Water Barrel for Chicago Conservation Project

A month ago, I painted a water barrel that is part of a conservation project for Chicago. Primary website is www.recycletheraindrops.com. My barrel (the one shown above) will be on exhibit @ Columbia College's GreenTown Chicago Conference on October 14/15 at 1104 S. Wabash. Conference website is www.greentownconference.com. The conference is not open to the public, however my barrel will eventually be placed somewhere in Chicago, so stay tuned, I will post the location when it is official!

Barrel is about 4ft tall and painted with acrylic paint. I was given the opportunity to paint whatever I wanted as long as it was appropriate for public viewing and the imagery covered the whole barrel—while this type of creative freedom doesn't come along often, I wanted to create something that would make me smile if I were walking down a street in Chicago and spotted it on the corner. They requested that I submit a statement regarding my self-assigned theme, this is my summary:

The general theme of the rain barrel is that we all share the same home (Earth) and we are all in this together. Water conservation is a serious topic that I wanted to rewrite as approachable with a playful depiction of animals tucked in a life saver floating elbow-to-elbow in water. A sun is at the top of the barrel circling the opening to symbolized water, life, and hope.

Quirky Bird

Above is how the I Know I Can - Quirky Twin turned out when I cleaned up the line work. I am officially renaming it Quirky Bird now that it feels to have surpassed where I thought I was going with it. This is a different character entirely and is no longer a twin of anything as far as I am concerned. I am all for simplicity when it comes to sweet innocent characters. . .however, when working on a character like the Quirky Bird, simplicity tends to fly out the window (cheesy pun intended). Complex characters have complex stories and, in turn, are surrounded by complexity. Hmmmm. . .sounds like someone is projecting.

Muglove 2

Here is Muglove with the linework cleaned up. I am really starting to love this one. I took the thumbs out on purpose and will put them back in. I like how complex the image has become, but it looks heavy; I plan to work that out in the next stage.

Crazy Frog -- Quirky Twin

Here is another "quirky twin" based off of the original. Unlike my last entry, this image is final and has color. This image filled itself in pretty easily -- I can't help but make up a dialogue in my head about what these two may be negotiating. This leans toward creepy/dreamy/fantastical -- not sure if this passes for "children's illustration" anymore. . .

I Know I Can -- Quirky Twin

I titled this piece as a "quirky twin" for a reason.
This sketch is based off of the original "I Know I Can" birdy. I have a darker style to my character development that I often fight but genuinely get a kick out of every time I surrender to it. Having spent over seven years in the consumer product industry, I have been trained to think that happy/approachable sells. I have all these rules in my head that I have heard from Marketing departments and Sales teams that vary industry to industry, but nonetheless are still in the back of my mind when I am creating something. I often wonder what my work would look like if I didn't have "industry standards" in my reference bank.

While I like upbeat and sweet characters -- the ugly•beautiful ones (like the one above) really make my eyes flutter and get my hands itchy for more.
I have a feeling that I have been holding off rebuilding my website because I do not see much of "me" represented in some of the work I have been creating as of late. I think if I do more pieces like the one above, I will see more of my sarcasm and whimsically-dark-instinctively-sweet side. . .and, in turn, rebuild the website to reflect both sides of my talent.

Above is an example of what happens when I stop trying to make characters have mass-appeal and really push myself to pair an emotion with a character and make the image appealing/beautifully•ugly to ME. When I do this, a unique environment usually builds itself around the character much more easily than the happy/bright characters. I do believe that our surroundings effect how we present ourselves to others and how we feel. I am very amused when an environment builds itself so easily and naturally like it did in this sketch -- Can't wait to bring this to full color!

TOWN HOOPTY Complete

Town Hoopty -- complete! Well, for now, anyway. I have two other pieces similar in theme that I have in mind so I can have 3 as a collection. When those are complete, I will go back into this one and tweak it a bit.

Specifically, I want to add some movement and blur effects to the wheels. I am tempted to create a version that has a border to play up the messy plane/helicopter trails -- but that will be better explored after I figure out the other two pieces.

Town Hoopty

This project is one of those that you fall in more and more in love with while you are working on it. Then again, I do have a strange affection for saying "Town Hooptie" outloaud. :)

Below is my original rough sketch and above is a happy in between stage.

There is still much to do -- among a few things-- shading needs to be added behind the buildings, behind the overall image, texture in the background would make the buildings pop (still debating on how much is too much) and the pavement needs some work (FPO for now).