Kickstarter

Howdy folks!

Believe it or not, I'm still hard at work, finishing this painting.  Over the past month and a half I've had a flu, two colds and a pulled shoulder, but it's all worthwhile because I get to work on this dream project of mine.

This is a video made by my good friend and filmmaker Martha Traer. I'm flattered to have been chosen as her subject and am pretty sure this will help me get the piece shown once it is complete.

In work terms, I keep thinking I'm rounding the bend but it keeps turning out to be longer than I anticipate. Fear not! Prints are coming to you as soon as I can manage and every day you wait makes the final product that much better. 

Thank you again, again and again,

Ray Sumser

Hi everyone. 

The first of you should be receiving mail from me today. I've sent out postcards and envelops to all backers. I'm writing with some trepidation... I won't have the prints out in time for the holidays. 

Please know, it's not for lack of trying. Even if I hadn't lost a week to a pulled shoulder and one of the most wicked flus of my life, the work turned out to be much greater than I initially conceived. 

I had considered making "work in progress" prints but thought that in the long run you'd rather be looking at the real finished work with all the detail it deserves. I tried to make the cards I sent out specific and special - I hope you'll accept them as a temporary place holder.

I know some of you were counting on the prints as holiday gifts... if my lateness will cause you a problem, please let me know. Let's see if there isn't something to be done about it. For everyone else, I hope you'll be patient just a little longer. 

I mean to send them out by the 5th of the new year.

Thank you so much,

Ray Sumser

I have 22 days to finish this piece. 

That's very real. Today I drew 100 characters and then painted out all the parts of the picture that weren't working for me. It's amazing to see bright white on the surface again. It's intoxicating to be working with oil, even when all I'm doing is adding an opaque corrective layer. Back to work.

Ray

It's just now Tuesday. Since Saturday afternoon I have drawn 704 characters with a Sharpie, most of them attempted for the first time in my life. I'm watching characters come to life at the tip of my marker. I'm rapidly developing my cartoon shorthand. I've started letting some of my larger compositional elements fall back into the piece, a sad but necessary step. This thing is going all the way to the edges and will be maximized in every way possible. I don't have a sense of how many characters will be included when all is said and done. I can say with certainty I'm well past 2,000 right now. I'm looking at a desired 'add list' of about 560 more. That's before I go back and harvest facebook and email for old ideas. I've gone through the Kickstarter and Twitter suggestions. All of those will all be in there by the end of tomorrow. I'm sending out a survey soon, to collect all the important backer's information. People have been asking me if they can still get on board and order a print. There's now a "store" tab on my blog www.raysumser.com. Pretty minimal at the moment but it will put money in my pocket and art in your mailbox. My current aim is to be done drawing by Friday so the next two weeks can be entirely painting. Thank you everyone.