The Fine Print

Oy Vey…

It seems I have another lesson under my belt. As usual it’s one I learned the hard way.

I spent at least 2 hours today on an art submission for one of the local magazines in town. I really liked my finished piece and submitted it minutes before the deadline. Or so I thought.

Once I started double-checking the contest area of the website, I realized that the deadline (which I was 99.9% sure was today) was actually yesterday. Ahhhh, the fine print.

I’m actually not that bummed. I was a little annoyed as I realized I’d missed the bus on the contest but the hours I spent drawing are not in vain. Any creative time actually soothes the brain and I think I’m riding that wave of calm right now.

I’ll still share with you the cover I did. But first a little back story. The magazine offering the contest is The Reader, a free local paper put out every Thursday. I’ve looked at it many times over the years. When I was scrounging around for art gigs in my early 20s, my artist friend Todd and I used to look at The Reader weekly for work. They have a classified section and each Thursday we’d open the paper and see if there was anything between “aquarium” and “assembly.” “Art” came up at times but not as often as broke artists like us would have liked.

The Reader is fun. It has great cover stories, restaurant reviews, a section called "News of the Weird” (obviously an amusing part), coupons and a column for almost any interest. I like its local vibe, I like that the cover story always grabs my attention, and I love that they looked to the people for the cover contest. I’m intrigued to see who wins it and has their cover printed on next week’s issue.

There were 114 cover designs submitted. 15 were from one artist! Wow. The reader gave two weeks lead time on the contest but still, 15 art pieces in 14 days is a lot. Some were very imaginative. One guy even carved his from wood! Now there’s some thinking outside the box. In case you want to see the other submissions, you can check them out here. 

The cover had various frames drawn in black and white, and people interpreted the assignment in a huge variety of ways. I think of mine as a color and pattern extravaganza!

Here’s my take on the blank cover:

 

I have to laugh at myself since my blog post yesterday was entitled “Look a Little Closer.”  Ooops. Seems this artist needs to look a little closer at the fine print when it comes to dates and deadlines!