll abandon this one, I'll use the larger one for my weekend field trips.
I was pleasantly suprised by recent visitors to my site. They were my first ever comments since I started posting my own drawings. Thank y'all for that.

Here are 3 more for y'all to peep

2005-08-14T11:58:00.000-04:00

A voice is telling me to stop cuz I'm on some kind of ego trip. That voice is on the way out. No more limits. What does your voice tell you?

People on the Move

2005-08-11T20:36:00.000-04:00

Shorter days

2005-08-11T06:20:00.000-04:00

Hey, I see that some people are upset over the NCAA ruling regarding Native American mascots. Maybe it would help if they thought of those mascots as a wall. A wall that effectively separates Native American from the rest of the dominant culture. How about the walls being destroyed and maybe everyone can be seen as real people and not just hunting trophies in the den of the American male.

CUT SHORT

2005-08-10T08:18:00.000-04:00

I waited a little too long to start this sketch. Gretchen, Ruby and I were at the dog park where I sat for a long time watching Toonie bust out the other dogs when I finally found what I wanted to draw. After about 30 minutes it was time to leave cuz Toonie's play had degenerated into barking so I had to cut short my stunning compostion. I played with it a little when we got home by adding some callouts.

computer cabinet

2005-08-09T18:18:00.000-04:00

Thank goodness for our computer cabinet. If not for that our computer would have to be downstairs in our little basement and the world would not see a fraction of my drawings that it now has to endure.

G's Bike

2005-08-08T06:23:00.000-04:00

What can I say? She rides her bike to work every day. Twenty minutes there and twenty back. Hot or cold, sunny or cloudy. Her car sits idle in the garage and she also saves us big money in gas. I'm very proud of her.

Sieve

2005-08-07T11:09:00.000-04:00

This sieve was given to my lovely wife by a close and personal friend of ours the late George Lott and his wonderful wife Isabelle Lott. It's organic properties and "earth tones" caught my sparkling brown eye. Thank you very much and now go tell your friends.

Twofer

2005-08-06T08:38:00.000-04:00

I've forgotten what a difficult model you have work with when you do a self portrait. Every time I look up from my sketch book the model seems to have been distracted. I may have to outsource my self portait models.

My boots give me a kind of "Sheriff Taylor" look. Especially when the legs of my jeans hook onto the top of the boots. Sometime I just swagger into town and kinda patrol the town and make sure there aren't any "chicken thieves" plying their trade.

beer journal

2005-08-03T22:40:00.000-04:00

I got "told' tonight for leaving my beer bottle caps in the kitchen drawers. I considered it a form of journaling. Denied.

2005-08-03T22:12:00.000-04:00

A couple of sketches from the last few days. This is really fun and I'm amazed at how many things there are to draw and so little time.

Quiet Afternoon on Keneberry Way

2005-08-01T21:36:00.000-04:00

After a short shot of cool weathe the hot weather is returning and there is plenty to draw. This is a scene right out my front door.

Sunday Afternoon in the Park with Ruby

2005-08-01T06:24:00.000-04:00

Ruby and I went to the park to do some sketching. It was a great evening with a cool breeze in the shade.

2005-07-31T08:39:00.000-04:00

Today I went out to the local art store and purchased their last rapidoliner pen. The kid who sold it to me tried to sell a set of rapidiograph pens but I stood my ground and insisted on the last rapidoliner. I'm glad I did.

The past two days

2005-07-27T06:20:00.000-04:00

my kitchen counter

2005-07-20T23:40:00.000-04:00

It's pretty amazing how fast one can lose a sense of proportion.
This was drawn sitting at the kitchen table. I also think i should give my choice of color more thought.

July 18th 2005

2005-07-18T20:49:00.000-04:00

This is my first posted sketch. It's just me sitting down and drawing what's in front of me. I've added color. It's been a long time since I've worked with color and I was only able to scrape up a few tubes that haven't dried out over the years.

my first post

2005-07-14T15:28:00.000-04:00

It's only right that the first drawing on my blog should belong to the person who inspires me to draw again. This drawing entitled "blood orange sangria" is the work of my seven and a half year old daughter and will serve as the standard that I will attempt to attain.