THE BOX SET

The "Influential Figures" Drawing Prints Box Set is a collection of fine art prints by artist Casey Childs enclosed in a custom leather bound box. Each set includes 25 fine art prints from original charcoal drawings created by the artist, printed on archival paper. Printed on the back of each print is a brief biography of the individual and their influence to our day.

STORY BEHIND THE DRAWINGS

I've never really considered myself a big history buff, but since I love to watch pretty much anything on the History Channel, I guess I am. I'm fascinated with the lives of those people who have affected history and influenced or changed the way our world is today. So I've begun a new series of drawings and paintings titled "Influential Figures" with that in mind. I'm creating 25-30 original charcoal drawings and a number of small oil paintings of portraits of individuals who have influenced the way we live our lives today (good and bad). And instead of choosing these individuals myself I decided to use social media to ask the question, "Who do you consider to be the most influential people of our time?" The only rule I had was that the people they chose had to be deceased more than 50 years--that way there are no copyright issues when using images of these individuals. And here's a list of names/images I came up with from the answers I received:

Abraham Lincoln | Thomas Edison | Helen Keller | Alexander Graham Bell | Mahatma Gandhi | Frank Lloyd Wright | Adolf Hitler | Charles Darwin | Henry Ford | Charles Dickens | Amelia Earhart |  Louis Pasteur | Alice Paul | Winston Churchill | Martin Luther King, Jr. | George A. Custer | Mark Twain | John F. Kennedy | Walt Disney | F. Scott Fitzgerald | Babe Ruth | Al Capone | Frederick Douglass | Edgar Allen Poe | Harriet Tubman | Sigmund Freud | Howard Hughes | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Albert Einstein | William F. Cody | Henri Matisse

SO WHAT'S THE PROJECT?

My project is to create fine art prints from each original drawing and combine them into a prints box set. The purpose is to allow more people the opportunity to enjoy these drawings and to learn about the influence these individuals have made on our society.

So that's 25 fine art prints from the best drawings in this series presented in an elegant leather bound case. And that's where I need your help -- to help fund the production of the fine art prints and the manufacturing of the presentation cases as well as miscellaneous materials that will be included with the collection.

Here's a few drawings I've completed for this series:

More drawings to come...

I'm offering these sets at a greatly reduced price from retail in an attempt to fund the first run of prints box sets. This is like a normal book pre-order:

PLEDGE $200 or more and reserve your copy of the set.

PLEDGE $250 or more and reserve your copy of the set with your name engraved on the cover.

This is an example of one of the prints in the series.

Every print in this set will be printed at 9x12" in size and on archival paper. A brief biography of each individual summarizing the life and the influence each has had on our society will be printed on the back of each print.

All 25 prints will be enclosed in a handmade clam-shell style case created by Rustico Leather with the "Influential Figures" title debossed on the cover. This custom case is bound in leather and lined with felt.

This is an example of one of the postcards in the series.

The postcards included with the rewards will be 5x7" in size and printed front and back on heavy duty card stock. The full set of postcards will contain 25 cards--a card for each drawing in the Influential Figures collection.

FUNDING

Alright - here's where you awesome people come in. With your help, I can reach my initial goal of covering the cost of producing the first run of 50 copies of the prints box set, with a secondary goal of a future edition of box sets to be sold in local bookstores, boutiques and online. The money will go to producing the prints and manufacturing and shipping the box sets, as well as helping pay for various other printed materials included in the rewards and sets.

Go here to see the completed drawings and find more information about purchasing an original drawing.

Thank you so much for helping me complete this project and for supporting the arts.

Don't see someone on the list who you'd like a drawing of? Contact me directly to discuss a private commission.