Tom Medley

Books and music did it to me.

Since I was old enough to hold a pencil, I have been drawing. During my grade school years, I drew thousands of pictures. My favorite subjects were knights & castles, Robin Hood & his Merry Men, cowboys & Indians (Native American), soldiers from all time periods, tall ships, and horses of all kinds. My imagination was fueled by my reading and I was consumed with anything from the Middle Ages. I loved authors such as Howard Pyle, Walter Scott, and Imelda Wallace.

In high school my characters started to evolve into cartoon images. I would sit in my room for hours listening to rock & roll on the radio and as each new song would come up I’d draw a picture of what I thought the band or artist looked like (man, was I off base on some of them!) Anyway, cartooning was to become a life-long passion.

My college reading inspired me into new art directions as I absorbed anything and everything of the Sci-Fi Fantasy genre. Although I dearly love the works of Van Vogt, Clarke, Heinlein and so many other great science fiction authors, it was the fantasy writers particularly C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien that influenced my direction in art. I had always been fascinated by folk and fairy tales and these books fired my imagination. Cartoon versions of flying dragons, warrior dwarves, forest elves, trusty hobbits, royal lions, and all manner of magic forest creatures became my focus.

Then came the married years, and my three sons who never seemed to tire of wanting more and more and even more drawings of Luke, Leia, Han and Chewy, Darth and his minions, and all of their space ships as well as knights and pirates and super heroes and on and on. And of course they colored everything I drew for them, while letting their mom and I know in no uncertain terms that their store-bought coloring books were too easy and too boring.

In the meantime, each of my boys was developing his artistic talents and today all three are quite good artists themselves. At their urging I began to visit their elementary school classrooms as a guest artist. This is where I started to really understand the value and validity of cartooning.

I found that there are a lot of children who believe that they do not have an artistic bone in their body. But, because cartoons do not have to conform to any of the parameters of “realistic” art, I was able to show these kids, by teaching them how to cartoon, that each and every one of them is an artist. For many of these children, it was a beginning.

When I realized that I could create a coloring book that was not “too easy” or “too boring”, I found that I’d been keeping several images in my head and they just simply flowed out onto the pages. And there they might have sat for a long time but for Tristan, my now-grown youngest son, who was inspired to produce his own coloring book, “Gods & Heroes from Greece to Rome”. He motivated me to finish “My Secret Forest” and we worked together to come up with our finished products.

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Tristan and I have created our coloring books for all ages to enjoy. The drawings are intricate and detailed to challenge teens and adults, but will also attract and delight the very youngest of the budding coloring fans.

We feel strongly that coloring is good for the soul. It’s relaxing. It’s therapeutic. One feels a sense of accomplishment looking at the finished page. And it’s a great way to have some quality time with the kids. Enjoy!