My Girl – by Josh

My parents told me last Sunday (6/8) that they finally had to put Maile, our black Labrador, to sleep.She left this world at the ripe old age of 13 which is a good lifetime for any dog, especially a Lab. My family had Maile longer than any animal we have owned (all of our other pets have either been killed or we’ve had to move), and we’ve never had a more affectionate dog than her. She could never get too much attention, you could pet her until her fur fell out and you would still not be done petting her.
For being a Labrador, Maile was … um … unique, in that she did not like water and she was not very good at hunting or retrieving. When she would sit by the back door and see a small critter in the yard she would bound off barking after it. The critter would then make a dash for the left and Maile would dash for the right. God bless her, she was not a very bright dog, but we loved her and she loved us even more.When I was still living with my parents Maile was kinda my dog. We got her as a small pup on my 16th birthday, but she sure didn’t stay small for long. First her head grew and then her legs shot out overnight. She walked around like a newborn faun, with her legs wobbling and shaking.Anything could cause her to fall over which our miniature dachshund (Kukui) loved, because she would get Maile to chase her and then make sharp turns causing Maili to crash and tumble. One of my favorite memories of that period was a day when I got home from school and came to the back yard calling her name; she was on the opposite side of the lawn and ran towards me. About half way her right leg stepped in front of the left causing her to tumble forward head first. This happened so quickly though that she made a complete roll landing back on her paws and continued on running. I don’t think she even noticed.As Maili got older (and larger) she became more and more affectionate and was always there to cheer me up on even bad days. After my sister and I left for college Maile became my parent’s dog and substitute child. Our good next-door neighbors (also empty-nesters) equally loved Maile and they, along with my parents, would hand her off between them throughout the weeks. In short Maile was never short on attention, and she got a little spoiled. So even though I live out of state, it’s a good comfort to me that Maile died knowing she was loved.Maile
1995-2008

Kenfield Trivia: Maile was named after a leaf from Hawaii that is worn as a lei for special events like weddings. Our dachshund Kukui, was named after a nut which is also worn as a lei in Hawaii. We also had a cat that was born in Hawaii and moved with us to Dallas, we very “creatively” named him Kitty.

Sofie's World

Hi everyone,
We have created a blog that is solely dedicated to our beautiful daughter Sofia. The main reason this blog exists is for the Grandparents who live out of state (and Josh's parents are about to leave the country) to have a way of watching Sofia's development from far away. Of course anyone else in the family and friends are also welcome! If you like to have access to Sofia's blog please send us an email at jkkenfield@gmail.com. And now for your viewing pleasure a video of the cutest hiccups ever.

Class Theme Park Project

The Spring Semester is over and I just turned in my last project for my Illustration class, taught by James Dowdalls. For this project we needed to create a perspective drawing of our own original theme park. I came up with a few ideas and made the following thumbnails.From there I narrowed my ideas to these two concepts.The class and teacher said that although my American Tall Tale theme park was the best concept, the Folklore/Mythology theme park was the better illustration, so I chose to go with the latter.I took the thumbnail and created two color concepts.The class wanted me to take the second color comp. into my final. Around this time Katie gave birth to our beautiful daughter so I we a little busy and distracted from getting my final piece done in time for the due date. Unfortunately I had to turn in my piece with what I had made so far.The class really liked what I made but I’m not satisfied with it. If I get a chance in the near future, I would like to redo it with a new color palate that will unify the elements better. I would also like to redraw the overall image with a better design and composition.

Presenting: The New Shortest Kenfield!

Before:After:

Sofia Ceilidh Kenfield was born on May 8th (the day after Josh's birthday) at 10:33PM! She was 5 lbs. and 9 oz. and 17 1/2 inches, a tiny little thing and simply adorable.Katie went into labor around 6:30PM and within 4 hours she gave birth!Mommy and Baby are both doing fine!

Praise God!!

PS: Sofie’s middle name is pronounced KAY-lee. We’ll give a thousand points to anyone who can figure out the origin and meaning (those of you who know because we already told you are disqualified).

Class Poster Project

For this project we needed to make a poster for a stage production and the medium was up to us. I chose to create my final piece using Photoshop. Our teacher told us not to worry about text, such as the title, or other poster graphics.
The two plays I chose were The Nutcracker ballet and a new play that is still being created titled The Mercy. The Mercy is a play that I helped to create, in that I have been providing feedback, direction, ideas, and designs. The Mercy is a play about Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the attack on Pearl Harbor (he said "TORA TORA TORA!") and a man named Jacob Deshazer who was in the Dolittle Raids (the USA's first strike against Japan after Pearl Harbor). Jacob's plane was shot down and he was placed in a Japanese prison camp till the end of the war. Fuchida, although a war hero, became a reject of society following the war. Both of these men went through great suffering and both experienced great mercy in different forms. They became a means to help the healing after WWII between Japan and America. Aside from the historical story, the play is ultimately about God's mercy and forgiveness of us and how He empowers us to forgive and show mercy to others.
The first thing we were instructed to do was create a collection of thumbnails.The class and the teacher then chose two (2) of the thumbnails to explore and refine (the thumbnails circled in red).The Nutcracker thumbnail shows the figure of Clara (the main character) standing in the middle. The figure of the Nutcracker is in the center of Clara's figure. The eye and eye patch is of Judge/Godfather Drosselmeier, who is a mysterious character that sort of haunts Clara.In the last thumbnail I included more detail of the characters; however, I chose to go back to the original thumbnail idea and make it more graphic using silhouettes.
The Mercy thumbnail comes from an element in the play. The following text is an excerpt from the script and it takes place just after Matsuo Fuchida leads the attack on Pearl Harbor, which is done as an abstract dream: "samurai surround Fuchida and he extends his hands, in fists. Two samurai clap them within a white, rectangular wooden stock, though whether it is shackles or honor is ambiguous. Fuchida's head drops, and he opens his hands. They are in red gloves, and his splayed fingers make the Rising Sun over the white background (Japanese war flag)." I based my design of this poster from this part in the play, although I thought it would look better with fresh red paint on the hands.

I explored some color variations for the Mercy and the Nutcracker posters. I chose to go with the Mercy poster as my final, but I hope to someday develop the Nutcracker poster.

This is how the final Mercy poster turned out. I think if I had to do it again I would make the red paint thinner, without so many ripples and drips. It kinda looks like ketchup!
After completing the original design, Katie and I discussed how we could include some Japanese characters into a new design. I was able to find the translation of the word "mercy" into Japanese characters and painted a rough version of how it could look.

I think it almost resembles a crucifix. I personally like this design better but I feel it needs more work.
If I can make the "actual" poster someday, I would rather take a photograph of someone's hands being covered in red paint instead of creating an illustration. I would then adjust that photograph accordingly in Photoshop to resemble this design.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE !!!

Katie's birthday was on Wednesday (3/19) and I’m a little behind on announcing this, but better late then never.
Kenfield Trivia Question: What fictional character does Katie share her birthday with?
Answer: Number 6, the main character from the 1960’s miniseries The Prisoner, created by and starring Patrick McGooen.Katie pointed this fact out to me when I showed her the first episode of The Prisoner, where in Number 6 states his birth date quite clearly. I’m just terrible at remembering birthdays and Katie (knowing this) showed me that if her birth date ever slips my mind, all I have to do is pop in the pilot episode of The Prisoner (I own the complete series on DVD) and Patrick McGooen will tell me.A quick side note: In just about every episode there is always this funny little Butler who appears to work for the head honcho of The Village, called Number 2. Number 2 is played by a different person in every episode, in fact the cast is always changing except for Number 6 and the little Butler.
On her birthday I drew this card for Katie:It opens from the middle.

My Class Project - Josh

I’ve been taking a Commercial Illustration course in the evenings since the beginning of February. It’s been really helpful to have something like a class to push me and make me work on my drawing skills. The focus of the class is more on the process of illustration then on the final pieces, so we take a lot of time focusing on the development process. In commercial illustration, the client and/or art director want the artist they hire to keep them well informed on the development of the piece. They don’t like surprises, so the artist will send thumbnails, value comprehensives, color roughs and other areas of refinement so the client can give feedback along with their approval or disapproval every step of the way. I’ll show you some examples of these steps from my first class project.
The assignment was a black and white Anthropomorphic Animal illustration done in the style of a children’s book drawing. Anthropomorphic Animal basically means an animal imitating humans appearance and/or behavior (example: Disney’s Robin Hood). Each student drew three words out of three hats. These words were of an animal, what the animal is and an adjective. From these words we had to create our illustrations. I pulled the words Tattooed, Baboon and Queen.
We started by drawing thumbnails of ideas, and these are what I came up with:
From the feedback and criticism of the class and teacher, I choose a combination of the last two as my final.
From there we had to come up with different value comprehensives (AKA lighting and shadow).

After more feedback I choose the last value drawing for my final piece. The final was drawn using black colored pencil on coquille board. This is the first time I’ve drawn on a coquille board, and I rather liked the texture. The piece did not turn out as good as I hoped, but I was really rushed to finish it after being sick for over two weeks. I basically had two days to draw it in time for the due date.

Aside from taking this course for practice reasons, I’m also using it as material for a mentorship with an animator from Disney. I don’t want to share his name without permission, but I can let you know that he directed most of the episodes of one my favorite cartoon series, Animaniacs! I’ve been running all of my work by him for more valuable feedback and criticism.All in all this has been a good experience and I really hope I can grow from it