How to Draw a Peculiar Alien

Time Laps of One of My Paintings.

Alex Raffi

Partner, Creative Director: Imagine Communications

Creator, Author presenter: Creative Courage with Alex Raffi

Alex Raffi is a husband, father, business owner, creative director, painter, author and book illustrator. He has also worked as an editorial cartoonist, animator, and caricature artist.

Multiple first-place winners with the Nevada Press Association for his illustrations, Alex joined Imagine Communications (then Imagine Marketing) in 2001. Since that time, the firm has grown to 11 employees and become one of the valley’s most respected and creative full-service communications firms.

Imagine’s design team has created and assisted in the development of branding materials for numerous organizations locally and nationally. As the partner and creative director, Alex has led Imagine’s evolution into a firm whose philosophy has consistent, open-minded creativity rooted in focused business strategy at its cornerstone. Under Alex’s direction and leadership – along with that of his business partner, Brian Rouff – Imagine has maintained a high retention rate among clientele and employees.

Alex’s work has helped to shape the community. A true advocate for creativity, Alex has made it his goal to demystify the creative process with as many people as possible through his highly acclaimed Creative Courage program. As a result, he is a sought-after guest speaker who has conducted his workshops and seminars for a variety of organizations and schools throughout Southern Nevada, including Zappos.com, the Henderson Chamber of Commerce, the Charter School Association of Nevada, SMPS Las Vegas, The American Institute of Architects Las Vegas, the American Marketing Association of Nevada, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Nevada State College, Clark County School District, Orange Coast College, the LABMAN2014 event and many more schools and businesses throughout Nevada. This work leads to him writing his book “Creative Courage with Alex Raffi: Harnessing Your Creative Capacity.” published in April 2016.

He also wrote and illustrated “The Sheep Counting Dream” a children’s book written in rhyme about a little girl who couldn’t fall asleep the night before her birthday.

A longtime Nevadan, Alex is actively involved in the community. Currently a member of the Henderson Chamber of Commerce Foundation board, he was honored in November by the Henderson Chamber with its Noble Award, which is given to a dedicated individual who passionately supports the Henderson Chamber, its mission, and its members. And is the Chapter president of the Las Vegas chapter of SMPS (Society of Marketing Professionals) for 2017.

He is also on the committee for the Narrative Illustration Program at Orange Coast College, is a mentor and presenter for the Children of the Arts program, and has served as a big brother for the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program. Additionally, since 2007, Alex has been a proud fundraiser for St. Baldrick's, a volunteer-driven charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and giving survivors long and healthy lives. Total, Alex has raised $21,512 for St. Baldrick’s. He is now in 12th place out of 510 participants for the 2015 event and in fourth place out of 33 participants on his team, Bald By Design. Bald by Design is ranked No. 1 out of 143 teams in Nevada and 10th in the country. For his work fund-raising since 2001, he was “knighted” and admitted to the organization’s Knights of the Bald Table and soon be knighted as a Knight Commander for his 10^th year.

An award-winning graphic designer and editorial cartoonist, Raffi collaborated on and illustrated “American Gestures” and “Conventional Gestures: Meaning and Methodology” and also illustrated Richard L. Epstein’s “Critical Thinking” book series as well as “The Riddles of Human Society” by Conrad L. Kanagy and Donald B Kraybill

A little chat with myself at the age of 17

I was asked a question on social media after changing my profile picture to me at 17 years old. My friend Raymond asked, “What advice would the current you give the young cat in the current profile picture ???” So I figured I’d answer in this blog.

You’re not as deep as you think. Although you live inside your imagination for the majority of your day, those thoughts bouncing around in your head that seem like solutions to every big problem comes from poorly gathered data. People aren’t as one dimensional as you think, and nothing is ever as black or white as you may convince yourself it is.

That being said, you can improve the data you use to problem-solve by reading more. It’s something you will learn to enjoy, but at that point, it will feel more like validation rather than discovery. Getting some of your lessons secondhand makes the process of developing an understanding of your world a bit slow going. So read more. And not only comic books and Dungeons & Dragons manuals.

Sleep more. You’re not missing anything. Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. For example, sleep is involved in the healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke. It’s important to build good sleeping habits early. And by the way, staying up late doing nothing is not equivalent to rebellious behavior. That leads me to my next piece of advice:

School is important. While in school, you should take as much advantage as possible. Your academic career will be spent in places where you will be surrounded by very smart people whose jobs are very specific: to give you all you will need to survive out in the world. Listen, ask questions and do ALL of your homework! You will eventually figure out that the quality of the education is equivalent to the quality of the armor and tools you will find yourself using over and over when looking for work or planning every stage of your life as you grow older. It’s not easy out there. Make sure you are well-trained to deal with it.

Your biggest worries right now aren’t as relevant as they seem. Your world is very small right now. You may think some solutions need to be drastic. You’re wrong. Don’t bottle things up. Share them with friends and family, especially if those things are causing you to hurt inside. Everything always gets better. Do the work required to get to that better place.

Read more. I know I already said this, but just trust me. It’s really important that you make more time for reading.

Go on hikes. It is good exercise, and you will — eventually — find that it helps you clear your head and process ideas. This will be very important to you in a few decades. Trust me.

Don’t be so darn shy. Life is much more interesting when you are one of the people rattling the bars. Know when to be a passenger and when to steer the ship.

Learn the value of money. This is very important. You will eventually marry someone who gets the importance of balancing a checkbook, but a little more due diligence would save you some unnecessary struggles and also prep you for your future career as a business owner a tad bit better.

Work harder in your dad’s frame shop. He works really hard and was able to build a small one-man business from nothing. It will teach you the value of doing things right and the satisfaction of earning a buck with your hands. I’m disappointed in how you are handling the time in the shop with him. Don’t miss that opportunity to do something important for the family.

Stick with soccer. Don’t get discouraged. You may not have the skill, but you do have the heart. I know you do because you build an entire career with that same heart. You will look back on this time and wish you would have taken more shots on goal. Believe me.

Stay in the band. Some of the most fun you will have in life is while holding a guitar in your hand. Make the most of it. Keep it up. Stay in tune.

Clean your room. It’s gross. And your mom is not your slave. Have some respect for yourself and her. It’s the least you can do.

Speaking of Mom, ask her more about her life. Before it’s too late.

Drink less soda. It’s better to grow taller than wider.

Tell you parents where you are going with your friends. They are worried about you.

Realize that all that art you’re making is doing more than you think for your mind. The way you see creativity will become a center point in your life and will define you in many ways. Keep it up.

You’re not as weak as you feel. Pick yourself up and keep moving forward.

Keep your eyes open. Opportunity is everywhere. It may not be obvious. It may require some adjusting and risk-taking. But realize that it’s there and you can take advantage of every one.

You have more potential than you realize. Everyone does. Make the most of it. You are going to be okay.

And finally, always remember that parachute pants look stupid in every decade. Stop wearing them. Especially the Reggae ones.

Thanks for nothing.

How to draw a whale in 60 seconds

How to draw a dog in 60 seconds

Share.

We are all moved and inspired by the things we are exposed to, things we hear and experiance around us. I only know what I know and only react to what I have seen or felt. We are all involved in the sharing of information that is used in this way. So it's obvious that together we respond and react to things as an organism. Influenced by the movement of the masses. We choose to lead or follow. We inherently lean on each other and push each other past the all of life's thresholds.

Understanding this makes me believe that it is always time for us to do better. It’s time for us to work harder, not in a physical sense but in a virtuous sense. And most importantly, to TALK about it. SHARE the great things you do without shame. The influence of virtue’s actions in the air has been thin for a very long time. Because it’s considered bragging??? As if that is a worse crime than apathy. We all love to brag about selfish things through indirect communication using status symbols or titles rather than actions. The internet has made humanity the most narcissistic it has ever been. I say apply that narcissism to our good deeds. Saturate media with it. The selfless are so unelectable now. Leadership is not practiced as a virtue. It must have empathy in it's execution.

We’ve lost many artists this year and only heard about their great deeds in death. Think of the missed opportunities there. What about the opportunities missed by people who were never in the limelight? They may not have been able to influence millions but they could have influence at least one life. And that is a win in anyones book.

It’s time to put good deeds in the center of the ring. It’s time to do them and share what you did no matter how small. Don't be ashamed. It’s time to share the stories of those deeds with out shame with the intent to encourage more people to do the same. Become a leader of good deeds to people around you.

This has to be done as soon as possible. Have urgency. Because it’s possible a time will come when it will be too late to fix what someone have done to themselves or others. I understand that it may not seem like our responsibility. This is bigger than just wearing an "I voted" sticker. A vote in an election is not equivalent to your contribution to humanity. Unfortunately, unwittingly it's often the cause of what is destroying it. The work has to be done at ground level. By us.

Be the voice that will lead others to become a voice. You don’t need a plaque or a title to earn the right to do this. All you need is a want. It’s time for us to raise our expectation of each other. It’s not too late. But it may be, soon, if we keep ignoring our responsibility to participate in our own evolution.

Lastly, I'd love to hear some of the things you have done to work toward making the world a better place. Please share your story below.

Creative Courage with Alex Raffi June 3rd

SIGN UP HERE: 

Rest in peace mom.

My book is now available.

CLICK LINK BELOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BUY MY CHILDREN'S BOOK.

Thank you McMullan's Irish Pub and St Baldricks Las Vegas for another incredible event. Raised $500,000 this evening...
Posted by Debi Elliott Raffi on Saturday, March 5, 2016

If you have a pulse, you have a purpose

Descartes takes his date, Jeanne, to a posh restaurant for her birthday. The waiter hands them the wine list, and Jeanne asks to order the most expensive bottle on the list. "I think not!" exclaims an indignant Descartes, and *POOF* he disappears.

“What is the meaning of life?”

Many people have spent a lot of time on the answer to that question. But maybe the answer lies in the question itself?
Our ability to reach out that far within our own minds and ask a question that big is telling, in many ways. Our need to know the answer can be seen as our purpose. Our need to answer every question in our lives could possibly be the only force that drives us. We are all involved, whether we know it or not, in the progression of our world at many levels. Every life is a small part of a bigger organism. The moment we came into existence we all automatically joined humanity. Our participation however small is relevant and part of the endless tapestry of life in the world. It’s important to realize that the fact that we have a pulse is the only proof necessary to understand that we have a purpose. And our creativity is the tool we use to exorcise that purpose. I believe the terms “creativity” and “problem solving” are interchangeable.
When we open a puzzle box and empty it out onto the table we are looking at a problem to solve. It was easy to create this problem. You simply needed to overturn the box. The piece’s scatter across the table in all directions. Pieces fall at all angles and many land upsides down. Yet, every piece has its place. We know this because we can see the solution in the image on the cover of the box. We realize that it will take time to find matching pieces and strategically place them near each other until that portion of the puzzle is solved. We are not discouraged because we are sure there is a solution. Every piece has a place. The world is full of problems, very complicated problems that require that same amount of undiscouraged determination. Man made problems caused without consideration of consequence. We don’t have the advantage of knowing what the solution looks like. There is no art on the box. But we do have the ability within all of us to find it. Once we get to work the solution will begin to reveal itself.
We also have much smaller problems, run of the mill problems that need to be solved at home or work. There is virtually no moment in your waking life where you are not taking note of any given situation, evaluating it and forming an opinion as to how to react or not react. It’s important to be aware of those moments. We are in a constant state of problem solving. If problem solving was an Olympic event, we would all be fit for the tournament. So our lack of creative capacity or in terms of this idea, our lack of being good problem solvers does not come from a lack of ability. It comes from a lack of will. Or simply put, it comes from a fear of failure.
We all have the potential to become better problem solvers. And it all starts with understanding the power and potential of our creativity and having the courage to follow it.
We have been living for a long time with a kind of creative apathy. We take our amazing ability, to see, evaluate, react and execute solutions, for granted. If a turning point is encouraged in our perception of creativity and enough of us champion the cause and become better problem solvers at work, life, and love, then maybe it could cause a kind of paradigm shift in the way we react to problems globally. It could create a shift needed to build a better world for our children and our children’s children.
In the prologue of Henry V, Shakespeare poetically asks his audience a favor. He asks them to suspend their belief for a moment. He is about to tell an epic story set in fifteenth century England of a young king who lays claim to certain parts of France based on his distant lineage. This leads to a war between two great kingdoms. He laments on how could the humble makings of a small wooden stage, a handful of actors and stagehands produce such a massive story? Aside from some very creative artistry, you could imagine that “special effects” were very limited in the 1600’s. Shakespeare struggled with this obstacle. How could he start his play with his audience primed for the story? How could he avoid the initial uphill battle of believability? He came to the conclusion that he would simply ask a favor. He asks… “Think when we talk of horses, that you see them printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth; For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, carry them here and there; jumping o'er times, turning the accomplishment of many years into an hour-glass…”
Shakespeare humbly requested that we delve deeper into our imagination. Don’t let yourself be stifled. Don’t limit yourself to accepted norms or let perceived reality stand in the way of your vision. Shakespeare was challenging the internal skeptic within all of us, encouraging us to allow ourselves to see with our minds eye a scope of possibility beyond the meager visage of what was before us. He asks this because he knew that people allow themselves to be stifled and distracted from seeing possibility.
Understanding creativity requires an acceptance of possibility. We all have our own perceptions of our own creative capacity and judge our potential on what we have done so far and place judgment on the result of our past efforts.
I would like to take a note from Shakespeare and call for a muse of fire that might inspire you to not judge creativity on the results of it’s process. But instead to take note of the capacity of the process undiscovered.

Creative Courage with Alex Raffi Video 7 of 7 – Problem Solving

Creative Courage with Alex Raffi Video 6 of 7 – Creativity in Childhood"

Creative Courage with Alex Raffi "Where Ideas Come From"

Creative Courage with Alex Raffi "The Brain"

Creative Courage Programming Your Subconscious

Creative Courage with Alex Raffi – Moments of Discovery