Dear Friends  –

After a great deal of deliberation and no small amount of soul-searching, we are very happy to introduce you to this year's Sponsored Artist for San Diego Comic-Con® International, Candice Broersma.

We'll have more to say on this topic very soon, but we know a great many people have been awaiting this official announcement.

For now, we want to congratulate Candice, and we also want to give our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to ALL of the amazing artists who applied for consideration:  you seriously made our job incredibly challenging!  That's the kind of problem we want to have, though, because that means there are a great many incredible, up-and-coming artists out there.

To quote Highlander, sadly, "there can be only one", but we encourage and invite everyone who submitted work this year to try again next year.

A special thanks also to this year's guest judge, artist and art instructor Dan Cooney.

To see more of Candice's beautiful artwork, please click here to visit her website.

Thank you again to everyone who applied - we hope to see as many of you as possible at Con!

All the best,

– Everyone at the Kevin Workman Foundation

Braving the irradiated, rusted, battered pre-apocalyptic wastes of downtown Los Angeles, our scavenger parties sought out new art, artists, cosplayers, contacts, boys of Pip and War varieties, women of Wonder, Cat, and other varieties, and answers to questions ranging from "How do we feel about the next Indy movie?" to "Who runs Bartertown?"

We found everything we were looking for, and more, at WonderCon 2016.

Friends:

As promised, an update on our Sponsored Artist Program for SDCC2016:

After considerable individual struggle and internal debate (seriously you guys - this was HARD!), we have arrived at our Final Three candidates.

We will be interviewing those artists by phone this week and then announcing our final decision shortly thereafter.

Whichever candidate is ultimately our final selection, we know you'll love his or her work.

Thank you, and stay tuned!

Greetings, Friends!

This message is to update you on the status of our 2016 SDCC Sponsored Artist selection process.
To say that narrowing the field has been challenging would be an understatement, but we are happy to announce that we have selected our Top Ten finalists!

We are also proud to announce that we have enlisted the assistance of professional artist and art instructor Dan Cooney to advise us in this final stage of the selection process.

Dan is the creator of the crime fiction comic book series VALENTINE, THE ATOMIC YETI, and the forthcoming graphic novel THE TOMMY GUN DOLLS, as well as the artist and author of the instructional books WRITING AND ILLUSTRATING THE GRAPHIC NOVEL and THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO FIGURE DRAWING FOR COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS by BARRON'S. Dan is also an instructor for the Academy of Art University.

We know what we like, but Dan will provide a unique, professional perspective from the “other side” of the drawing board, and we look forward to his feedback.
Stay tuned for another update soon, and thank you for your continued interest and support!
To learn more about Dan and see some of his work, please visit his website: http://www.dancooneyart.com/

Wow.  We are overwhelmed by the huge number of high quality submissions we've received for the SDCC sponsorship program this year!

We are working hard evaluating the amazing work you've sent in and need a bit more time to make the selection due to the volume of submissions.  To that end we will need some extra time.  Please look for our announcement soon.

Our team would like to personally thank all of the creative folks that took time to submit their remarkable work to us for review.  It's been incredible to see the diversity that's out there and hearing your stories of creativity.

Best,
The KWF Team

When have you felt inspiration? Do you remember the first time?

What if a young child never felt this inspiration? Would you do something to help?

More often than not, artists and creatives are the mediators of our inspiration, with reach that spans cultures, nationalities, and generations. Art inspires us to great things. Albert Einstein attributed his insight to the mathematical inspiration of music. One of the inventors of the earliest concepts of what would become Computer Science was deeply inspired by the structured beauty of poetry. Inocente, a young woman and visual art prodigy, became the subject of an Academy Award nominated documentary that now inspires future generations of artists. And this, with Inocente, and many like her, suffering through a childhood overshadowed by the challenges of growing up homeless. Her story, and many like it, underscore the power of art and inspiration, and how they can bloom in the most unlikely circumstances.

Not all children are afforded an opportunity to experience art, either as a creator or in appreciation of the mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits it provides.  It is an unfortunate fact that many children go without access to this inspiration. In the best cases, children in public schools find limited art programs on dwindling budgets. In the worst cases, they experience ongoing exposure to lack of shelter and basic necessities, violence, neglect, faltering health of parents, sexual assault and stress as at-risk children. Recent estimates by the San Diego County Office of Education place 20,000 homeless children in San Diego County. And as we can see from the example of Inocente's sublime determination, our communities will suffer from a generational loss of artistic inspiration if this pool of at-risk children is neglected.

The Kevin Workman Foundation Educational Outreach Program seeks to find and inspire the next generation of artists, focusing on the fields of popular arts, videography, photography, game design, writing, and social media that most deeply engage today's youth. We serve underprivileged, homeless, and at-risk children, so that no young man or woman misses their opportunity to create or be inspired by art.  We've partnered with a mix of charter and public schools in the San Diego area for access to the widest cross section of motivated yet under-engaged future artists.

The KWF has launched a fundraiser to help bring art instruction to children in need.  Instruction will be provided at the Lil' Fish Comic Studio, a San Diego art school featured on our local KPBS public news station and exhibitor at San Diego Comic Con.   Your donation will go towards the child's participation in the course, art supplies, and assistance with transportation to and from the studio.  Children that show interest and aptitude will be re-enrolled for multiple courses to form a syllabus covering the art, craft, and professional aspects of modern comic book and graphic novel production. Your donations will enable each child to pursue their artistic vision, whether it's as a career or as an inspired fan.

Every dollar has an immense impact on the life of a child who could be the next next breakthrough scientist, engineer, entrepreneur, teacher, or artist of tomorrow. Please give, and be inspired.

It's with great excitement that we embark on our search for the 2016 Kevin Workman Foundation Sponsored Artist. All systems are go, FTL drives spun up, warp engines engaged, flux capacitors fluxing, heighliners ready for boarding, alert Vipers ready for launch. Let's do this!

​Each year we sponsor an artist to attend San Diego Comic Con International, which unless you've only recently been decanted from a Carbonite slab you'll know as the most storied and sought-after convention of its kind in the known universe. The Foundation's program provides a Sponsored Artist with up to two (2) 4-day badges for access to the sold out convention along with an opportunity to showcase their portfolio, sell product, and network from the KWF booth.  For more details, check out the Sponsored Artist Program overview, and be sure to read the FAQ. Keep your hailing frequencies open and join our mailing list to hear the latest. But most importantly:

If you're an artist, a fan of an artist, or friends and family of an artist, we want to hear from you! Go here to submit an application or nomination.

And as we pause here, in late November, to consider the approaching holidays, let's also be thankful. Let's be thankful for all the artists and their creations that have inspired us.

Look around, watch the news. Our planet is a big, sometimes rough, often chaotic place, where too few of us sit high enough on the rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy to regularly create and appreciate art. In too many places, the season is neither happy nor abundant with reasons to be thankful. With so many pressing needs, we might wonder, why focus on art? Well, to get that answer, we have to start at first principles. 

As we gear up to open the application cycle for the 2016 KWF Sponsorship Program, we'll spend the next few weeks in a series of retrospectives on artists that were mentored and sponsored by Kevin for attendance at San Diego Comic Con throughout the years. It's these stories that shape and drive the Foundation's mission to uplift and inspire by cultivating talent in popular arts.

Our first retrospective tells the story R. Black, designer of the Foundation's logo and graphics, long-time gig poster illustrator for X-Sanguin Productions, and one of the first artists Kevin sponsored.

"Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them. So go out and start creating. Life is short. Live your dream and share your passion."

-- Dave and Mike Radparvar: "The HOLSTEE Manifesto"

She rocked it.

Sara K. Diesel is the Kevin Workman Foundation's 2015 Sponsored Artist. She comes to us as the clear winner from a highly competitive group of applicants for the 2015 Sponsorship Program, and we're excited that she accepted our offer for sponsorship at this year's San Diego Comic Con. Sara will join us in the Foundation's booth on the dealer's room floor to exhibit her work, promote, and network.

Read on with us for a minute and let's take a look at one of the most exciting digital portfolios we've seen in a long time.