Long before your Kindles or iPads books were printed on real paper and bound together. I know, sounds like a waste of paper, but it’s true! Here is an image of a girl from such time reading one of these old-fashioned books. She looks real focused, doesn’t she? This week’s Illustration Friday theme is “focused” so here’s my submission. It’s also available for stock use here.

It’s been a while since doing a fun, simple illustration in Adobe Illustrator. So, here you go. Not sure why I chose a clown. Clowns really don’t appeal to me that much.

This image is available for use at iStock. Click here for more info.

I wanted to draw people’s attention to an important event happening in Portland this week (Thursday, January 21). It’s a concert called Songs for Haiti, held at the Aladdin Theater in SE Portland. The concert features some of Portland’s musicians Thomas Lauderdale (bandleader of Pink Martini), Cool Nutz, Portland Cello Project, Storm Large, Grammy-nominated pianist Janice Sroggins, and more.

I’ve had the pleasure of creating some newspaper and flash banner ads promoting the event. As you can see from the fancy graphic I designed, 100% of money raised goes to Mercy Corps. You get to have a great evening, and help out the relief effort in Haiti. How cool is that?

More info available at Aladdin Theater’s website here.

Hello, everyone. I just wanted to throw up a quick sketch and wish everyone a Happy New Year, and New Decade! God bless you all.

I just wanted to take this time to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. Thank you for taking the time this past year to visit. It’s been a blessing, and I look forward to an even better 2010. Don’t drink too much eggnog.

Hello, everyone. It’s been a little while since I posted anything so I thought I’d post another card illustration I recently completed. Just your average horse wearing a bikini coming out of a birthday cake. Nothing too out of the ordinary (I think I need therapy).

Some people (not many) are asking me how to purchase these cards. I don’t know yet. Stay tuned for more info.

I was going to wait to post this illustration, but with this week’s Illustration Friday topic being “unbalanced” I just couldn’t resist. This illustration is part of a series of illustrations I’m doing for a card company. I’ll be giving details later, so be sure to subscribe to the blog. Or subscribe to my newsletter. But for now, enjoy!

In case you’ve been wondering why my site is “ClelandIllustration.com” instead of “ClelandDesign.com”, it’s because ClelandDesign.com has been taken. And whom, you may ask, has this domain? My wife. I’ve been trying to acquire it from her for several years now, and she won’t budge. I’ve offered her millions of dollars but she refuses (something about money not meaning anything because we have a joint bank account). I even made her hot chocolate last night—still won’t budge. Oh well.

Since she’s being a big meanie I’ve decided to be the nice one and update her portfolio website for her. She has really great work, and needs a good site to showcase it. The site has been updated a few weeks now, but we’ve added a blog over the weekend, so be sure to subscribe. Check it out at www.clelanddesign.com. Comment on her first blog post. Encourage her to update it regularly, because she has a lot of cool stuff in the works.