Thursday, August 18, 2016

THE ART OF COLLABORATION

Those of you on my email lists have been hearing a lot about my current art book collaboration, Encounters with the Imaginary. Some of you may have heard about it on other social media outlets. The book is starting as a KickStarter. (There’s a fine line between sharing and spamming that I’ve been mindful of along the way, but I want to make sure that no one misses out.) If you’d like to be on my art list for special announcements about projects like this, make sure to let me know

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Encounters with the Imaginary
Encounters with the Imaginary is an art book—a product of months of collaboration with 19 other artists—all amazing—and, I’m convinced, part Energizer Bunny. I am officially exhausted.
The collaboration is part of Boneshaker Press, the business started to house the project that has turned into an art community and much more than I ever expected. There are interviews, opinion pieces and works in progress you can read on our website here. There is also an art group on Facebook here. The artists of Boneshaker Press are from all over the world—a truly exceptional group of talent, skills and passion for illustration.

The book is available through our Kickstarter for a couple more weeks and there are lots of fantastic bonuses too—like large canvas and mini prints.

Sharing this project has been very different than I’m used to. Generally I post or send my images out by email and those interested buy prints, cards, books, etc. For this project the group decided not to share all the finished images until the book ships. Since I’ve been getting a lot of messages and emails with questions about what I’ve illustrated for the book, I thought I’d share the line drawing and part of the finished piece (above). It has been so tough not to share the entire final illustration! My character is the Great Owl, a rather large, benevolent creature who lives in a massive forest. As usual, I've written a short story for the illustration that is also in the book, along with some background on the development of the piece.


The Great Owl—line art for my illustration in Encounters with the Imaginary


It has been an exciting time. While you’re checking everything out, I’m going to try to get a nap in before the next project starts…