-By Lauren Panepinto

I’m sorry guys, I have to put off the last few Deadly Art Sins for another week, because I have something really exciting to reveal. If you’ve been following my posts here on Muddy Colors, or if you’ve been to Spectrum or Illuxcon this past year, you’ll know Marc Scheff & I have been putting our heads together, with a number of other Art Directors, and we’ve been brewing up some projects under the Drawn + Drafted banner. We’ve been doing Art Business Bootcamps, we’re still working on the Make Art Work book, which will launch on kickstarter soon, and we’ve been secretly working on another project called Every Day Original.

Every Day Original is a virtual art gallery that specializes in original art that is both small in size, and small in budget. There is an untapped level of collector that appreciates the unique value of an original work, and wants to move up from prints, but doesn’t have the budget to buy large scale paintings. Even those collectors that can afford to buy large works have usually already run out of room for large pieces on their walls. Beyond that, there are people like me, who adore seeing the process that shows through in sketches, color studies, and small experiments. We spend a lot of time at conventions, and we have noticed that there’s been a growing popularity in small works, going back to the Society of Illustrators’ MicroVisions Shows, and ArtOrder’s Tiny Paintings series, and of course, Greg Manchess’ wildly popular helmet series at the last two Spectrum cons. These smaller pieces are opportunities to own original work from artists you could not otherwise afford to collect, and they are dangerously tempting impulse buys, and they are also perfect gifts.

Shadowy Deep II by Rob Rey

Another aspect that I love about this project is from the artist point of view. Frequently I hear artists lament that they have difficulty finding time to experiment, and play, and make works for themselves without a client or gallery’s input. Now there’s a place to host these pieces, and an audience hungry for them. Further more, it’s a perfect testing ground. With so many artists pooling their fanbases, Every Day Original will be a great place to test your pricing, play with subject matter, and know that many people are looking at your work, not just the people that get to physically come to a specific convention or go to one artist’s website.

Monochrome Woman on Red #3, BWR Series, David Palumbo

Credit where credit is due, this was Marc’s brainstorm, and it was his idea to not just have a random collection of work, but to release one original piece every day. My favorite part is the roster — that for say, 25 days out of the month there will be a set artist who “owns” that day. So, say, Jeremy Wilson is always the 2nd of the month, and Scott Fischer is always the 24th of the month, etc. So fans of those artists know that they need to check the blog at 10am sharp to catch that post. Because every piece is one of a kind.

Decoy, Kim Kincaid

And because we’re Art Directors, and we can’t pass up the opportunity to talk about art and spread art knowledge, we’re doing little interviews with artists on their specific pieces, to give a little background on process, and motivations. Check out the podcasts embedded on Scott Fischer’s, Steven Russell Black’s, and Jeremy Wilson’s pieces. We’ll add more as new works are posted.

Mystic Birth, Steven Russell Black (with podcast)

We’ve been building this project in secret, ninja-style. We reached out to many artist friends who trusted us enough to go along with our crazy plans, and were trustworthy enough to keep it hush hush until we had enough pieces set up to launch properly. Now that we’ve launched we’ve been excited to hear from many artists who want to join in on the fun. We’ve also got some artists from the launch team that are still finishing their pieces in time for their roster day…some who will be very familiar to you Muddy Colors readers. We’re still filling our monthly roster, and we’ll be setting aside days to fit in new artists and surprise pieces. If you are interested in being a part of EDO, then send us an email with some examples of originals you’ve done.

Mega Wat by Michael Marsicano

I think my favorite part is seeing the “candid” pictures of the pieces in the wild, where you can really see the scale and the materials. Whether you are an artist, or an art collector (or both, like so many of us), I think Every Day Original will be a great place to follow to get a steady stream of new art to look at, and potentially make a home for.

Wild by Wylie Beckert

Thank you to all our launching artists, all our future artists, and apologies to everyone’s wallet. I’m already doing great damage to my own.

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Space Monkey, Greg Titus