I also need to give a run down of this year’s 48 Hour Film Project. Team Hand Turkey went big this year. And in my admittedly own biased opinion we came up with our best effort yet. The debut screening is today at 4PM EST here at the Byrd. After the premiere we’ll be able to host it online. And I’ll shamelessly pimp share it with any and every one interested in seeing it.

In other news and to prevent this from being a post devoid of content beyond the promise of future content. A week or so ago for my warm up drawing I decide to do another sketch card to donate to Kelly Light’s phenomenal cause Ripple Sketches.

Please take the time to look over what’s being offered over there. Some really awesome art is being put up for very little money. BUT 100% of that money is going towards animal rescue in the Gulf. Do a good thing, and get great art. It’s win win.

I’m happy to say there has already been a donation to the Sea Turtle Conservancy for this card, and it will soon be living in Reno, NV with one of my fellow 12 Weekers (Thanks Donna Jeanne!). But so much great art is getting posted every day I’m sure you can find something to tickle your fancy.

Again more posting, more often soon. But now I need to clean myself up a bit*. I got a film showing!

*Just a bit mind you. This is Richmond. And it is over 100° F today.

These were done as a gift in the not too distant past. Just getting around to putting scanned versions up.

First off I’d like to say, it’s really inspiring to watch a grass roots effort take hold and mobilize a group of people. I was pointed in the direction of fellow illustrator Kelly Light’s amazing efforts over the weekend, through multiple folks on my Twitter follow list. Through numerous small steps and what I can only assume is an amazing amount of elbow grease Kelly has started the ripplesketches blog. With it she’s been putting up her own and other’s donated sketchcards or prints, selling them for the price of a ten dollar donation to either The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies or The International Bird Rescue Research Center .

It’s just that simple. She stood up and said out loud she wasn’t going to sit by doing nothing. Instead she used what she had at her disposal, and tried to make something happen. And you know what? It IS happening. In just a few short days and through word of mouth the project has raised as of last update 2,000 dollars. With what I can only imagine is no end in sight.

The cards I’ve submitted will be in the post to their new home tomorrow (Thanks Charlotte if you happen to be reading!). BUT, in saying this there are so many great pieces still available, by so many great artists.

One last plug, go check out the ripplesketches blog, and buy something great, while doing something great.

I’m happy to say in a small way I was a part of this. Thanks again Kelly, for everything you are doing.

So here I am on the first day of week 8 posting my last image for week 6. I’ve been hustling, but never could make up the time from the about face I made at the mid point of week 5. However now I’m finished and I hope to be back on track by the week’s end.

The final image I chose to do was kind of a two for one for me. Prior to the 12 Week Challenge I’d run across a contest run by the most excellent ArtOrder blog who joined forces with Veronika Kotajic for this particular challenge. This was an awesome contest, run by an awesome blog (one I can’t believe it took me so long to stumble across), oh and judged by awesome judges. All for a good cause to boot? Sign me up.

It posed a lot of interesting problems for me. Not the least of which were the delivery dimensions. The final output was set for 13.5″ x 17″. Since I work traditionally I like to work larger pieces at least a bit larger than the final. In order to let scaling tighten up the image for me just a bit. So the original ended up being 16.875″ x 21.25″ so around twice as big as I have been working lately. It proved to be a lot of fun. I plan to work on more drawings at a larger scale as my schedule allows it in the near future.

Any way here’s what I was able to come up with this week. Let me know what you think.

***ETA*** In my haste to post this I left off the link to Veronika’s page, and any mention of her being part of hosting this contest.

I’ve finally had the time to go back and start reworking this poster project. The previous incarnation to me felt a little stiff, like I’d forced so much stuff into the image none of it had room to move. So beyond a compositional reshuffle I tried to add a little more oomph to the characters. Especially bringing the main figure out more and making him more prominent. It should be noted a logo will be taking up that GIANT empty area at the bottom of the page.

I’ll stare at it a bit tomorrow, and then I’ll start laying paint down.

As always thoughts welcome!

It’s the double edged sword of personal work I guess. I have the luxury of no deadline staring me in the face telling me I can’t go back. But at the same time I have no deadline staring me in the face threatening to shoot if I retreat.

And that was at least one too many weapon metaphors for a single short paragraph.

So to sum up my last week for those playing along at home.

I’ve restarted a poster design, returning all the way to the thumbnail stage. After having the old style all the way to compositing and adding type.

Building up/refurbishing a mailing list. Terribly unexciting but terribly necessary.

Less talk more art soon I hope.

This was the last of the series I produced before the show. I actually finished it the Thursday before the opening.

For now I’m probably going to let the stained paper work rest just a bit as I recharge some. I did learn a lot from doing these, and that’s always the goal. In fact doing these have convinced me to restart the poster I’ve been working on. So starting soon the Process Posts will return, but I’m headed back to the beginning I believe.

This week has been mostly about the business end of things. Making a mailing list has really sucked up much of my time. And I’m still only a fraction of the way through. Necessary but data entry and fact checking is not a very relaxing way to spend my days.

This was a concept thrown out to me by Chris Horrorshow. At the time of doing this one I was down to two more images to create before the opening and I was drawing a bit of a blank. Chris threw the concept of an old west gun crossed by a ray gun at me. After hearing that I only had to come up with one more concept. This one practically drew itself.

I need to draw more guns. Especially LASER guns.

This is a House Sparrow. I had no idea that “house” was an indicator of a separate breed of these things until I was grabbing reference for this bird drawing. Clearly I should be on the Audubon Society’s short list of illustrators*, with thoughts like “Oh There ARE different kinds of Sparrow. Would you look at that?”

Maybe I should erase that line and scour the House sparrow wiki to act like I’m knowledgeable or something?

Nah, I doubt that would fool anybody, at least those that know me in person.

*If I ever manage to land a job with them, you’ll be cool and not point out what an idiot I am right? Right?

Any new technique or style I work with has to pass the ape test. Yes I’m aware the file is named Monkey!, and this is a chimp. It’s okay I assure you. Tarzan called a Chimp Cheetah, clearly they have no special identity issues.