Saw this video on the Little Chimp Society's site. This is truly what graphic designers and commercial artists go through. It wouldn't work in other professions. "The above video is from Scofield Edi­to­r­ial and is bril­liant and so true to the envi­ron­ment we cur­rently work in!"

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I hope you all have a tasty and fun Fifth of May! Not too fun, you have to work tomorrow. I will be celebrating by taking my son to swimming lessons and (hopefully) munching on some tasty tacos.

I painted the image above for 417 Magazine a few years ago and I love the colors and the inking of the senorita so I like to bring it out once a year. You may see it again next May. I like the hand-drawn feel, but I've always been bad at patterns so if I were to do it again, I would employ the help of my Mac for a little more consistency in the Mayan flare. Oh well, it still puts me in the mood for a fiesta! Arrrriba!

Art bike

I've been working hard on a unique project this week – decorating a bike for the Ozark Greenways nonprofit group. There will be 9 art bikes being displayed around downtown Springfield kicking off Bike, Bus, Walk to Work Week. We have a monthly First Friday Artwalk with all the galleries downtown so this is all in conjunction with that. My bike will be at the Good Girl Art shop on Walnut Street. It's in the middle of the store in a small room of pet portraits. That place is always packed so hopefully the bike and Greenways program gets some attention. This is kind of the inaugural year for this event, but Lori from the Greenways office told me they hope to grow the event to more artists next year.

I was glad to have help with this one given the short notice (four days). My co-creator is graphics guru Bruce who I work with every day down at City Hall. He did the photo collage in the center of the bike and I did acrylic paintings for the wheels. It took both of us a lot of time to figure out how to piece our idea together for "A Night on the Town," but I think it came together nicely.

If you get a chance on this rainy weekend, stop by Springfield and Good Girl Art to see it in person. Circumstances prevented them from organizing an auction or voting for this year, but this may be a possibility for future years. The bikes should be on display for two weeks. Now that this is done, maybe I can catch up on some sleep! Enjoy!
Currently listening to Dashboard Confessional – "Dusk & Summer"

Been so long

Music I'm listening to: Jeremy Larson-"Salvation Club" and Sufjan Stevens-"The Avalanche."
It's been a busy month and a half. Brochure designs and health concerns have kept me away from you. I now work half for the Springfield Parks Department and half for the City's Public Information Office. Should be some interesting projects involved. Today I shot photos at the Farm Park for the Park's first annual Easter egg hunt. My 2 year old son and I both got a little sunburned- ouch. Thanks to my brother for hanging out so I could concentrate on taking photos.

Just for fun, I posted the drawing above of some cartoon characters I did for the Health Department. They may appear on a kids health Web site someday when they finish it. I think these guys are too cute to keep locked up in my computer. I've been working on some illustrations for a new animal magazine called TAME. Will hopefully post those soon. Happy Easter!

I want to thank the little people...

The Springfield Advertising Club hosted the 30th annual ADDY Awards Saturday, February 21. I had 4 entries, 2 from work at the City of Springfield and 2 of my own freelance work. The City, of course, did not pay for my personal entries in case you were keeping close tabs on Springfield's financial problems. Anyway, it turns out that 3 of my entries won ADDYs! My wife sat patiently through nearly 3 hours of awards mostly given to Noble & Assoc. She was such a trooper. We decided next year I should enter stuff in the categories they announce at the beginning of the ceremony.

The piece that won for the City was a logo I made for the Brownfields program. It is an EPA partnership-type of program that can assist developers clean up abandoned gas stations or other industrial waste land to make it safe for new construction. Like recycling the land. Hence the arrows and building in the background. The "B" is for Brownfields of course.


Another winning entry was an illustration of Sufjan Stevens (Soof-yawn Steev-inz) that I did as a part of my self-promotion packaging. He is my favorite indie folk/rock musician. He plays banjo, guitar, piano, clarinet and probably every other instrument known to man and comes up with these extravagant arrangements that pay homage to Michigan, "Illinoize" and swans with some religious undertones. Or overtones, I don't know. In his "Illinoize" tour, he was onstage wearing wings and some kind of boyscout uniform while his orchestra of "Illinoizemakers" wore butterfly wings. I painted him with those wings communing with nature/Creation, specifically a robin which is Michigan's state bird. I use this illustrated portrait on postcards that I send to magazines. I think it's time for another mailing.


The third winning entry was my stationery I made for mailing out with these promotional cards. I hand-painted the edges of some paper and envelopes and worked my "M" logo into it. Of course my business cards were also a part of the package.


Now that you see all these together, can you tell what my favorite color is? Maybe I should branch out to other colors of the rainbow. Anyway, it was a successful evening and I expect to be doing even better (and colorful) work in the coming year, so stay tuned.

ADDYs

I just got word today that "some" of my work will receive ADDY awards. "The ADDY® Awards is the advertising industry's largest and most representative competition, attracting over 50,000 entries every year in local ADDY® competitions. The mission of the ADDY competition is to recognize and reward creative excellence in the art of advertising.

Conducted annually by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the local ADDY®
Awards is the first of a three-tier, national competition. Concurrently, all across the
country, local entrants vie for recognition as the very best in their markets."

So they called earlier today as a bit of a teaser to get me to buy a ticket to the fancy awards banquet. Well, it worked. I'll be taking my lovely wife again this year, Feb. 21, and I will let you know which entries won. I'm so excited!

This is how I envision the Keep on Truckin' T-shirt. The shirt will be a "Tarheel" blue. I'm now looking at brands and cost of shirts. Did you know there is a company that makes bamboo shirts? Also there is an organic cotton to cornsider. I don't know, I'll have to consider the look and feel of the shirts too. I want people to actually wear the shirts. Maybe I'll get the ones made of human hair donated from the beards of Tuvan throat singers high in the Himalayas. Fairly traded of course. I'll weigh the possibilities.