Category Archives: Uncategorized

Mike Murphy and Blueberry Bates have gone back in time to a year Jesus might’ve walked the Earth. It is a digital art practice using a colored pencil drawing, several photos of things like hair and sackcloth clothing, and a background that is really a train station but fuzzed up to look like a temple. I used digital tools to put it together rather than Photoshop.

I write stories about orphans and abused kids. So, making illustrations is something useful to do. Arthritis in my hands, however, puts a limit on everything. Even how much typing I can do.

These are made with shortcuts, tracing photographs I like, and coloring with digital brushes that can go outside the lines and easily get cleaned up later.

Occasionally using digital tools allows some very subtle detail work in spite of arthritic fingers.

Some very old pictures can become new art. But here I forgot how many legs women are supposed to have. It isn’t just my hands that are getting old. I didn’t see it until after I transferred it to the finished picture file. I should’ve saved each layer as I went.

My family sends me a photo of their weekend in San Antonio as I am stuck at home in Dallas. Left to Right, my wife, my niece, my daughter, and my number two son.

Suki has many shoes.

The twins love to dance on Tik Tok.

Such a tragic look on Val’s face.

An Iowa Hawkeyes fan…

Lady Pirates!

The picture I edited to make the pirates.

“Lady Godiva”

“Young Mickey in the Forest”

Millis

He was once an ordinary pet rabbit, transformed through an accident involving a time-traveler’s alien-created mechanical carrot.

He is a character in;

The Bicycle-Wheel Genius

       Mike Murphy and Blueberry Bates (his girlfriend)  (She forced me to write that last thing, Mike.)

Mike is a member of the Murphy clan who resides in Murphy Mansion with many other Murphys.  Blueberry is the girl who chased him until she caught him and turned him into her boyfriend.

Seen in the novels;

The Bicycle Wheel Genius

Magical Miss Morgan

Catch a Falling Star  (only Mike is in that one)  (He forced me to write that, Blue)

The Necromancer’s Apprentice  (Mainly Blueberry in this one.  Mike is only comic relief.)

Valerie Clarke

Valerie is a young Iowan farmgirl who lost her father far too soon.  She loves skateboards, 80’s music, and boys, especially boys who can sing.

She is a main character in;

Snow Babies

Sing Sad Songs

She is also an important character in;

The Bicycle-Wheel Genius

Sherry Cobble

Sherry and her twin sister, Shelly, look almost exactly alike.  They are, with both of their parents, practicing nudists.  They love being nude at home on the farm, at the Sunshine Club in Clear Lake, and at school when they can get away with it (which is mostly a matter of girls’ locker rooms.)

Sherry and her twin are  important characters in;

     Superchicken

     Recipes for Gingerbread Children

     The Baby Werewolf

The Boy… Forever

A Field Guide for Fauns

     Orben Wallace, bicycle engineer

Orben came to Norwall after a tragic fire in his home and laboratory killed his family.  He switched from physics to bicycle engineering and opened a new lab where it is rumored that he also created sentient robots, time travel machines, supercomputers, and had relationships with aliens and time travelers.  Of course the only physical proof of anything are the bicycles he made.

He is a main character in; The Bicycle-Wheel Genius

He is also an important character in; Catch a Falling Star

Anneliese Stein

Anneliese is a gingerbread cookie brought back to life through the magical baking skills of her human mother, Grandma Gretel Stein.  She was also a human girl in the 1930s and early 1940s who also had, unfortunately, a Jewish father.  Okay, I know… I will explain better later.

She is an important character in;

Recipes for Gingerbread Children

The Necromancer’s Apprentice

This will have to be finished another day.  I have too many more characters to show you, and my Internet is giving out.