A career retrospective art book spanning over thirty years of paintings and drawings.
Hello!
Well that’s it! We did it! Thank you so much for your amazing support!
We’ll be back tomorrow with some more info, and I believe Ralph might have another video message*.
But for now: THANK YOU!
Jon & Ralph
*(I don’t have him locked in the cellar or anything like that. No really. I don’t.)
Well folks, this is it!
The final countdown has begun. We close the campaign in just 24 hours. At 5pm GMT tomorrow it's all over!
Ralph will have more to say tomorrow, since it's his campaign, but before then, my personal thanks for being here and being such great backers. I've really enjoyed the campaign, and I think together we're making something amazing.
Wow. So:
And there's still time to do more!
If we all give the campaign one last share on the ole social media, we might just make it an even bigger book!
Some things to remember, before it's all too late:
If you would like a signed book plate slipped into your book, please add £10 to your pledge.
If you would like a signed, numbered art print of the cover slipped into your book, please add £20 to your pledge.
If you'd like an additional copy of the book, please add £40 to your pledge. This includes postage.
To add extra funds for these "Add Ons" hit "manage my pledge" at the top of the campaign page. It's really easy to do, and you'll get plenty of time to check your additions before anything happens. And you won't be charged until the end of the campaign.
Fingers crossed we get another enlargement to that book! I think we can do it!
Jon (& Ralph)
Hello!
Jon again! Welcome new backers! (and hello to old backers, wait what? Who are you calling old?)
Anyway: Yay! I’m super excited about this one. But enough out of me, here's Ralph himself:
In case you can't watch a video, here's the cliffs notes: The Art Adventure book will be getting a fully painted back cover. And it’s going to be based on Ralph’s favourite runner up in the front cover votes.
The back cover will be design D:
I think that’s going to make a really handsome book.
And of course this means there’s going to be another original painting available. The back cover original is approximately 22 x 17 inches, painted in oils on art board.
We want to be fair as we can be in offering this back cover original oil painting, and we know Ralph’s original works are highly sought after. We also have to work within the Kickstarter set up. (So for example we can’t simply make the unique original paintings Add Ons because there’s only one of each!)
Just like the front cover this reward tier will be set at £4500, and include a signed and sketched copy of Ralph’s book.
The back cover original will go live as a reward tier at 5pm GMT. This is automated, so it will happen bang on the dot of 5pm GMT.
That’s:
When we launched the last round of original art tiers, we had some requests to make it available to people who have already pledged for a piece of original art. We can do this, it’s just a little bit more complicated. If you want to own the back cover in addition to an Original Art reward you’re already pledged for, there are two options:
Fastest and best: have a friend pledge on a separate KS account at 5pm GMT. Honestly, while this is a bit of a pain, it’s the best way to get it if you really want more than one original.
Less fast: message me on Kickstarter after 5pm GMT that you’d like the back cover. (Please only do this if you want to add the back cover to an existing Original Art pledge) and faithfully promise us that you’ll up your pledge by the appropriate amount (£4500). We will then take down the back cover tier, as fast as humanly possible, provided no one else has pledged for it. We can’t promise to be able to do this quick enough to secure it if demand is high. But we’ll do our best.
To be as fair as possible, only messages sent after 5pm gmt, to me, Jon Hodgson, will be noted. In effect, you can’t pre-order it.
We won’t be offering the original colour studies for the back cover as part of this campaign - we just don’t have the time to fit it all in, and Ralph doesn’t feel comfortable offering them sight unseen, which I think is very fair. They should appear on his Etsy shop at a later date, once completed. So if you’re an avid collector, keep your eyes peeled!
Devotees of Kickstarter might be aware that at the 48 hour mark an email goes out to anyone who's following the campaign, and if we're lucky we might just see an influx of new backers. With that in mind, here are our new stretch goals beyond £25,000. We end the campaign at 5pm GMT on Tuesday, so if you're thinking of sharing with friends, time is short!
Thanks for your amazing support!
Jon & Ralph
Hello! And welcome new backers! I'm Jon, and I'm helping Ralph keep you up to date with all the campaign stuff.
We're really close to that back cover! A few shares on the ole social media and we could be there!
In the meantime, Ralph's been busy working on the front cover painting. Here's a speedy time lapse of some of his progress:
Ralph is very active on Facebook and Instagram, so follow him there if you'd like to see more of this cool stuff! I love his timelapses, they're absolutely hypnotic.
We'll have some more spreads to show you in our next update, and it looks like, if the gods of art are with us, we might be unlocking that back cover painting soon. And of course you'll be able to pledge for the original. I'm interested to learn which of the front cover compositions he chooses for the back cover. What do you think out of A, B and D?
Don't forget there's a couple of border originals still available - we were just chatting about the Bestiary one the other day. It's a really nice piece of work! Here's the pencil sketch, which Ralph inked for the final piece.
And heres the final in it's frame. Looks lovely!
Ok that's probably enough out of me for today. Don't forget to add to your pledge if you'd like a signed bookplate slipped into your book!
Jon (& Ralph)
Hello!
Jon here again with the latest campaign news!
- Greg Hidebrandt
Something Ralph and I chatted about this morning is the signed art print available as an Add-On, and how we haven't said much about this! While we were all working together to create the cover, we weren't sure of what it would look like. But that's all changed!
Here's a shot of the cover painting in progress. I don't know about you, but I think this looks AMAZING, and I will certainly be getting a print of this myself! The prints will be roughly the same size as the book - somewhere around A4 and US Letter. We'd like them to be able to be safely shipped inside the books.
If you would like a signed print of the cover art added to your rewards, hit "manage my pledge" at the top of the campaign page, and simply add £20. We'll collect the information on what any extra credit is to be used for in the after-campaign survey.
It's amazing that we only have a few days left. We're at 192 pages long, and on the verge of a back cover painting! It's in these last few days that things really settle out, so fingers crossed we can get to that back cover.
If you'll excuse me I need to manage my pledge upward to get me a signed print.
Thanks for being here, and all your fantastic support!
Jon (& Ralph)