The beach at Sawyer, Michigan

The Lake Michigan beach near my home offers great photographic possibilities.


A rather unusual morning with a wonderful color mood.




Misty mornings are especially interesting.


Lots of gulls usually dominate the beach.


A sunset scene with aircraft trails in the sky.

More digital beach photos

The light is different every morning, often spectacular.


Sometimes the moon is visible.


As the sun rises these great color effects don't last long.


Dawn at Lake Michigan.


Misty mornings create a very different mood.

My digital photographs

I live in a very beautiful area of western Michigan, near the Indiana border. My town is Sawyer and I am a short walk from Lake Michigan. Frequently I walk down to the beach at dawn to take some photographs, often the views are spectacular. Only once or twice have I seen anyone else on the beach at that time, people don't know what they're missing. Here are few of my photographs, most were taken with a very small Pentax Optio S. It's only a 3.2 megapixel camera, but I can easily make large sharp 13 x 19" prints without any trouble.


I am thinking about doing a book of these photos and I have done a cover layout.


None of these photos have been altered in any way on the computer.


It seems that every morning is different, the colors and mood changing daily.


This shot happens to be taken at dusk.


Another photograph taken at sunset, the colors are unusually beautiful.


Here's my tiny Pentax Optio S, it actually fits into that Altoids box and is very easy to carry around. I have several larger Pro cameras, but the Pentax is usually in my pocket when I go for a stroll.

Another strange photomontage

Photomontages are great fun to create and are relatively easy to do in a simple program like Photoshop Elements 2.0.


A photo of my old cat, Soto, he was a fine boy but is no longer with us. When I first got Soto I also adopted a Scotch Terrier puppy which we named Angus. They were like brothers and got along very well.
Anyway, I thought that this photo might make an interesting photomontage.


A photo taken in Puerto Vallarta.


I added more dark foreground to the Mexican scene and by combining the two photos I created a weird, but interesting scene.

Back from Florida

Just got back from Jacksonville, Florida where Gloria and I attended the 50th anniversary Corvair Convention. Lots of Corvair fans brought their cars, most were in beautiful shape.


A golden beauty.




I was invited to attend the convention as I designed and did the artwork for the original announcement teaser ads that appeared in newspapers across the country. It's hard to believe that fifty years have passed since then.

My cats are great fun

Gloria and I are still at the Corvair convention in Jacksonville. Here are a few more cat pix minus Tiff.

Sometimes it's difficult to work on the computer

My chair ? That's Jpeg and Tiff taking over.




Jpeg loves to snooze like this while I work on the computer.


Jpeg just loves that moving arrow !

50th anniversary of the Corvair !

I worked at Campbell Ewald in Detroit on the Chevrolet account for a few years starting in 1956, first as head art director on Chevrolet sales promotion, then on the national magazine ads. After that I was working with Fenton Luedke in a special group called PLUS ONE. We were in direct competition with the regular Chevrolet group and were encouraged to come up with wild ideas.That lasted about a year for me. Jim Hastings was moving up and offered me his job as creative director. I decided against it as I wanted to pursue an illustration career and I quit the agency. I was also weary of agency politics. Upon quiting, I was immediately rehired to work on a very secret project, the Corvair announcement ads. Hastings set me up in an office in the GM Building near Campbell Ewald, my first job as a freelancer. Because of my involvement with these Corvair announcement ads I was invited to come down to Jacksonville, Florida for the CORSA's 50th anniversary bash. I'll be meeting my old friend Fenton Luedke as he was also invited. Should be fun.


I was asked to design a 50th anniversary medalian pictured above.


Here are some of the announcement ads that ran in the newspapers across the country. I decided to utilize a cartoon approach as a strong design element.

More digital masks

You can see that I was having a great time with this project, the computer is an amazing medium for artists.




I love it when one medium or direction sparks another one. I am fascinated with all of the art mediums and have experimented quite a bit with many of them over the years.

One art medium can spark another

Masks have always held a fascination for me since an early age. They are a universal phenomenon and were originally used as a ritual tool or cult object. Today we consider those masks as works of art devoid of any ritualistic meaning. My objective was to create a modern version of a mask and use the opportunity to experiment with design in the process. It all started when I was building my new home in Sawyer, Michigan when the builder saved me some pieces of wood that were part of the beams in the house.



My first masks were carved from Douglas fir and I later experimented with many other woods such as mahogany, cherry, walnut, pine, sassafras, cottonwood and basswood.




These are two of my favorite carvings. When the carving is finished I wax and polish the wood. I was pretty excited about this project and decided to experiment with a few digital versions of the masks.


Here are some of the first digital prints that I produced in this series. It was a very interesting project to work on. I felt that an exhibition of the carved masks and the digital prints would be quite interesting.


These limited edition prints are done on 13 x 19" archival paper using pigmented inks.

The face on the wall demo

An interesting wall photo taken in Lucca, Italy.


A dramatic shot of my grandson Mike.


I resize his head and crop the photo.


Mike's head is positioned over the wall photo.


I decrease the opacity of the head to about 60 percent.


Then, using the airbrush Tool, I blend the head into the background creating an interesting photomontage.