Blog Murder.

So I haven't blogged in a week so sorry about that one ... does that mean my blog is dead?  but I suppose it's excusable with being gone for five days, right? Right. Okay good.

So in lieu of bringing a sketchbook and working on Illustration during my fall break, I went to Oklahoma to serve those who had been affected by the series of tornados that hit late May of this year and did not do any illustration at all. I brought my Nikon but did not take a single picture with it, as I really wanted to be immersed in service and did not want to hide behind the lens. Although I took some pictures on my phone, so here are a few of my Instagram pictures from the trip:

Naturally if you're on a road trip you need a picture of the road. Especially if it's an open road and you have nine more hours of driving ahead of you.

We spent a morning sifting through a pile of rubble and throwing away all of the glass, metal, toilets, trash, gutters, etc that had ended up in that pile from the tornado. Also in that pile of rubble was a large wooden stick (with nails sticking out of random places, let's hope everyone had their tetanus shots up to date) as well as a baseball. So we played some good old fashioned stickball in the dirt during lunchtime. 

We also got lost somewhere between Shawnee and Moore, but it proved to be a very scenic route through rural Oklahoma. 

I don't know what it is about water towers but this one was cool. Also, Moore is the home of Toby Keith so that's exciting if you're into that kind of thing. 

After one day of service, we drove through an area that was most physically affected by the storm. It was a very surreal experience, driving through what seemed like vacant lots. But as we looked closely, we realized there were sidewalks, driveways, and foundations of homes. There were areas that were completely sound after the storms and areas that were just flattened. But it was incredible driving through this neighborhood and seeing this message. 

But anyway, that was Oklahoma and this is Kirksville, and when I got home after driving all day on Sunday I worked on Illustration and came up with a few ideas for the modern day slavery assignment. After doing a bit of research on the different kinds of modern slavery, I decided I wanted to focus on child slavery in the modern world. I drew up a sketch, and am currently working on a comp of this piece. So here's the unfinished version of it so far.