Rest in Peace, Cuthbert

On June 2, 2015 a friend and former confrère of mine, Fr. Cuthbert A. Jack, O.S.B., was laid to rest. You can read his obituary here. After his funeral the monks of St. Vincent Archabbey most certainly entoned the Benedictine Ultima, a rendition of which, accompanied by none other than Yo-Yo Ma, can be seen and heard by clicking on this YouTube link. See the Benedictine Ultima lyrics and sheet music below.

(Revised 6/12/15) Thirty five years ago Cuthbert and I – along with something like 13 others – were in the same, unusually large novice class. From that novice class only two remain, one at the abbey and the other at a parish not too far from the abbey. My condolences to them. Astonishingly, Cuthbert was the fifth to die from that group of novices. The others are off doing one thing or another. Read Cuthbert’s obituary; multiply it by 100. Why? He was a character for Christ’s sake!

See the three YouTube videos – inserted below – of Cuthbert making bread.

Cuthbert

Procreate, Sty-HD stylus, freehand with photo reference (See obituary or watch progress video.)

Benedictine Ultima

They’re Everywhere…

…and there’s even a Facebook page: Carros Clásicos de Cuba! So, on our two flights back home, I put stylus to screen in Procreate for a side by side freehand guided by a photo that Annyth took with her iPhone. Habana-clásico

BB

BB

I’ve been listening to a lot of BB King in the last couple of days. So I thought I’d pay my respects in a rendering.
Here’s the reference photo I used to do a side by side, freehand in Procreate of the one and only, BB King.

BB can play some face too, as illustrated so well in this clip I got from YouTube.

Legal Size Me

LegalSizeMe

According to Annyth, these repeatedly signed, initialized, and dated documents hereby say, “You’re screwed; we’re not.” In just a few days they’ll also mark our reversion back to being home owners after being renters since June of 2008, when we sold our house in New Orleans (see digital story with original soundtrack), which, by the way, was the very last house to sell in the entire Western Hemisphere after the bursting of the housing bubble.

Pucker Danny – Updated: Now includes an 18-sec., silent PhotoSpeak animation.

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Technical: Here’s another one in Procreate (iPad) done by using a photo reference to guide a free-hand, side-by-side drawing, this time of Danny DeVito, puckering somewhat, well, not as much as he’s puckering in this photo.

See progress video.

Van

 

Van_Final

Technical: A Bradley Quinn photo on Facebook of Van Morrison and colleagues caught my eye. Try here just in case. I saved and cropped the image to my iPad and imported it into Procreate, where I used it as a side-by-side, free-hand reference.
Here’s a progress video of most of the drawing.

Spatial Edition

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Technical: Started this one in Paper 53, primarily because of the fountain pen inking and the color brush, saved it in iPhoto camera roll, imported it into Procreate, tried some things, but focused on color and texture adaptation. I like it dark. Here’s a very short progress video.

Smile Charlie Chaplin

Final scene from “Modern Times.” (1936)

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Technical: The song, Smile popped into my head earlier today, and when I searched for recordings, I discovered that the melody had been composed by none other than Charlie Chaplin for the movie Modern Times (1936). Lyrics for the melody were subsequently written by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons in 1954. At any rate, I stumbled upon this image and decided to use it as a reference for a free-handed drawing in Procreate.

Sleep 6.1

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Technical
I sketched this in Procreate. I’m still exploring its features, not to mention sketching techniques in general. Click to see progress video.