Some caricatures from the weekend—
You can book me here: https://www.thebash.com/caricaturist/johnmanders
Some caricatures from the weekend—
You can book me here: https://www.thebash.com/caricaturist/johnmanders
Posted in character design, illustration process, self promotion
Tagged artist, caricature, entertainer, gig, graphic design, Sharpie, sketch, wedding
Yup, that’s me! I’m the caricaturist Ms Arendt mentions in this clip. On Saturday, September 10th I’ll be drawing caricatures at an elegant fundraiser— the Hospice of Jefferson County’s Masquerade Ball at the Harbor Hotel in Clayton, New York. My manager, Marie, will be on hand to keep my operation moving along smoothly! https://www.witn.com/video/2022/08/29/jefferson-county-hospice-masquerade-ball/
Posted in self promotion, Uncategorized
Tagged art, caricature, charity, costume, drawing, fundraiser, gig, hospice, masquerade, New York State, performance, sketch
Here’s a tiny handful of photos from my gig last weekend—the community event in Utica, New York.
Thanks again to Michael Purcell at A-1 Entertainment for hiring me!
Posted in illustration process, self promotion
Tagged art, caricature, community, drawing, event, Sharpie, sketch, wedding
Last weekend I got to draw caricatures at a lovely community celebration in Utica, NY. Michael Purcell of A-1 Entertainment hired me and was kind enough to take this video—
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPQZdqkj1hwhsH9lWRYZtWFELJZhHt6lsUTuIdHZKmo30C1EAo6X04tol4ZhdfcvQ?key=Sk9FSjJmVkNFR1pHOHlnV2VMb010TzczU05JN3hR
Here’s the couple holding their finished caricature:
If you’re looking for party and event vendors in central New York, give Mike a shout—A-1Entertainment.com
Posted in illustration process, self promotion
Tagged art, caricature, celebration, chair dancing, community, deejay, drawing, entertainment, marker, party, Sharpie, sketch, wedding
The Reformation was a bloody, violent business because there was so much power at stake. The people in charge faced losing their jobs. If regular shmos understood that they had a direct line to G-d through prayer, maybe they wouldn’t need the priests so much.
The Bible was THE book everybody in western culture was familiar with. It seems natural to want to translate into your own language and publish it, as Martin Luther had done. More than the prospect of making a few samolians from a bestseller, if you take Saint Paul’s words to heart, you understand that faith in Christ is its own justification. That is: if you accept Christ as your Savior, your sins are forgiven. That’s it. No paying for indulgences. Jesus’ sacrifice was a gift freely given to get us into heaven. William Tyndale wanted everybody to know that.
William Tyndale was an English scholar-priest and really good at languages. He wanted to publish the New Testament in English. It isn’t a surprise that no Church bigshot would underwrite Tyndale’s project. In fact, it became dangerous for Tyndale to even occupy space in England—so he moved around different continental cities until he settled in Worms (vorms), Saxony. There he translated the New Testament from Erasmus’ Greek edition and published it in 1525. Copies were enthusiastically smuggled into England. This didn’t go over so well with the Church or King Henry VIII (Henry was busy starting up a new church with himself replacing the pope). The Church did not want people reading the Bible for themselves. Whenever they found Tyndale’s bibles, they burned ’em.
He moved to Antwerp and even though Tyndale was hiding out, he spent his free time helping poor people. Eventually someone he trusted betrayed him to Church authorities. Tyndale was tried for heresy and burned at the stake. They were that afraid of him.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/scholarsandscientists/william-tyndale.html
Look at this gorgeous woodcut from Tyndale’s Bible—
https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/heritage/archives/picture-this/william-tyndale-the-newe-testament-of-oure-sauiour-iesus-christe-faythfully-translated-oute-of-the-greke-with-the-notes-and-expositions-of-the-darke-places-therein-london-rycharde-jugge-1553-c/
Almost all Tyndale’s bibles were destroyed; there are only a few in existence—
https://evangelicalfocus.com/culture/4029/tyndale-bible-from-persecuted-to-becoming-a-treasure
https://thepilgrimsnews.wordpress.com/tag/william-tyndale/
https://bishopmike.com/2012/11/03/tyndale-luther-and-hus/
Posted in book promotion, Western Civilization
Tagged Bible, caricature, church, deeds, education, English, faith, greek, heresy, homeschool, justification, language, Reformation, scripture, writing
Two apple festivals on two weekends! I had a blast drawing caricatures and am grateful to everyone who sat for one.
La Loren in costume for El Cid. ¡De nada!
Posted in book promotion, Western Civilization
Tagged caricature, goddess, Hollywood, Italian, sketch, Spain
The first piece of literature written in Spanish was Cantar de mio Cid (Song of my Lord), whose author may have been Per Abbat who wrote it in either 1207 or 1307 or maybe it was Abu I-Walid al Waqqashi in 1095 or maybe it was one of those pieces of folk literature that gets passed from generation to generation. El Cid, the Cid, al Sayyid means ‘the lord’ or ‘the master.’ Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar was El Cid—an actual person—and he fought against Moorish control of Spain. His army reconquered Valencia so that Christianity could be reestablished there. Like Chanson de Roland, Cantar de mio Cid is a poem about knights who perform mighty deeds and strive to live virtuous lives by sticking to a code of honor.
https://www.actualidadliteratura.com/en/el-cantar-del-mio-cid/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Cid
You can take a biking vacation along the route of El Cid’s exploits: https://en.caminodelcid.org/cid-history-legend/cid-history/
When Charlton Heston wasn’t being Moses or Henry VIII, he was El Cid—with Sophia Loren, the most fabulous woman who ever trod the Earth—https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054847/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/996/996-h/996-h.htm
https://www.britannica.com/art/Spanish-literature
https://historyofspain.es/en/video/the-history-of-spanish-literature/
Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Reading & Writing.
Don’t forget: I wrote another Western Civ User’s Guide! Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Time & Space.
Posted in book promotion, Western Civilization
Tagged artist, caricature, christianity, Crusades, culture, homeschool, illustration, Islam, knight, literacy, Moor, reading, sketch, Spain, Valencia
I’m going to pull a ‘Well, akshually’ and tell you the Phoenician alphabet isn’t quite an alphabet. It’s an abjad. An abjad has consonants but no vowels—no A, E, I, O, U or sometimes Y. You were expected to know how words are pronounced and supply the vowels yourself when you read something written in the Phoenician system.
The word ‘abjad’ comes from smooshing together the first four letters of the Arabic alphabet: alif, bā’, jīm, and dāl.
Pointless rambling for today: There’s a tv show from the 1970s set in the 1950s called Laverne & Shirley. They’re 2 working-class girls from Brooklyn, New York City and speak like Brooklyners. I saw a bit (I can’t find a clip, sorry) where one of the girls is talking about her friend ‘Sheldn’—she pronounces it just that way. It fits with her accent; that’s the way they tawk in Brookln. The punchline: his name really is Sheldn; the ‘o’ was accidentally left out on his birth certificate.
https://linguisticator.com/blog/19729/the-arabic-alphabet-what-is-an-abjad
https://www.lexico.com/definition/abjad
https://www.metmuseum.org/learn/educators/curriculum-resources/art-of-the-islamic-world/unit-two/origins-and-characteristics-of-the-arabic-alphabet
Wikipedia says the Arabic alphabet is the result of the Phoenician alphabet evolving in the Near East, where it took a few different turns from ours in the West. Scroll down to look at the chart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Arabic_alphabet
Back to the beginning of The Western Civ User’s Guide to Reading & Writing.
Posted in book promotion, Western Civilization
Tagged alphabet, Arabic, art, Brooklyn, caricature, consonant, history, homeschool, homeschooling, illustration, literacy, mesopotamia, Near East, pronunciation, sketch, sketches, technology, typo, vowels, Western Civilization, writing