Delayed Projects

A number of years ago, I was asked to create a mural for a local company. They wanted Vermont animals clad in bowties progressing through the seasons of the year! It was a dream come true and I dove into working on it. 

I had never done a mural before so I started by doing a bit of research on pricing and different ways of making a mural. I have a friend, Breadwig Ballinger, that has painted a number of murals, so I consulted with him about the project. I worked on a color rough draft to present to the town and the project got stalled. At the time the town was not approving any permanent outside art. 

It was difficult news to hear as this had become such a joy for me to work on. In response to the delay, I decided to keep working on the project as if it was going to happen. So I have slowly worked on the final illustration. It has become a passion project for me. I work on it in-between other jobs as it has evolved into a very complex composition.

I am not finished yet. I have finished winter (to the far right). I am almost finished with spring and I have started refining summer.

I do not know that I will ever see this on a wall, but I have enjoyed working on it. The process has been a wonderful challenge and I hope that it will someday be seen by many more people on a wall.

It's National Bow Tie Day!

In honor of National Bow Tie Day I am posting the beginnings of a series of Illustrations. These are more of my Parade of Bow Ties. Each one created will be related to a specific location or type of animal. This is the start of my Vermont Parade of Bow Ties. It involves real or mythical creatures and things that relate to the great state of Vermont. This is something that is coming along slowly when I am not busy with other things.

Seen in the image: Beluga Whale, Rabbit, Loon, Moose, Chipmunk, Blue Heron, Hermit Thrush, Llama, Enfeild, Snowman, Ent, Raccoon.

Sending out some gratitude

A month or so ago I discovered that I was awarded the VSC Faculty Fellowship. This will give me a three credit release next year to work on getting a book ready to send to publishers. I am so grateful for the honor and prepared thank you letters and a limited edition print to those that helped me in the process. This is so exciting for me to start working on something that has been in the planning process for over 10 years now.

Updated WebSite is Now Live!

At the beginning of the year I set a number of goals with regards to illustration work. Freshening up my web site was one of them. Over the past two weeks, I have been working on updating my web page. It now matches the brand I created a year ago and has more recent work. There will be more to come!

I welcome any feedback and thoughts. This is an exciting time for me with some new projects on the horizon.

You can see the site at barclay-studio.com

ART Squared at the Quimby Gallery

We are a little over a week into ART squared, a community art event in the Quimby Gallery. Everyone is invited to submit art created within a 5x5 in square. We started off strong. This week there was an even larger increase of submissions. The main wall is close to being full. I also have close ups of some of my work submitted. The gallery hangs work as it comes in so the art grows and changes day by day. We will be accepting work through March 9th.

Bow Tie Guys of the Day: Giraffe and Sloth TBT

Giraffe and Sloth (jəˈraf slôTH, släTH, slōTH)

In 2011 I posted a black and white version of this. Here is the painted version of the Bow Tie Guys. Life is getting hectic, but I am still posting.

National Bow Tie Day!

August 28th is National Bow Tie Day. I thought I would post a few of my favorite Bow Tie Guys over the years.

Unveiling My Updated Brand

In addition to being an illustrator, I am also a graphic designer. I enjoy taking on branding projects. Recently, I felt that I needed to update my brand slightly. I use Adobe Jensen because of the classic feel and that it does not look so crisp and clean. For this iteration, I played with the quirky quality of my illustrations by making the C in Barclay slightly askew. 

Yesterday, I received my new set of business cards. I went with Moo for printing because I could have 50 different images on 50 different cards. I have been very impressed with the quality, price and service. I felt like a child on Christmas day. 

Exhibit at NVRH in Saint Johnsbury (I.F. Prehistoric)

This week starts an exhibit of my illustration work and four illustration students from Lyndon State College at Northern Vermont Regional Hospital. As part of the exhibit, I completed another illustration in my E is for Elephant series, titled “During a discussion of design dynamics with a defenseless duo of duck billed dinosaurs and a diplodocus, a deluge of dozens of dastardly debonair dumbo octopi daintily descended.” The work will be up until March 6.

Illustration Friday-Search

This is the second illustration completed for the exhibit LSC's ABC's the 2014 Faculty Exhibit. I had Q and S (seen here). This is for the letter Q and is titled “Quintessential quirky, quixotic, quasi quadrupeds quaintly questing with quarter-staffs, and queso, for quaggas and a quetzalcoatlus in a quagmire of quicksand to qualify for the quaich.”

Two New Bow Ties Available

Two more of my bow ties are now available at Beau Ties LTD of Vermont.

For the fox lover you can have the tie “Fantastic.”  And if you love Dinosaurs you can have a tie replete with various dinos called “Dinomite.”

They are also available as neck ties. 

Spring Cover for Beau Ties LTD of Vermont

In addition to the new bow tie, the latest catalog from Beau Ties LTD just came. I tried to fit as many bow ties as I could in the image and stopped short of putting them on each of the tulips.

Spring Bow Tie is now available!

Tired of the winter weather? You can now purchase my third bow tie for the Spring Season and the Easter Holiday at Beau Ties LTD of Vermont. This one has been titled Chicken or Egg. It begs to answer the question which came first. Well, in this instance the egg came first.

Happy Halloween (Days 27-31 of 31 Creature Bow Ties + 1 if you can find it)

Trick or Treating (trik ôr trētiNG)

Included in my final post for the 31 days of Creature Bow Ties is the wolpertin, the Brain in a jar, the Blob, a dragon and a goblin. There is one more as a hidden creature for those that want to look. Technically, I could add a second mystery bow tie guy as well. I hope you enjoy the day. Now it is on to working on the illustrations for this years faculty exhibit. 

Day 25 of 31 Creature Bow Ties

Vermont Minotaur (vərˈmänt ˈminəˌtôr)

This minotaur roams the woods of New England. I could do a typical minotaur. 

Days 20-22 of 31 Days of Creature Bow Ties (IF Haunted)

3 Ghosts

I've been playing around with the bow tie guy ghosts for some time. It is getting there.

Days 17-19 of 31 Days of Creature Bow Ties

The Dreaded Werpenguin (ˈwe(ə)r, ˈpeNGgwin)

The werpenguin is a rare flightless fowl beast found in the remote regions of the Antarctic. They are generally poor unfortunate scientists that survive a werpenguin attack and can be seen traveling in small flocks on the night of a full moon in the Antarctic looking for victims. 

Days 13-15 of 31 Days of Creature Bow Ties

These are 3 aliens I have been drawing since high school. Umlout is the one-eyed guy, Ubu has the tentacles, Uz is the other one.

Day 5-7 of 31 Days of Creature Bow Ties

Dancing Demons

Since I am not able to post on the weekend I thought I would take care of the weekend in one fell swoop.

IF Sight (sketching at the Fairbanks Museum)

As part of the sketching class I am teaching we visited the Fairbanks Museum in St Johnsbury VT. They have a wonderful selection of taxidermic animals that are wonderful to draw. It is great practice and warms them up to sketching from life when everything is moving. Inevitably all the animals I draw their end up with bow ties, glasses and sweater vests. The owl seemed to screech “sight”