Illustrations for "Spark"

In early May I received a message on Instagram from a guy who was interested in having me illustrate seven chapters of a book he was releasing on that platform.  Andrew Duplessie is a writer and actor who's career has been taking off, and he wanted us to collaborate on this project.  I asked him to email me more information, and what I received was the unreleased chapters in my inbox.  After reading the first chapter I knew that this was something special and something I could really have a good time working on.  I agreed to the collaboration and the rest is history.

Unfortunately things in this world have been going wrong, and the week that Andrew planned on releasing the chapters on his Instagram account, George Floyd was mercilessly killed.  This caused all of us to take pause and really think about our part in this matter.  How can we help and how can we make change?  Andrew contacted me and wanted to turn this book release into something more important, he wanted to help in some way and I was more than happy to join him on this.

He came up with a GoFundMe fundraiser to raise money benefiting Black Owned Bookstores around the United States.  At this point I was also thinking on my own about how I could help with my art?  I had done something similar in the past and thought maybe I could do it again.  After hearing from Andrew I thought maybe it would be a good idea to tag along on this and offer all seven drawings up for sale and have 100% of the proceeds donated to his fundraiser.

It didn't take long and a very nice person offered to purchase the lot of seven drawings.  The donation was made and the illustrations have been delivered.  This sort of thing makes me happy, it allows for my talent to be of some use for the greater good.   Knowing that is very satisfying!  

If you would like to get involved and make a donation, no matter how small or big, click here!  If yo are interested in catching up with the story, check out Andrew's Instagram account here.  In the meantime, enjoy the illustrations for Andew Duplessie's book "Spark."

Before closing out this blog post I wanted to say thank you to Andrew for including me in this project.  It has been a pleasure working with you, hope to meet in person when things get back to normal.