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Hooray! I finally finished my little painting - the first one I've done in an embarrassing stretch of time. I was really tempted to make this a bit more 3D as I had been working, but the canvas texture was sort of a dominating factor, and I didn't want to put myself off to just plain finishing it. I can't wait to hang it in my daughter's room and move on to my next project. There are so many little 'fun' projects to choose from if you aren't burdened by actual deadlines. Here's what I'm mulling over working on next:
They Draw and Travel
They Draw and Cook
Undercovered Cover Art
Illustration Rally
or maybe just a good ol' Illustration Friday

I’ve already posted about the Authors for Japan auction, which started yesterday and runs for the rest of this week: there are some very tempting lots on offer, so take a look. All money raised will be paid directly to the British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal.

Through one of the donors, Rachel J. Fenton, who is offering a Hand-made artist’s pamphlet of poetry and art work, I discovered another initiative that’s being set up to raise money for Japan: booksthathelp.org is proposing to create New Sun Rising: Stories for Japan, “a collection of stories and poems and art honoring and celebrating Japan”.

Here’s what they need:

your stories, poems, and artwork (see their submission page)
your tweets and blogs and vlogs and facebooks (see their helping out page)
your eyeballs and discerning literary and artistic judgement (see their helping out page)

They would welcome any submissions that are “relevant to or evocative of Japan” – including manga and microfiction… They will then be donating 100% of the proceeds to a charity working with the relief effort in Japan. And “they”, by the way, are authors Sessha Batto, Frankie Sachs (who would love to be able to include a wood-cut), Elle, Susan May James, Solange Noir and Michelle Goode.

Then, thanks to Playing by the Book, I’m able to pass on two more initiatives which have both put the call out for illustrators:

Art for Japan, set up by sisters Meg and Alice Hunt, is calling on any “cartoonist, illustrator, designer, animator, crafter, fine artist, etc.” for donations of work to be auctioned on eBay in early April. Anyone who can help is asked to email artforjapan2011ATgmailDOTcom; for full details go here.

And Illustration Rally has launched Ganbare Nippon: Don’t Give Up Japan, calling out for both original artwork to auction and submissions to their Rally for Japan, from which they plan to produce merchandise to sell – “so please give us your best imag