The Moose Rider...

That's right, that's right. Once again, my quill was called to the duty of inscribing internet favorite president Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. I'm quite sure you can't blame me for it. This Teddy was a warm-up for something I was working on...but I can't recall what. Sometimes, my warm-ups make sense and often coincide with whatever I'm working on. This one...uh...did not. I feel as though I need to do one of him fighting a laser shark or something...just to get my internet fame up another few points.

"Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe" - Teddy Roosevelt

Perhaps this post would've been more appropriate to the elections yesterday...but I remembered it too late in the evening.

Ok, this moment with the former President got a little more involved. I couldn't tell you what it is about him that has had me return to him as a subject...perhaps it's that larger than life quality he had about him. Sargent's portrait of him is probably my favorite of the presidential portraits. I especially love the fact that the pose and location were found when Teddy turned to Sargent because he was growing impatient over their expedition to find a place to paint it.

Leader of the Free World and/or Cuddly Companion...

As was once famously said of Don Knotts...I just felt like drawing Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt once survived an assassination attempt thanks to a speech in his pocket. Though bleeding, he delivered an hour long speech without medical attention. Drawing the blood-stained manuscript for the speech from his pocket, he said "It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." On the flip side, his well known account of piranha shredding a cow in minutes is largely believed to have been staged for the traveling president. Personally, I think Teddy would've nicked himself a number of times, jumped in the Amazon, and staged a razor-tooth fish-fry for later that night if he had had his way.