Okay
now, don't laugh! To the left is—no, that's not Zeb—my
first published drawing, called "Flying Dorstbug (in flight)." When
I was 15 I found a copy of a teen magazine called Campus Life.
In the middle of the mag was a joke section and they were having
a "Create Your Own Creature" contest. The prize was $10,
which was a good hunk of money for a teen in those days, so I decided
to give it a try and invented the "Dorstbug," sent it in,
and won!
And so began my career of drawing dumb pictures for
the masses. I began doing spot drawings for Campus Life and
eventually did a children's book for Moody Press and some
work for David C. Cook publishers.
I had become a Christian at the age of 12 at a church
camp and had always wanted to do something meaningful with my life.
I felt that the talent I had for drawing was a gift from God and that
I should somehow use it for Him. So I worked freelance for the above
publications until 1974 when I made the decision to become a full-time
missionary with an international organization called The
Family. It was the best decision I ever made and I have been pursuing
my chosen profession as a missionary ever since. I have served in Italy,
Portugal, Ireland, Brazil and now, Mexico.
Aside from doing regular field work, my main ministry has been helping
to illustrate and produce publications. I have assisted
in the production of literally hundreds of pages of books, pamphlets,
tracts, flannelgraphs, comics and posters which have been read and
distributed around the world. In addition I've done some video work
and have written and recorded a number of original songs.
Zeb is my pen name. I am married and have 14 children
plus five grandchildren, so I've been doing more than just drawing
these past 30 years!
Drawing Stuff
In the beginning,
God created...excuse me, that's another story! What I meant to say
was, in the beginning, I did my artwork with a BIC pen. Then I moved
up to a Flair felt-tip pen and eventually to a crowquill pen. Someone,
another artist I think, told me that "real" artists used
a brush and so I graduated to a Winsor Newton Series 7 red sable
brush. That was pretty much my basic inking tool for many years until another artist introduced me
to Japanese felt-tip brush pens. Now there you go! No more dipping
and dripping and worrying about my two-year-old knocking over my bottle
of Higgins permanent India ink!
So that's what I used for about five years.
As I'm sure you are aware, the world or
art and publications has changed dramatically with the advent of the
computer age. I remember doing pages and pages of layout using an x-acto
knife, scissors and rubber cement. Then it was a glue stick. Then,
a waxer. Finally I learned how to do layout using a program called
Ventura Publisher, then PageMaker and now InDesign. But how I did
my artwork stayed pretty much the same until...
Computer Art
One
day while poking around on the internet,
I
stumbled across a program called Xara Xtreme. It is a vector drawing program similar to CorelDraw, Illustrator,
Freehand, etc. I tried it and really liked what it could do. Even though
it was much smaller than the other vector programs, it could do all
sorts of amazing things!
I also found a site called XaraXone which
contains years of free tutorials available to download, the majority
of which were written by Gary
Priester who
shows you how to use Xara Xtreme to its full potential.
Eventually I began drawing in Xara Xtreme using
a mouse. I
really liked the results, however drawing with a mouse was considerably
slower than drawing by hand. But I kept at it and eventually acquired
a tablet and stylus. This has helped to speed things up a bit, but
I'd still say that it is slower than conventional inking. But the reason
I like it so much is that the end result is so much better than inking
by hand, at least for me. The lines are crisper and smoother and all
of the elements are editable since they are individual vector objects.
Another factor is that I'm not getting any younger, and my eyes and
hands are not what they used to be. Drawing with Xara Xtreme has suddenly
enabled me to draw the tiniest detail with the utmost precision—so,
who needs a brush?
Most of the illustrations on this site have
been done with Xara Xtreme. I hope you like them and find them
fun and interesting.
In Conclusion
I hemmed and hawed
about putting this site together and finally decided to go for it.
I honestly enjoy sharing my work and the things I have learned with
others. I also want to thank
the Lord for giving me this wonderful talent for art and for
all the opportunities I have had of using it for His glory and the
benefit of others.
May God bless and keep you,
P.S. For more info about Zeb, read My
Personal Testimony.
