because I can

It was not my intent to illustrate Senior Butley this morning but the weather has turned frightful, well in less dramatic nomenclature we are getting some snow flurries today and I just don't want to deal with the coldness. To set the stage, I had a dream last night. Went to bed late well after the buzzer had sounded for the last game in March Madness's Sweet 16. 

I was prepared for the night to bring a restless sleep after designing T shirts for an International Walking convention being hosted here in Des Moines in 2011. Designing usually spins my sleep cycles out of control. That is to say without partaking in the controlling with legal but toxic substances like a whiskey drink.

REM was upon me, visions pulsing through my spectacular technicolor thoughts of being part the Donner party. 

We were several days into the fiasco and I decided to write a book. A little black "Survival" book. As I was looking around at my dinner candidate, hell it could have been breakfast for all I cared, an illustration of Butley popped into my head. It was a line illustration of the cuts of meat like those signs that hang behind the deli/meat counter at the local grocery store. I just couldn't for the life of me understand how crossing cultural cuisines played out in the my current life without bacon. I kept staring at the illustration and trying to find the cut that spelled out "BACON". A continuation of my vision panned to the left and down to feet where sat our little Cadence. OK, now picture a tooth pick with Catahula Leopard spots. I had to squint to make out any semblance of the Leopard spots but I did squint for what seemed to be a very long time and wah la! I woke up, got out of bed, drug myself into the office and plopped down in front of the computer where I pulled out my computer pencil and paper and promptly started to illustrate. Ultimately the illustration didn't go where I had envisioned as I didn't feel that it was a kind thing to do. Slicing Butley up into those little dashed lines and slapping a Bacon label in the correct bacon positioning. 

Then I really did wake up.

Welcome to a snap shot into my mind on nothing but design. 

As a foot note: it has been stated in Shumate folklore that we had relatives that had some part in the Donner Party. However, after searching for details on the tragedy I can neither confirm or deny the Shumate folklore.