Thursday, January 1, 2009

What's Next

What a year it has been! What started out as a simple challenge to myself blossomed into an incredible experience I will never forget. I want to thank my wife and two boys for their support and for putting up with me and my pursuit. I also want to thank all of you for following me on this journey. I am so grateful for the many kind emails and comments that I have received this past year. It was this type of encouragement that kept me going. I also want to thank all that have purchased my art. It is an incredible feeling to know that my art has touched people in such a positive way. I have met so many helpful people along the way and to all I give a big thanks.

Many have asked and emailed me wondering what I plan on doing next.

The Drawing Flies 365 project and the blog will stick around. There are still many flies that still need to be painted. I truly enjoy painting flies and will continue to do so. The only caveat is that I will not be doing this on a daily basis. I will post flies as I paint or create them. I will still take print orders and commission requests To get all of the latest updates, please point your RSS reader to the blog or sign up using Feedburner (Box on right margin of the blog). You may also email me to sign up for my "Off The Easel" Newsletter. This is a bi-monthly newsletter that keeps the subscribers up to date on all of the events and new paintings from Jeff Kennedy Studio. Rest assured that this is a private list and is not shared with anyone.

The reason the fly art will not be conducted on a daily basis is that I need that time to move onto some other projects that require my attention.

The first project is the publication of the Drawing Flies 365 book. About a quarter of the way through this project, I started to think about the possibilities of such a book. My plans are to have this book available for an end of January release. The book will include most of the flies created along with my thoughts that occurred during the creation of the paintings. Please email me if you are interested in purchasing the book. The book will be a high quality coffee table style hardbound book. The estimated cost will be around $79 each book. For the first 15 people that pre purchase the book, I will sign and number each book. I will also include a print with your book. Click this link to make a $20 pre purchase to reserve your book. Your $20 dollars deposit will be subtracted from the purchase price one the book is available.



The next project is one that I have been toying with but have not seriously put the effort into until now. That project is Brook.

Brook is a project that was conceived a few years back. I really admire the work of Varga and Gil Elvgren. Their ability to render the human form while telling an incredible story from their images set the wheels in motion to create Brook. The one area of drawing and painting that I would like to improve on is the human form. I would like to take some life drawing classes and work on my gouache renderings of the human body. My goal is to create a calendar with brook in various fishing situations. landing a trout, sunning herself in a float tube while catching blugill or fighting a leaping tarpon are just some of the ideas.

Brook has a website, but the first order of business is to bring it up to date. That will happen the first part of this month. I have also created a blog where I will be posting my progress on this journey. The blog was just created and needs some design attention. This will also happen the first part of January.



So there you have it. Drawing Flies 365 will still continue to exist, Brook is born and a book chronicling the Drawing Flies adventure will be available soon.

I also would like to spend more time on my landscape painting. You can view my paintings on my website in the gallery section (which will be updated) or at my sketch blog.

This Saturday (Jan 3rd) I will be interviewed by Boodreaux and Steve Chapman on Orlando ESPN Radio. You can listen to the live stream or you will be able to download the podcast later after the broadcast. You can go to the website for more information.

3 comments:

Trout Buddha said...

BRAVO!

Unknown said...

Jeff, Mail is bouncing from your email address.

Anonymous said...

I got in a little late, but it sure was a pleasure seeing a new fly every day. Congratulations on a great success!