Congratulations to David N. Kitler!

I get to meet some really fantastic people at work and it's always really cool to see them win the awards and accolades they so deserve. I'm really happy to be able to send off warm congratulations to wildlife artist David N. Kitler who was awarded first place in Artist's Magazine's The Year's Best Art (December 2007) for his "Harpy Eagle Montage." His piece is a combination of graphite and acrylic on a toned board.

David camped out for three weeks under a harpy nest in the Panama jungle observing and drawing their every move. He has since been a guest lecturer at the Cornell School of Ornithology as a harpy 'expert'.

When David was with us at Creative Catalyst Productions, he taught two workshops: basic drawing and also acrylic. The drawing workshop, "Draw with Confidence: from Basic to Brilliant" is available and the acrylic will be released next year.

I edited "Drawing with Confidence" and it is amazing to watch David work. He knows his subject matter so well and he takes the time and has the patience to render such life like animals that you have to remind yourself that animals don't actually come in graphite color.

Congratulations David!

Tuesday

Ratindra Das arrived today! Or rather his DVD. Besides the logistical problem of where to put all the boxes (I can hear Susan down in the office arranging and rearranging boxes) it's always really exciting to have the truck show up with the videos.

Yesterday was my birthday and we also got it off for President's Day. What did I do all day? I worked. There might be some irony there but it's really nice to be in the office alone AND I'm almost caught up with my hours. I'm making great progress on David Kitler's drawing video. What an amazing artist! I'm learning quite a lot while I edit. It's great because I'm currently taking a beginning drawing class at the local community college and the two work nicely together.

Let there be...oh nevermind.

If you were standing in the Creative Catalyst Productions office on Thursday night around 7:15 pm, this is what you would see.


And then if you were standing in that same place at 10 am the next morning?

Wait, oh wait, what about 7pm Friday night?

You guessed it...


Actually, for a good portion of today you would have Susan in the semi pitch dark running orders through one computer run by our neighbor's power and the postage printer running off a borrowed family generator (her family's generator). She was absolutely determined to get orders off but finally had to leave around 4 because her fingers were so cold (no extra power for heat!)

So now Jim, Lynn and I are all in hotel rooms and might be setting up a studio for filming David Kitler in one as well a la Portland Art and Soul style (only without the sounds of low flying jets.) David is somewhere between here and the Canadian border driving south. We can't get a hold of him (he has no cell phone) to let him know that the road MapQuest is probably telling him to take to our studio might be under 6 + inches of water by the time he arrives...oh, AND that there is no power and we're moving the entire operation elsewhere. Who knew that EVERY conference room in the city would be filled with holiday type festivities. There are actually a LOT of conference rooms in our small town. There are also apparently a lot of holiday festivities.