I usually only post design related articles, etc…but really wanted to take a minute and talk about a little trip Mason and I had a couple of weeks ago.

For the first time he and I spent the night camping out. I wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to handle this, in fact I was very concerned when we stepped foot on the first trail at Jones Gap State Park, he jumped and ran screaming “Ants! Ants! Ants!”. However after explaining the delicate fast walk through the ants on the trail he then quickly jumped back into his vivid imagination and began explaining how “Batman” would handle the ants in trails like these.

This First Annual Father Son Camping Trip actually shaped up really great other than the fact that they placed us a half mile from the parking lot. I think Mason and I actually hiked about 5 miles after making multiple trips with our own gear combined with helping others out. The location wasn’t completely ideal and rather remote but after everyone finally made it to the campsite, I heard someone exclaim “I love how beautiful this is!”.

I started trying to get the fire lit about 4:30 which took me about a half hour to finally get really going. Of course a little “gas-a-starter” really helped do the trick. In all we had 16 guys and their sons show up to this first event. This wasn’t about having any real set plans…just getting together and having some good personal times with our sons. Mason helped me setup our tent for about 2 minutes then ran off to play swords. After getting my tent up I went over to a friends site to help him set up who of course was doing it by himself while his son was busy climbing a rock high enough to break a leg.

In fact I think the last tent was finally set about 9:30 and totally in the dark using only flashlights, but we got it done. Hamburgers were the best thing for that night and everyone managed to get theirs totally burnt with even a few ashes from the fire. Mine however I think was super well done as the grease drippings kept catching them on fire. It’s sorta hard to grab a hold of a burger with a spoon that was cut down to fit the mess bag, but I finally managed to get it out of the fire and onto homemade buns especially prepared by my lovely @leprakans (twitter) wife.

I have to admit I don’t really sleep that well when I go camping, never have, probably never will, I just hear everything. So I stayed up quite late talking around the fire. Mason however fell asleep around ten and never woke up all night. Of course the air mattress we had purchased the day before really helped and the next day everyone else realized I had the right idea and swore to bring one next year.

Probably one of the biggest successes were the glow sticks that my brother supplied me straight from the army. Every kid had two and were running around with them. At least we never had to wonder where they were, I could even see when Mason fell. Poor guy he fell quite often but he was such the trooper and still asks when we are planning on going on the next trip together.

The next day we packed up and headed off…okay we labored for two hours to get everything cleaned up after making breakfast and sitting around the fire for an hour and hiking back the half mile to the cars and losing things in the creek…then finally drove up to Caesars Head where all the boys loved running through the narrow trails at the top. After a packed lunch we were done, but I will remember this little quick one day trip for a long time. One of the best time I’ve had with just Mason and I. “Thanks Buddy you make it all worth it & Thanks Sweet Pea and Boo for letting us go”!

…and thanks to all the guys from Lifepoint for coming!

It’s Saturday March 12th and we are officially in our new house. The greatest thing about this move is that I will have my own studio, at least in my opinion it is. After living in a old cotton mill for almost 3 years we are looking forward to having a yard and the room to move about without bumping into each other.

My wife loves old houses and this is one of the houses that would have been owned by someone in management at the mill that we are moving from. It is only about 500 yards from The Lofts of Greenville.

I will hopefully be able to get more artwork done because I will have a 140 sq. foot room dedicated to myself and painting or whatever I decide to do. I expect it will be a little messy but it will be mine and intended for me to be able to work freely without having to put something up so it won’t get messed up.

Stay tuned for more photos from the new studio…

Client: Drum Creative for ARBA | Photoshop, WordPress and CSS, with jquery

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Augusta Road is a unique shopping district just outside of the metropolitan area in in Greenville, SC with fashionable stores and businesses that feature products that can only be found in that area of town.

ARBA approached drum creative with the challenge of updating and rebranding their business association logo and website.

Visit Site: OnlyOnAugusta.com

Client: Drum Creative for Greenville County Recreation District | Vector Illustration in Adobe Illustrator

I was very involved in working on this great new Rails to Trails initiative at Drum Creative that is being driven by the City of Greenville, The Greenville County Recreation District and sponsored by the Greenville Hospital System.

The logo was a collaboration effort between Joe LaPenna and myself driven by Ty Hauck and Mike Teachey with GCRD.

This is a complimentary brochure I designed that GHS was using as a promotional piece to begin driving a “Soft Opening” of the trail during the 2008 USA Cycling Championships downtown Greenville.

Swamp Rabbit Pocket Map

Client: Drum Creative for True Craft Homes | Photoshop, html and flash intro. Managed Photo Gallery in PHP

Not much really to say about this design but it was the last site I designed in straight html and css. I believe it evokes the type of houses that True Craft Homes builds.

Client: GrandmaGermansBread.com | Application: Vector logo in Illustrator

My wife, Jodee has been baking bread using a recipe that was handed down from her mother and it is absolutely wonderful. In fact it is so good, that we are working on a website to begin selling it. This logo uses a icon in the shape of a house or slice of bread to evoke that homemade goodness of bread your grandma use to make.

Client:

Melissa Ringler a good friend of mine approached me the beginning of December to see if I would be interested in working on a website for her blacksmith business. She brought me a number of jewelry pieces that she had hammered out and WOW was I blown away by what she could do. The color in these pieces are natural from the heat that is applied to the metal.

I am now in the process of finishing up the programming on this site. It is a ecommerce site built on cube cart version 4 open source platform. Well it’s not so open source anymore (version 3 still is) but still a great platform. Check it out at magicmetalsltd.com

The painting is currently hosted by Diane Elftmann at her home in Greenville, SC.

Client: Drum Creative for Fruit of The Loom | Photography, Photoshop & Illustrator

This was to be a campaign directed toward Screenprinters to advertise their new pricing on Fruit of the Loom Lofteez Blank Tshirts. Unfortunately the Fruit of The Loom Division we were dealing with decided to pull the entire campaign due to budget restraints. They loved the idea….

“Mist” | Acrylic on wood | 36″ x 80″ | $895| I was going to paint over this one. However, sometimes your wife will convince you otherwise and now this painting hangs over our bed. I agree it actually looks pretty good. I was disappointed at first because It did not come out at all how I envisioned it, but now that it has been hanging over our bed for the last 5 months, I think it actually looks pretty good in there. I am calling it “Mist” because that is what it looks like. In truth the Mist was actually my beginning to paint over it, but I was stopped abruptly as my wife stated “Now I like it” so it remains alive.

UPDATE: JAN. 1. 2010 – I want to personally thank The National Cat Grooming Association for becoming a Mini-Gallery for “Mist”. You can view this painting at 701 Pendleton Street Greenville, SC 29601

(All artwork comes with papers of authentication that are sealed and stamped. All artwork is hand delivered in GA, FL, SC, AL, NC, TN, & VA)