Sunday Sermon Series

Hello folks. Here is a sketch I made in church yesterday. Our guest preacher mentioned the shootings in South Carolina, which was already on everyone's mind I would guess. He also spoke about how we need to do the right things. To have integrity, to say no clearly, concisely, and with compassion when we need to. Even though God is walking with Karl through the midst of several storms at once, that man has more energy, emotion, and is better at speaking truth than I. I will never be as eloquent a speaker as Karl Johnson, but he said a lot of things that need saying, and that we need to do, not just say.

I really believe that if we don't stop hating people who believe or look differently than we do we will not survive as a nation. I don't know how to fix everything. I know that my God tells me to love you whether you agree with me or not. I do know that if each one of us doesn't try harder to show the people around us respect, and kindness this world will only get worse.

I hope that the people who read this will reach out to someone you meet and be kind, be respectful. I know sometimes it's hard, not everyone is going to react the way you want, but we have to do this. Before it's too late.

As always, thank you for stopping by here. God bless you, and I hope you will have a terrific day. -- Ry

Chip On A Bus

Today I'm sharing with you a sketch of Chip riding a bus. I'm working on a new story. Unlike the previous two picture books starring Chip this one is a middle grade book with illustrations. Probably a lot of illustrations, since I'm an illustrator/writer.

I have a lot of experience with buses. I used to ride an express to and from work in Portland each day for several years. I did a lot of sketching on those 40 minute rides.

Here we see Chip, and to a lesser extent his pal Fred who is sitting next to him. I have been drawing Chip for about 11 years now. One of the many things I like about writing a different kind of book like this (middle grade as opposed to picture book) is that I can be much more subtle. In a picture book you can't get away with the main character facing away from "the camera", in a big crowd. In a picture book your hero should be easy for the little kids to spot.

The guy coming up the stairs is a minor character, whose only job was to start the story off. But then I changed the whole beginning of the story, and this scene doesn't exist anymore. I won't tell you his name, because it was so good I'm recycling it and using it as the name of the antagonist in the new version of the story. Ha! Cliff hanger there.

As usual this drawing was done in a sketchbook, with pencil. No color on this because I don't have time to colorize a drawing I'm not going to use these days.

I hope you all are having a terrific day, take care, and God bless. --Ry

Sunday Sermon Series

Last Sunday our sermon was about the story of Ruth. Ruth is a story about how God redeems broken lives, brings light to the darkness.

One of the points Pastor Mike touched on was how Naomi's faith was highly visible to those around her. Naomi's faith made a big impact on her daughters-in-law, both of whom refused to leave her side even though their husbands (her sons) had died. Ruth went so far as to return to Naomi's homeland with her (a land that was a bitter enemy of Ruth's birthplace, Moab), and help provide for Naomi. Picture giving up your life here, moving to Iraq, or Iran for good to help your mother-in-law after your spouse has just died.

Rather than do what was easy or comfortable for herself, Ruth did what was best for Naomi. Ruth had seen something in Naomi that convinced her to do this. She had seen Jesus, she had seen "love one another" worked out day after day in Naomi's words and actions. It led me to think about how hard I try to "love one another", and how much harder I should be trying.

So as I listened to the sermon I drew this sketch. Jesus is seen directing Naomi. She is providing for a man, maybe a homeless man, I don't know, but a person in need. He definitely suffers from cartoony giant feet.

I hope you enjoyed this drawing, and thank you for stopping by.

Looping Seaside Animation

Hi everyone!

I spent the last few days creating this animation for the About/Contact page on my website. I asked a pal of mine(David Walters) how to avoid collecting spam through my contact page and he suggested CAPTCHA, which is great, but it would have taken me at least a couple weeks to dope it out and get it running right. I never have that kind of time. So instead I decided that it would be really hard for bots to scan and scrape an email address from a moving image, and since I love to draw and animate I went to work.

Ryan's Boats from ryanloghry.

I used muted colors, and pencil texture (in the pier, and the gull on the piling) to help this piece blend with my illustration style. I should have some artsy-fartsy, fancy pants reason, but I don't. I just really like the look of washed out color, translucent, so you can see the pencil work through it.

I was kind of bummed that the tops of all the buildings on the pier got cropped, but in order to get them close enough to see them, they were too tall for the frame. So Here is a small version of that drawing.

I also sketched some gulls sitting on top of the buildings, but they would have been so small, they would have been confusing. I might go back and add a couple 3D ones in though, so I can move them a little. We'll see.

Here is my original pencil sketch, all I had at first was the idea about the boats. When I put that scene together it looked so sparse, I knew I needed to add some more elements. So I drew the pier, and then built the clouds and the seagulls in 3D. The gulls were fun to animate. I still might add something in the foreground on the right hand side, to give the scene more depth.

I hope you enjoyed this peak behind the scenes. I sure enjoyed creating it. --Ryan

Celtic Cross

Hi everyone! Here is my latest drawing. As you can see I really enjoy drawing these Celtic crosses.

This particular drawing has significantly more detail than any other cross I have drawn so far. I added more Christian symbolism this time; the alpha and omega on either side of the globe, and the seven roses. The gears represent the intricate workings of God's creation. The distressed quality on the gears is meant to reflect the fallen nature of our world.

As usual this drawing was done with a mechanical pencil. This time I used a paper with a much smoother tooth, which allowed for more detail. I hope you enjoy it, as always feel free to leave a comment.

Race Caption

Hey everybody!

I saw a FaceBook post/image last week on a friend's wall that talked about Coffee hitting the bench, and Beer suiting up and getting in the game. The image had an old fashioned coach character yelling from the sidelines. Of course that made me start thinking about the race we are all in each week, and drawing my own version. Now you get to join in the fun! Post a caption for the image below. Be witty. Interact. Have fun.

I love the determined look on Coffee's face. He's worked so hard all week, and he is going to MAKE that hand-off. And Beer, just look at his goofy grin. You just know he's going to have fun this weekend.

Have a great week everyone. --Ryan

Celtic Cross and Rose

Hello everyone,

I hope you are enjoying the new year. We have been hit hard by the cold season in the Loghry home, thus my absence for the last few weeks.

I've uploaded another Celtic cross drawing to my store on Etsy. The image in this blog post is a close up, click here to view the item in my storefront on Etsy. This cross features a rose in the center, a tribute to my maternal grandmother who grew beautiful roses.

As usual this drawing is 5x7 and pencil on paper. This paper has a pretty heavy nap, so there is not a lot of intricate detail. There is of course a broad range of shaded values. I always try to give the illusion of depth in my work using pencil shading. This time however I didn't include a drop shadow for the cross itself (cast onto the background as in previous drawings).

As always, I hope you enjoyed this drawing, and will pass the link on to your friends and family. I hope you have a great day, thanks for stopping by!