A Labor of Love

I have been working for two years on illustrating a story that my Mom wrote almost 15 years ago. It is the story of our old Beagle Sadie. For the parts of the story that align with the time we adopted her, it is a true story. For the part of the story before that, it is what she thought might have happened.

This is the cover art. She was a sweet dog.

This page tells about the life of the pup Sadie. She is on the left behind her Momma. In the book, the little mustache and three spots on her chest are two features that identify her. She is mostly black and has a little white "paint brush" tail.

So, I have about 7 more paintings to finish. I have drawings for the whole book and have done a basic layout and design. Once I finish the paintings, I will scan them and put the whole thing together.

I will post more when I have them done. Hope you like them.

My "Why"

I'll wrap up this little flurry of activity with a concept that I just recently have been thinking about: Start with the Why—from Simon Sinek. If you haven't seen his TEDTalk, take a little time to view it.

Our CEO asked me to use this approach for a capabilities presentation and I was really inspired to explore my own "Why."

It is a pretty simple approach, asking yourself "why do you do what you do?" What is at the core of why you get up and make things each day. It takes a bit of effort, but in the end I think it helps to articulate your values in simple terms. So here is what I came up with:

Applying my talents and expertise to advance institutional communication goals by interpreting key concepts and narratives into effective messaging that informs and inspires targeted audiences.

Well, actually that is how it evolved in an effort to add it to my resume. Simply put, I try to use my experience and expertise to help customers articulate their ideas in a clean, visually appealing way that inspires their audiences.

I'll see how it floats...

Courage to Reinvent Event

I found this in my archive and really liked it. I created this logo for an annual operations meeting where the company brings the leadership and management in to share ideas, inspire, and network. There theme was Courage to Reinvent. Here's the logo:

I liked how stark and simple it is. Too many fonts maybe, but it seemed to work. I liked the way the border has a subtle little change from squares to circles. I put it against an antique background for the booklet and other companion pieces.

I've Been Away For a While

I recently read an article suggesting that artists breathe new life into abandoned blogs. It dawned on me that I had spent a good deal of time posting artwork to Facebook and neglecting this forum. So, I'm back and I hope to get back into the habit of writing and posting artwork here.

To kick things off, I wanted to share this logo that I created for an upcoming training event.

This was a bit of a departure from the more recent images for the company. I struggled with developing a visual for some time. The customer asked to work with the theme word Adapt and that seemed lonely for some reason. After considering things that adapt, I came to the chameleon idea. I drew up some ideas where the creature was a part of the A.

 I worked that idea pretty extensively, but didn't like where it went. I felt it needed more. That's when I added the Thrive concept. The customer wanted to motivate their team and inspire them. Adapting without an outcome was what I think was hanging me up. Once I added that concept, I saw the t in adapt and thrive as overlapping. So I morphed them together and it seemed to work. The customer was pleased as well.