Covert Calendar Covers and the Love of Lore. (Patreon)

Wonderful Patrons,

I wanted to share the early stages of a very special art piece I've been working on lately. Many of you know that we're in our second year of making a Community Calendar featuring artwork by some of the incredible creatives I've been lucky enough to meet through Twitch. 

Last year we featured twelve different artists who made an original piece for every month and the outcome was stunning. It turned out so well that this year, we've got twice as many artists and every month features a collaboration by two wonderful people who not only shared their creativity, but found a way to merge their talents together across continents and mediums. The Jesters 2024 Calendar is available for preorder until the end of November on it's own or in a bundle with our community kids book Bedtime Stories for Biznizz Chimkins. 

I have the absolute pleasure of making the cover for the calendar and I wanted to do something to celebrate some of the outrageous lore that's built up around the Twitch streams. One of the things I didn't know when I started streaming was how this would lead to a whole cast of characters, a whole language near-unintelligible, traditions, rites of passages, and origin stories that are as complex as they are nonsensical. It has to be one of my favourite unexpected gifts this community has given and I can think of nothing more delightful than leaning into the lore.

This painting is actually far from finished - there's a lot of digital clean up before it can be a cover- but I'm so in love with how it's going and I wanted to share it with you all before it goes to the next stage.

Patrons, your support is a huge part of what makes these projects possible. You make the studio a reality and you let me give time and energy to things that bring joy. Thank you for making the space for me to run riot with this and so many other projects. You're amazing and I'm lucky to know you.

Happy Monday Magicals.

B