Sketchbook Project on tour!

This past weekend was the kick-off for the Art House Co-op's Sketchbook Project traveling exhibit with an opening reception at The Brooklyn art Library. I had a chance to stop by, but unfortunately it was close to the end of the night, and by that time they were trying to wrap things up and not allowing anymore check-outs. So, I didn't actually get to browse through any of the books, but it was a cool space with over 10,000 sketchbooks lining the shelves—I can't wait to get back there to peruse the stacks and take a look at how everyone interpreted their themes!

The exhibit will be at the Brooklyn Art Library in Williamsburg until February 27 when it'll pack up to hit the road on it's national tour. I'll coincidentally be in Austin, TX in March when it hits there—so hoping to check it out on the road too! The full schedule/tour dates are on the Art house Co-op's website.

Checking out the Sketchbook Project at Brooklyn Art Library

Opening reception, Saturday February 19

With Kristin Smith-my dear friend and also a participating artist in the Sketchbook Project

I also had a very cool opportunity to share a little piece about my experience with the project on Starving Talent—a resource site and online community for artists, by artists. It's a brand new website featuring all kinds of cool and inspiring articles and resources for creatives in all fields—illustration, design, photography, music, film. Sarah McGinnis—the organizer for the Tilsbury Publishing  project I participated in last May—now works on Starving Talent and and invited me to contribute. I hope to submit more to the site in the future. It's a really cool place for artists—check it out if you have a chance, and be sure to read more about the Sketchbook Project opening there! Thanks Sarah!

Recent commission

I've been juggling several project recently—which has kept me from blogging the last few weeks... Definitely one of the difficult things about balancing a full-time design job in addition to freelance assignments!

But that means I've been busy which is great; I'll be updating my website soon with some of the new book cover designs I've recently worked on, and in the meantime wanted to share my latest piece.

Another friend commissioned me to paint their wedding venue; they'll be creating prints of this to give to their guests at the reception. The venue is at the Breakers hotel in Florida—the architecture of the place is really interesting and it was fun to paint something tropical in the dreary middle of NYC winter! I'm pretty happy with the final piece and it's always fun to do something special for a friend.

As great as it was to have the opportunity to do this project, I'll likely not take any more commissions of this sort for awhile. I'm trying to churn out some new personal work to build my commercial/illustration and graphic design portfolios, and these kinds of projects are hindering me from moving along with that.  I'll eventually return to being open to commissioned landscapes and portraits—but have to keep my focus on other things for a bit...