Here’s a first look at one of the Greeting Cards I’ll be selling towards the end of the year.  The card you’re seeing is a test - I have to make some minor changes to the text and lighten up the artwork a bit, but it’s very close to being finished.

I’ll be making 4 different cards to raise money for these 4 awesome organizations:

The Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre

Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge

FLAP Canada

Swift Care Ontario

Besides Andrea the turtle, I’ll be making pencil drawings of a Sora, Chimney Swift and a Chipmunk.

The Chimney Swift will be drawn from of these mounted birds I’m borrowing as they’re impossible to draw from life.  Even with high powered binoculars they appear like tiny dark specks in the sky and they never land & perch on branches like most birds.

I’ve also asked to borrow this Sora - a unique and secretive bird that not many people get the chance to see.  This bird was found a few months ago, another victim of a window collision.  I’ll pose the Sora into a lifelike position and keep it near frozen as I’m working on the drawing.

One final thing to mention is that all the cards will be printed at a Toronto printing company run by an amazing person named Gail Lenters.  Gail is also the founder of the Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge, which rehabs & releases thousands of injured animals every year.  SOH is a non-profit and doesn’t receive any gov't funding, so it’s her printing business which covers a lot of the expenses like feeding and veterinary care.

If these cards go well, I’ll make some more next year!

- Alan