Thursday, January 15, 2009

Every Artist gets asked

You know what I'm talking about. Could you draw up a little something for ________ (insert flyer for Edwin's birthday, retirement or company party, to make fun of a co-worker's blunder, newsletter, school play, etc...). I usually didn't mind especially when a fellow officer was retiring.

One day a San Jose detective asked me to come up with a design for their children's T-shirt logo for their upcoming hosted Fire/Police Olympics. It's a big event which usually has department's from all over the nation and countries like Canada, Great Britain and Germany participating on occasions. Of course there is the on-going competition betwee Fire and Police themselves. Police Officers can't figure out why Fire Fighters big day consists of shopping for dinner and which cable program to watch that night and Fire Fighters don't know why cops are always parked near a Starbucks or near an intersection watching stop signs.

I asked the detective ( who by the way was part of a drug task force) why she didn't use her department's artist. San Jose PD is big enough and where there is enough crime to fund a full time composite artist. All he does is draw suspects of crimes in his own little office. I and many other composite artists have his/her main assignment (patrol, traffic, detective). Only when a major crime or one that had a good eye witness did I used to be ask to schedule an appointment with a subject.

Back to San Jose. The detective explained the t-shirt was a fund raising item for hosting their olympics. Their artist was going to do it gratis but when he heard how many they were making, he asked for money up front and a dollar from each sold. He was a fairly new artist who had just replaced another composite artist who had retired as a sergeant with 30 years with San Jose. The committee was trying to make the items as low cost as possible and still make money to reimburse for expenses. After a few drafts and changes to make the police canine "less scary" this is what I came up with. I had asked my Chief ( with whom I was working directly for at that time) and was able to do on duty between investigations for no cost to their Police Union.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hallo Sheila, thanks for leaving your nice comment concerning the portraits for DSFDF.
I looked at the pages of your blog and found that you're a talented painter/drawer. There comes a lot of enthusiasm out of your work. Keep on going ! :-)

Karen Hargett said...

Hi Sheila - I'm finally getting over here to check out your blog - really cool stuff. It sounds like you have hade quite a career - very interesting stuff.

Carol Schiff Daily Painting said...

HI SHEILA, YOU ARE SO MULTI TALENTED,I NEVER KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN I VIEW YOUR BLOG. WHAT A LIFE YOU HAVE HAD, AND YOU ARE SO YOUNG! WHO KNOWS WHAT IS IN STORE, BUT I LOVE YOUR ATTITUDE. FUN AND STRONG!

Unknown said...

Fascinating blog Sheila. Its not often you hear police officer and artist in the same sentance. Just shows there is creativity in all walks of life! Lovely work:0)

dominique eichi said...

2 dogs back to back funny ! I don't mean it in bad way. GReat job.

Art By Erika said...

Yes I know what you're talking about. After I had done a few I finally had to stop the ones that expect freebies because I notice that when it didn't cost the recipient, they don't really value it. But I still do fun things, you gotta keep having fun right? This is so cute! Excellent choices on the symbolic species, I like their joint effort to hold up the flame and their individual winning attitudes!

Paula Villanova said...

I'm glad you donated your time to this cause but I completely understand that what might look like a simple drawing is often anything but. You did a nice job, and I hope the fundraiser was successful. It came out great.