Feeding the bass...

Feedin' da bass!

It is that time of the year, where it seems I am the caretaker of many of the animals that grace our home. The hummers need to be fed once or twice a week. The cocker spaniel, Pierre, gets his medicine in the morning, fed twice a day and he lets me know if I am late. Then, there's the bird feeder, where it seems, every other day, a four or five cup serving of seeds and peanuts keep the birds happy as they feed their new families. Titmice, chickadees, nuthatches, house finches, jays, cardinals, sparrows, and woodpeckers all await my visit around 8 am.

But the strangest recipients of nature's bounty, with a little help from me, is our bass and perch. This time of year, japanese beetles attack the yard and porch lights with an insane vengence. They hit the windows, bounce off of flood lights and if you allow it, will practically fly into your hair, shirt and pants. The beetles are very destructive to pine trees, so instead of spraying to control them, I capture twenty or so of the insects, put them in a glass container with holes punched into the top, and feed them the following morning to the fish. This will continue throughout the month of April into May.The fish follow me all around the perimeter of the back paddock pond joistling for position and chasing each other out of their territory. They practically jump out of the water as if begging for a bug or two. Wild!

More about Jack Leynnwood...

 I was born in New Orleans the eldest son of six siblings. I came out the chute with a baseball glove in my hand though I was not as good as my father, who could have had a career if not for the war. I lived between two airfields, one civil and one military. It was a big influence on me. I learned to paint trying to make my model airplanes to look like they did on the boxtops. I went to high school on an athletic scholarship and met my wife to be there. As most kids of the sixties, I was in love with rock 'n roll and played guitar in a garage band for about 4 years. It was, and still is, my first love. I married my high school sweetheart in 1972, graduated from USL in advertising in "73 and starved in New Orleans as a freelance illustrator. 

Therese and I left home in 1974, to attend the Art Center College of Design, where I met one of heroes, Jack Leynnwood who made a name for himself painting model boxtops for Revell, Aurora and other model companies. Jack was a real renaissance man. He was a professional jazz musician, pilot, and WWII vet, fighting what he called "the Desert War"... in Arizona! He was a big influence on me and I took every class he taught. As a teacher, he demonstrated every day how to paint the things you needed to learn to paint in order to make a living in the crazy world of illustration. He was not against theory of art or the history of art and commercial art, and was willing to expound on those subjects, but in the cafeteria, at lunch or during breaks... not in class. Jack got me hooked up with an aerospace company for my first job out of Art Center. I worked there for three years while working on my freelance career. I left to concentrate on my freelance career as a storyboard illustrator, art director and designer. The four photos of Jack's art were given to me while I was employed at General Dynamics by a colleague who worked with Jack at Northrup! 

   In 2001, we decided to cash out of LA and move back to Louisiana. We now live in a small town north of New Orleans on a 5 acre ranch still serving the ad community not only in California, but nationwide. Please check my website and LinkedIn for further details on my client list. I worked on a variety of clients from entertainment and automotive, to consumer products and sports. You name it and I have probably done it! You can see my work at: graphicgumbo.com and the various links therein.

Just what are we teaching the children?!?

Yesterday, my wife, Therese asked me to help her first grade class put together a booklet that celebrates "Artists Week." The idea was to allow the students to write about their hopes and dreams, which is an awesome task for a first grader, but then, the assignment was to illustrate what they wrote. Well, confusion reigned, and boy, did we get wet!!! As you can imagine, no one knew what draw or how to draw it. The little boys were the worse, because I mentioned drawing ball games for things they like to do. Naturally, football and the Saints became the premier image to draw. Most of the girls in the class drew and colored birds, butterflies, flowers, houses, and self portraits with little help. But a couple of the guys just couldn't or wouldn't draw anything. I had to show some of them how to draw a football spinning, a football player and the Saint's logo, which is a fleur-de-lis. Well, we started to see some strange looking fleur-de-lis, so I attempted to help out one of the guys and as I lightly sketched the logo, I told the student that the word "fleur" was french for flower and that the image is of three lilies tied together. Then he asked me, "Mr. Bensen, what's a lis?" I had to come up with a real, believable answer so I said with much conviction, "It means life. Fleur-de-lis means flower of life!" "Yeh, that's it," I told myself.

Indeed, just what are we teaching the children!