Monday, July 24, 2017

Don Denkinger

Don Denkinger - Pencil Sketch of the Day for Monday, July 24, 2017

Don's brother, Bill Denkinger, was my 5th grade science teacher.

Donald Anton Denkinger, Born August 28, 1936 (age 80) in Cedar Falls, Iowa is a former Major League Baseball umpire who worked in the American League from 1969 to 1998. Denkinger wore uniform number 11, when the AL adopted uniform numbers in 1980. He is best remembered for the controversial call he made at first base in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series.

Sunday, July 23, 2017

John Heard

RIP.. John Heard (1946 - 2017) , Pencil Sketch of the Day for Sunday, July 23, 2017
John Matthew Heard Jr. (March 7, 1946 – July 21, 2017) was an American film and television actor. He had lead roles in several films, including Chilly Scenes of Winter, Heart Beat, Cutter's Way, Cat People, and C.H.U.D., as well as supporting roles in After Hours, Big, Beaches, Awakenings, Rambling Rose, The Pelican Brief, My Fellow Americans, Snake Eyes, and Animal Factory. He also played Peter McCallister in Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, as well as appearing in Sharknado. Heard was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1999 for guest starring on The Sopranos.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Charles Bronson

 Charles Bronson - Pencil Sketch of the Day for Wednesday, July 19, 2017 Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky; Lithuanian: Karolis Dionyzas Bučinskis; November 3, 1921 – August 30, 2003) was an American film and television actor.
He starred in films such as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the Death Wish series. He was often cast in the role of a police officer, gunfighter, or vigilante in revenge-oriented plot lines. He had long collaborations with film directors Michael Winner and J. Lee Thompson. In 1965, he was featured as Major Wolenski in Battle of the Bulge.
Source: Wikipedia

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Christopher Lloyd

 
 
 
Christopher Lloyd - Pencil Sketch of the Day for Sunday, July 16, 2017.

Christopher Allen Lloyd (born October 22, 1938) is an American actor, voice actor and comedian best known for his roles as Emmett "Doc" Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Merlock the Magician in DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990), Uncle Fester in The Addams Family (1991) and its sequel Addams Family Values (1993), and Grigori Rasputin in Anastasia (1997).

Lloyd has an equally prominent television profile, having won two Primetime Emmy Awards for playing Jim Ignatowski on the comedy series Taxi (1978–1983). He earned a third Emmy for his 1992 guest appearance on Road to Avonlea. He has also done extensive voiceover work for animated programs, most notably voicing The Hacker on the PBS Kids series Cyberchase (2002–2017). The role earned him two Daytime Emmy Award nominations. Source: Wikipedia

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Ted Danson


Ted Danson - Pencil Sketch of the Day - Thursday, July 13, 2017
Edward Bridge "Ted" Danson III (born December 29, 1947) is an American actor, author, and producer well known for his role as lead character Sam Malone on the NBC sitcom Cheers and for his role as Dr. John Becker on the CBS sitcom Becker. He also starred in the CBS dramas CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and CSI: Cyber as D.B. Russell.
He also plays a recurring role on Larry David's HBO sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm, starred alongside Glenn Close in legal drama Damages, and was a regular on the HBO comedy series Bored to Death. In 2015 he starred as Hank Larsson in the second season of FX's black comedy-crime drama anthology Fargo. Since 2016, he has played the afterlife "architect" Michael in the NBC sitcom The Good Place.
In his 42-year career, Danson has been nominated for 15 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning two; ten Golden Globe Awards nominations, winning three; one Screen Actors Guild Awards; and one American Comedy Award and has been awarded a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. He was ranked second in TV Guide's list of the top 25 television stars.Danson has also been a longtime activist in ocean conservation. In March 2011, he published his first book, Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do to Save Them, written with journalist Michael D'Orso.
Source: Wikipedia

Monday, July 10, 2017

Woody Harrelson

"Woody" Harrelson - Pencil Sketch of the Day for Monday, July 10, 2017.
Woodrow Tracy "Woody" Harrelson (born July 23, 1961) is an American actor, activist and playwright. He is a two-time Academy Award nominee and has won one Emmy Award out of seven nominations. His breakout role came in 1985, joining the television sitcom Cheers as bartender Woody Boyd, for which he earned five Emmy Award nominations (one win). Some notable film characters include basketball hustler Billy Hoyle in White Men Can't Jump, one-handed bowler Roy Munson in Kingpin, Haymitch Abernathy in The Hunger Games film series, Pepper Lewis in The Cowboy Way, Tallahassee in Zombieland, serial killer Mickey Knox in Natural Born Killers, magazine publisher Larry Flynt in The People vs. Larry Flynt, country singer Dusty in A Prairie Home Companion, and magician/mentalist Merritt McKinney in Now You See Me. He will be portraying the Colonel in War for the Planet of the Apes.
For The People vs. Larry Flynt and The Messenger, Harrelson earned Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. In 2014, he starred as Detective Martin Hart in the first season of the HBO crime drama True Detective with Matthew McConaughey, which earned him and McConaughey nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
Source: Wikipedia

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Marlin Perkins





Marlin Perkins - Pencil Sketch of the Day for Sunday, July 9, 2017
(Pencil Sketch on 9x12 vellum bristol paper.
Richard Marlin Perkins (March 28, 1905 – June 14, 1986)
was an American zoologist best known as a host of the television program Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom from 1963 to 1985.
Life and career
Perkins was born on March 28, 1905, in Carthage, Missouri, the youngest of three sons of Joseph Dudley Perkins and Mynta Mae (née Miller) Perkins. When he was 7 years old, his mother nursed him through a serious bout of pneumonia and died of the illness herself. His grieving father sent his two older brothers to private school, and Marlin was sent to his Aunt Laura's farm in Pittsburg, Kansas. He attended public school there through eighth grade. In the fall of 1919, he entered Wentworth Military Academy. There, Perkins demonstrated his fascination with snakes by keeping blue racer snakes in his room. One afternoon, while exercising them on a lawn at the back of the barracks, he was spotted by a faculty officer and got in trouble for handling them.
Perkins briefly attended the University of Missouri, but quit school to become a laborer at the Saint Louis Zoological Park. He rose through the ranks, becoming the reptile curator in 1928. After being hired as a curator of the Buffalo Zoological Park in Buffalo, New York, Perkins was eventually promoted to director in 1938. He then served as director at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois, from 1944 until 1962, when he returned to the St. Louis Zoo, this time as director.
During his time at the Lincoln Park Zoo, Perkins joined Sir Edmund Hillary as the zoologist for Hillary's 1960 Himalayan expedition to search for the legendary Yeti.
Perkins was the host of Zoo Parade, a television program that originated from the Lincoln Park Zoo on NBC station WNBQ-TV (now WMAQ-TV) when he was the director there. During a rehearsal of Zoo Parade, he was bitten by a timber rattlesnake, one of several bites from venomous snakes Perkins suffered throughout his career (over the years he was also bitten by a cottonmouth and a Gaboon viper). Although the incident occurred during a pre-show rehearsal and was not filmed, it has become something of an urban legend, with many people "remembering" seeing Perkins receive the bite on television.
As a result of his work on Zoo Parade Perkins was offered the job in 1963 for which most North Americans remember him: host of the nature show Wild Kingdom. The fame he gained in his television career allowed Perkins to become an advocate for the protection of endangered species, and through Wild Kingdom he gave many Americans their first exposure to the conservation movement. Perkins also helped establish the Wild Canid Survival and Research Center (WCSRC) near St. Louis in 1971. This wolf sanctuary has been instrumental in breeding wolves for eventual re-placement into their natural habitats.
Perkins retired from active zookeeping in 1970 and from Wild Kingdom in 1985 for health reasons.
Perkins remained with the Saint Louis Zoo as Director Emeritus until his death on June 14, 1986, when he died of cancer.

Saturday, July 8, 2017

BB King

BB King - Pencil Sketch of the Day for Saturday, July 8, 2017
Riley Ben King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer, electric guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. King introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that influenced many later electric blues guitarists.
King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and is considered one of the most influential blues musicians of all time, earning the nickname "The King of the Blues", and one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" along with Albert King and Freddie King. King was known for performing tirelessly throughout his musical career, appearing at more than 200 concerts per year on average into his 70s. In 1956 alone, he reportedly appeared at 342 shows.
King was born on a cotton plantation in Berclair, Mississippi, and later worked at a cotton gin in Indianola, Mississippi. He was attracted to music and the guitar in church, and began his performance career in juke joints and local radio. He later lived in Memphis, Tennessee, and Chicago, and toured the world extensively. King died at the age of 89 in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 14, 2015, from congestive heart failure and diabetic complications.
Source: Wikipedia

Friday, July 7, 2017

Lisa Randall, Physicist


Image may contain: 1 person, close-up
 Lisa Randall, American Physicist - Pencil sketch of the Day for Friday, July 7, 2017
Lisa Randall (born June 18, 1962) is an American theoretical physicist working in particle physics and cosmology. She is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science on the physics faculty of Harvard University.
Her research includes elementary particles, fundamental forces and extra dimensions of space. She studies the Standard Model, supersymmetry, possible solutions to the hierarchy problem concerning the relative weakness of gravity, cosmology of extra dimensions, baryogenesis, cosmological inflation, and dark matter. She contributed to the Randall–Sundrum model, first published in 1999 with Raman Sundrum.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Raising Lazarus



Raising of Lazarus Tribute Sketch.
Pencil Sketch of the Day for Thursday, July 6, 2017
Original Artist: Carl Heinrich Bloch (1834-1890)
John 11
Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

Monday, July 3, 2017

Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer

 
 
 
Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer
Pencil Sketch of the Day for Monday, July 3, 2017

Julius Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico; Oppenheimer later remarked that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

After the war, Oppenheimer became chairman of the influential General Advisory Committee of the newly created United States Atomic Energy Commission. He used that position to lobby for international control of nuclear power to avert nuclear proliferation and a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. After provoking the ire of many politicians with his outspoken opinions during the Second Red Scare, he suffered the revocation of his security clearance in a much-publicized hearing in 1954, and was effectively stripped of his direct political influence; he continued to lecture, write and work in physics. Nine years later, President John F. Kennedy awarded (and Lyndon B. Johnson presented) him with the Enrico Fermi Award as a gesture of political rehabilitation.

Oppenheimer's achievements in physics included the Born–Oppenheimer approximation for molecular wave functions, work on the theory of electrons and positrons, the Oppenheimer–Phillips process in nuclear fusion, and the first prediction of quantum tunneling. With his students he also made important contributions to the modern theory of neutron stars and black holes, as well as to quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and the interactions of cosmic rays. As a teacher and promoter of science, he is remembered as a founding father of the American school of theoretical physics that gained world prominence in the 1930s. After World War II, he became director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
Source: Wikipedia

Saturday, July 1, 2017

Cormac McCarthy





Cormac McCarthy
Pencil Sketch of the Day for July 1, 2017
(born Charles McCarthy; July 20, 1933) is an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He has written ten novels, spanning the southern gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres.
McCarthy's fifth novel, Blood Meridian (1985), was on Time magazine's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language books since 1923, and has come to be regarded[by whom?] as one of the greatest novels in American literature.[citation needed] For All the Pretty Horses (1992), he won both the U.S. National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. His 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. All the Pretty Horses, The Road, and Child of God have also been adapted as motion pictures.
McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road (2006). In 2010, The Times ranked The Road first on its list of the 100 best fiction and non-fiction books of the past 10 years. Literary critic Harold Bloom named McCarthy as one of the four major American novelists of his time, alongside Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and Philip Roth, and called Blood Meridian "the greatest single book since Faulkner's As I Lay Dying".