Growing up I shared a room with my brother Shelby before he left on his mission to Seattle, Washington.  He loved to draw in high school and would plaster our walls with his artwork.  His half of our room was his personal art gallery floor to ceiling.  I loved to see his pictures and dreamed of being able to someday draw as well as he did.  I remember him drawing a picture of the First Presidency one time that hung on our closet door.

In 1998 while I was a senior in high school a friend of mine, Raymond Rawlings, asked me why I always drew pictures of girls and why I didn’t do something more worthwhile.  I decided I’d give it a shot and see if I could finally draw like Shelby and I couldn’t think of anything more worthwhile than the First Presidency, other than Jesus Christ whom I have yet to feel good enough to do my own drawing of.  I’ve always been pretty good at drawing what I see, but since I’ve yet to see my Savior I haven’t ever endeavored to draw Him.

Here is the drawing I did in 1998 of President Gordon B. Hinckley, President Thomas S. Monson, and President James E. Faust.  Although I’d drawn the originals in 1998 it says 2008 on the signature because I edited them a bit when I had the opportunity to do a personal artwork signing at the BYU Bookstore in Provo, Utah.  In highschool I kept them in my backpack in a blue paper folder and one day had a Sprite aluminum can also in my backpack that punctured and leaked all over the pictures.

In 2008 while attending the Eastridge Ward I told the Young Women’s President, Heidi Richey, that I’d draw up the new First Presidency for their fundraiser that year.  President Monson had just been put in as the new prophet, I believe on a Tuesday and the fundraiser was that Friday or Saturday so I didn’t have a lot of time to draw it.  For the fundraiser I ended up having to rush through my drawing of President Uchtdorf.

My brother Tyson served his mission in Frankfurt, Germany where he met and spent time in the home of President Uchtdorf.  He told me that the picture I’d drawn just simply didn’t look like him and wasn’t good enough, so I decided I’d try again.  I’m glad that he said something, because I wasn’t happy with it either, but was thinking of just leaving it as I was lazy and didn’t want to draw anymore.  However, I think the revision is much better and I’m happy with it.

My originals have again since been ruined by spilling something on them!  Luckily I scanned the originals before they got ruined, so this is how they ended up getting laid out together.

Two Saturday’s ago our ward at church had their annual Young Men / Young Woman Camp Fundraiser and I really wanted to be able to sell some prints so they could raise their needed funds.  It’s become a bit of a tradition for me now to sell prints at the fundraiser, so I was able to put this together for the auction.  Once again, I didn’t give myself enough time to finish all the drawings though so I used the President Eyring from before.  I’m not happy with that so I’m going to redraw him and then I’ll be finished!  As soon as I have him drawn I’ll add them.