It’s either “on” or “off” for a frozen pizza. You never get to sit around at 72 degrees.

Jim Gaffigan made a joke about “pouring himself a glass of bread” and it inspired me.

Check out my project page here, and check back next week to watch my “day” which will be streaming live like those webcams of birds in nests! (My fave are the Decorah eagles.)

You can call me to chat or conduct business while I’m tree-bound. If you have any other ideas about the work you’d like to see me doing, let me know! I’ll be taking suggestions ;)

Visit my ustream channel here.

To win the painting, comment here! I might not see them right away if my hands are painty, but I’ll be reading all of them! I’d love your feedback on the painting, color suggestions, etc!

**EXTENDED until Friday at midnight** For this contest, we are giving away TWO prizes. Two is better than one, no? We’ll draw from comments on this post made before midnight Friday (Nov. 18, 2011).

1. For anybody, one signed medical illustration print!

2. For art buyers*, a $500 credit towards a custom medical illustration or animation! (No purchase necessary to win or redeem. For example, could be used for one free line drawing + reproduction rights, or as part of a larger project.)

To enter: Leave a comment below! Not sure what to say? How about… which organ is the best; heart, lungs or kidney? Make a note if you are an art buyer so we can add you to the $500 drawing.

*you make or are involved in the purchasing decision on medical illustrations, at an agency, device or pharma company, or related organization.

Help Shoemaker Medical celebrate our first anniversary! We were officially launched Nov. 8, 2010 and I can’t believe a year could go by so quickly.

We’ll be giving away anatomy t-shirts, illustrations, and original art on this blog, facebook and twitter all week long.

Contest #1 Congrats Erin Harmon, t-shirt winner!

Contest #2 Congrats to Theresa Chursh!  $500 medical illustration credit

Contest #3

Contest #4 Congrats Jared Johnson on winning my painting “Spinal Sunset” valued at $800. Congrats Carla on winning some small bonus art for asking art questions during the live paint!

I accepted the job, excited to use my looser fine-art painting techniques with a medical illustration client. Usually I do glossy product marketing images or operative technique illustrations for Orthofix Spine. This would be a chance to show off my drips and paint strokes outside my studio.

I showed Orthofix various pieces and got their feedback about which styles they liked. We decided to mix pen and ink drawings with messy loose background color. I drew the spines, vertebrae, and bone scaffolding I’d need ahead of time, on vellum, and adhered it to canvas with soft gel medium. (I’ve had good luck with this in the past, and can even get some of the canvas texture to show through my collage.) I can paint around and over the vellum after it’s dry. We decided on four canvases, so I went ahead and finished two of them during the weeks prior to NASS. Then I arrived with two “blank” canvases that weren’t all that blank, for painting on Wednesday and Thursday at the show. I’m very glad I approached it this way, as I had a plan and finished drawings to work with publicly. As I told some of the attendees, it wouldn’t be as much fun to watch me draw a spine all morning. And it took the pressure off.

I was a little nervous – this was my first time painting live – and I stepped up to the easel with all my paints, brushes, and canvases prepared. For the first 30 minutes I felt butterflies, but then I settled in to the task. It was pretty fun, and even made me consider doing more live-painting in the future. I didn’t mind groups of people watching me; in fact I tried to encourage questions when I could. My main challenge was timing my spurts of creation around the scheduled speakers who shared the same podium area. Yes, I’m saying that in the future I’d like fewer breaks!

After the paintings were complete, Orthofix held a silent auction at their Education and Technology Suite – which was at the Museum of Contemporary Art – and raised money for the NASS Research Fund. (Pretty cool stuff to be connected to.) It was a lovely evening, and fun for me to meet the surgeons and others who were bidding on my work. Can I say my work was “in” the MCA, even though it was only in the atrium? Probably not, but it was in the atrium, and that’s awesome.

So, just wanted to share this new experience with you! My take-away is that I’m considering doing more live-painting events. I came home and immediately set up a permanent easel in my studio. The couch had to go… but who has time to sit? I can lounge around after I leave work for the day.