dreadyworld

and then ...

2012-01-30T13:04:00.001-05:00

and then this came today ... a screen shot of someone's uk iphone with dready art as the screen saver ...

coolness!!

back in the business ...

2012-01-29T11:09:00.002-05:00

the very first dready t-shirts came out for Crop Over 2006, august, in Barbados as a promotional t'ing ... a get behind the big truck thing with people wearing the shirt and dancing and t'ing!

that was followed with shirts for sale in Barbados, Grenada, Cayman and soooooooon after, Jamaica all in 2007.

we launched with only our balls and our chat, ya know, cause we had no big money we just kinda went for it to see where it would take us ...

and ...

and see us, we still here!

a few little ups and downs have gotten in the way; the global financial crisis had already been proceeded by earlier declines as people ran out of money in the 2 years before, because or rising costs of food and gas.

but dready be nimble and simply concentrated on original art, prints and PR ... dready evolved and flourished all at the same time blew the original concept out of the water so far and fast that it made my head spin

the original art and the notoriety of his dreadyness flourished ... a whole new vision of dready as art, as a signature style and not just a character bloomed.

but Tshirt sales wilted ... we hadn't sold a tourist related Tshirt in about 2 years till this, this now and here and dready for caribbean canvas company.

caribbean canvas company is a cool idea, driven by the mind of a guy named hugh treadwell; it's a big vision, a quality lifestyle clothing company with the ability to be a regional and then global brand.

we still here bigger and badder than before ...

big up!

what's new ...

2012-01-27T10:33:00.003-05:00

2012, newness, positivity ...

this piece is of the National Gallery of Cayman, for the National Gallery of Cayman ... neat trick that don't it!

the stark simplicity of some dreadyness, bold blocks of colour and a little humorous play with the actual architectural drawings.

like!

bits and pieces

2011-12-14T09:32:00.003-05:00

these are the new dready bits and pieces that make up the embark show running at the Ritz, Grand Cayman through February ...

embark, ya know, leave, set out on a journey; so they were all about journeys in a sense, 'cept maybe the one on the top left which is entitled 'im bark!

life's full of journeys ...

seeeen!

dready in new group show ...

2011-11-09T09:19:00.004-05:00

group shows are easy on the system because the need to perform on opening night is spread across, in this case, 14 people ...

this show's called 'Embark' ... the beginning of a journey.

the two previous posts are art for this show as is the push cart image in the poster to the left ... journeys begun.

love!

dready's little cayman flight

2011-10-21T10:45:00.002-05:00

i first went to little cayman 17 years ago ... there's a certain blessed tranquility to the place a removed sense of yesteryear that calms you; the lack of the noise of progress and the haste of modernity.

Peace and love!

dready smart car!

2011-10-12T14:54:00.002-05:00

i like this dready ... dunno what else to say

zeeen!

active lifestyle

2011-10-11T10:06:00.003-05:00

i don't fish and i seldom paddle board but looking out the window the other morning, the water was shimmering and clear and three men were standing in the water, one the guide and two fishing - it's a common sight in south sound, bone fishermen walking thigh to hip deep, backpacks on, their 'technical shirts' caps and dark glasses ... casting.

when you walk out in the evenings the bone fish are in close to shore churling up the water, hunting in little packs for food amongst the turtle grass.

when the wind's up the sound fills with kite boarders and when its flat paddle boarders stroke the oar ... is beautiful.

bless up!

new stuff

2011-10-03T10:55:00.003-05:00

the idea is to create some 'generic' images that can work on cards and other products; images that have their dreadyness intact but might be accessible to wider use.

i pulled this tree for instance, out of an original image for a Bacardi corporation Christmas card and left it to stand on its own.

walk good!

back to the drawing board ...

2011-08-22T11:30:00.002-05:00

there are all sorts of new things going on with dready and yet am drawn back to some of the original images ...

time I think find a new, slightly revamped template for the old designs, new shirt styles, lighter, v necked ... hmmm!

and go at it again.

old is new!

working in TV

2011-08-10T17:26:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhZu1BZ2u4s is the youtube link to Dready's first TV ad ... an ad for Car City service department.

cool for me!

another life ...

2011-07-30T12:35:00.001-05:00

another life ... another dready ...

coolness!

an heirloom?

2011-06-29T11:21:00.003-05:00

i just finished a commission to commemorate 100 years of the life of a lady ...

it was a big thing deal for me to hear people discuss dready in terms of a family heirloom that would go down through generations ...

big up selecta!

many rivers to cross!

2011-06-29T10:29:00.003-05:00

i first went to britain when i was barely 9 ... little tanned island bwoy being fitted for uniforms to go to boarding school in the hills of malvern.

taken away, so to speak, into captivity!

after I left boarding school it took me almost 20 years to go back; i'm glad i did because i like it there and the farther the distance i look back from the better the memories of those days.

i'm on the way back to britain on business and so the cab seemed appropriate.

required of us a song!

Dready, version 5!

2011-05-17T14:46:00.003-05:00

i like the back and forth with clients ... the subtle changes that lead to version 5.

communication!

everybody wants to be jus' a likkle bit Bob!

2011-05-17T14:24:00.003-05:00

there are 3 kinds of dready art that I can think of:

there's the art of dready characters themselves and their situations.

there's the graphic art which is more about colour and mood, like 'wine glass and plate on green 368'.

And there's dready art that's progressed past stick figures to something still whimsically cartoon like ...

And there's a theme of red yellow and green, african-caribbean colours, that runs through the edges of all the art

I think that the dready marlins series might just epitomize all three kind of art!

everybody wants to be jus' a likkle bit Bob!

zeeeeen!

do you know where you going to!

2011-04-10T10:53:00.003-05:00

there's a big dready world out there ...

nuff said!

things a go on!

2011-04-08T18:47:00.005-05:00

in the places i come from we'd say "t'ings a g'wan!" ... i've been lucky, let me just say that off the bat; maybe i've worked hard on that luck, but still ...

i think i might have been born lucky, you know, although sometimes, in those darker days, i've referred to myself as the luckiest unlucky man on the planet!

anyhow, back to the luck, seen; i've just done a co-branding logo for the cayman islands for the UK's Jazz FM a digital broadcast across the UK and live online ... it's one of those you've come a long way, in a short time baby, moments ...

dready got soul!

Friends in hotels!

2011-03-24T11:24:00.001-05:00

Cotton Tree is a small 4 cottage boutique hotel in Cayman ...

i like them, i've done plenty of images for them.

i'll do more.

cool!

life calling!

2011-03-20T11:07:00.003-05:00

in the past 2 years i've done a few architectural elevation dreadys ... this is one am working on now as part of a larger piece of work that'll include the family to whom the house belongs.

i like doing these ... dunno why, deep down inside i may have wanted to be an architect, although i don't ever remember that calling coming to mind!

i wanted to be a farmer once; i grew up on farms and so i guess in a sense i was one ... but i like what i've become. i like this dready - ness that i do.

be yourself!

2011-02-26T18:48:00.003-05:00

i love what i do, i love the eclecticism of what people ask me to draw images for ...

today a baby shower, yesterday an ad for a car company, tomorrow a birthday present ...

i've always been a restless yute and so,

eclecticism suits me.

peace.

new ideas!

2011-02-19T11:32:00.003-05:00

this's the evolution of an idea ...

sweeeet!

Dready in the paper

2011-02-03T12:02:00.005-05:00

Shane Aquart

By now we’re all familiar with dready art, but in the CTA’s Elevations art show, on until the end of February, we see a new dreadyness emerging. Except for a singular appearance in a very cool green and perfectly realised VW Combi Bus, the show is bereft of the usual stick figure dready. The colours, the tone, the style, the whimsy are all there but the characters that appear are all filled out as are the elements of life, the cars, the boats, the buildings; all slightly comic versions of their reality. That said you’d spot them all as dready art the minute you laid eyes on them

“The show was called Elevations, so I included ‘architectural’ elevations and what I wanted to describe as ‘elevations’ in the dready style; the filled out characters were part of that elevated style,” Shane explains.

The filled out characters are inspired it turns out by dready designs for the new Active Capital/Dart Enterprises business Caribbean Canvas Company; a Caribbean active lifestyle clothing company set to launch in February of this year. CCC is the brainchild of Hugh Treadwell who invited Shane to do a series of dready for CCC designs.

“Hugh wanted a dready of Caribbean Canvas Company’s own, something ‘more’ really and the end result was six active lifestyle designs with more evolved dready characters. The Bone Fishing dready in the Elevations show for instance and the Divers with Grouper are both part of that series. The Girl on Jet Ski is also an off shoot of that.” Shane advises. “I loved doing these and I love the end result; a kind of new dreadyness.”

As to architectural elevations; there are ‘elevations’ of the yacht Octopus and of the aforementioned VW combi-Bus but there is one truly unique panorama of famous buildings of the Cayman landscape; starting with the West Bay Fish Fry and ending with the Mission House in Bodden town; it’s like a West to East two-dimensional slice of Caymania.

“You have to see the dusk sky in the Octopus piece.” Shane adds. “It’s purple, but it’s the Cayman panorama that I really like and I’m planning, at least in my head, versions that go further East.”

He continues: “I just wanted to add, because it’s an important step in all this, that this is the first time that dready prints have been done on island, the art for the show and the subsequent prints sold were all done at Picture This, from printing through matting, stretching and framing.”

A new series?

2011-01-18T13:18:00.002-05:00

i started to work on a series of surfing images and as i was doing the third one i thought that some alpine skiing dreadys would be just the shot as well.

this is my first attempt ... verbier ride.

geronimo!

leaving on a prop plane!

2011-01-14T19:55:00.002-05:00

i went to live in new mexico in the 1980's and work for a guy name eugenio perez; the distances were so vast that we often flew in his cessna ... I often flew his cessna, when it was airborne ... I wouldn't have wanted to fly it before, cause jah know the runway was very short, downhill and ended abruptly in a barbed wire fence!

anyhow, this was about drawing a cessna 'wonnit' ... and i had an idea to show 3 views of the plane and that the views would run off the page. i dig the end result, the perspective, the touches of colour ...

sweet!

new things!

2011-01-08T18:31:00.003-05:00

seems appropriate to work on new ideas ... the whole vision for the top of this work in progress seemed to be new and different ... los angeles on the left and big bear on the right; the life of the client's below, part of the life anyhow ...

new t'ings, same like the old t'ings ... only different!

living!

2010-12-28T17:49:00.000-05:00

well, it is christmas after all! Happy Holidays.

moooo!

the road is long and there are chickens!

2010-12-13T06:56:00.002-05:00

on the long and winding road through life some people cycle ...

i was asked to do a 'mascot' for a team Garmin-Cervelo cycling camp in Cayman ... which is pretty cool cause they're the biggest cycling team in the world.

the mascot was just the dready cyclist and in a version a little different from my vision (you can see the mascot about 5 posts down on the blog) but to the left is a dready original that's kinda closer to my version ... and in a sweet twist of fate this ended up, as a piece of art, in the hands of thor hushovd the world s number one cyclist ... the road is indeed long!

life!

showing off!

2010-11-21T13:40:00.002-05:00

so many ways to own dready: T shirts, post cards, baseball caps, bags ... art on canvas, art on paper, art on aluminum even ...

These 6 pieces are part of a group art show; the two in the middle and the one at top right are part of a series destined to be part of the dready for caribbean canvas company line of Tshirts.

changing the flag!

2010-11-16T22:03:00.002-05:00

you know just by changing the flag you change the whole context of the piece of art ...

simplicity.

dready!

time flies

2010-11-14T19:30:00.004-05:00

this is the dready image that's on the back of the bus in the post below ... it's a year exactly since i drew this for andrew and now he and it are on the way to cross the Antarctic ...

this is the address of the expedition's blog.

live!

http://www.transantarcticexpedition.com/

index.php/expedition/blog

back of the bus!

2010-11-12T11:36:00.005-05:00

you could always find me at the back of the bus when i was a yute, yu know ... not bad really, not even truly rebellious just, perhaps, a little troublesome, mischievous maybe

dready art's on its own path, divergent and different through life: the characters are doing their own thing in their own unique way ...

Here, 'Andrew and Andrew', two penguin characters, are on the back of a bus that is literally, i joke you not, going to the South Pole and beyond, with the Moon-Regan Trans-Antarctic expedition.

Look up the expedition because it's a very cool thing they're doing; adventure yes, but science, awareness ... exposition as well as expedition.

zi-ence!

evolution ...

2010-10-29T01:08:00.005-05:00

the road was long and the way was winding but the view was spectacular and the destination great ...

these dready art divers don't seem all that much different from the version 2 below that went before, but it is ... very much so; just the change to sand on the bottom has brightened it, more fish has given it more life and grouper adds the whimsical touch ...

that grouper has a big rahted mouth!

Love!

collaboration ...

2010-10-19T07:57:00.003-05:00

i think that art works well in collaboration with others ...

there were at least 6 people mulling around the creation of this dready not including the artist himself ...

and here I am loving the end result and loving all the people that participated in the fun and frolic ... frolic's not a very west indian/caribbean word eh; but you know I gamboled through the halls of schools in england and canada where people do the odd bit of frolic-ing.

i've done this image for a ride in the cayman islands with team garmin-cervelo, where local riders get to time trial with the international riders.

i've said it before and i'll say it again doing dready is the most fun i can have with my clothes on ...

peace and love!

less as more!

2010-10-14T13:34:00.005-05:00

the whole idea of less as more ...

the essence of the thing, rather than the thing ...

and then you throw a chicken into the eye-line, like you're writing a scene for 'The Hangover' ... just to amuse the brain. think that's what dready art's all about.

life!

deep blue sea sea sea!

2010-10-06T16:47:00.003-05:00

i first learned to dive, or at least first dove, with bella, in negril; we stayed at home sweet home ... which was sweet and not very much like home ...

now i live and sometimes i dive, in the cayman islands. its a beautiful place; a first world nation in a caribbean setting ...

this dready is part of a series of six, based around water sports, for a group of caribbean wide resort clothing shops ... there are some little elements of cool in it that I like; the single fish, the bottom of the boat, the fishing like with the red yellow and green bait on the end ...

Hmmm!

2010-10-03T16:49:00.002-05:00

the printed mounted and framed image on the wall ... the finished product, signed and delivered; taken, as it were, to the culmination of the art.

it's a nice feeling.

art needs that, any art; the right frame, the right mat ... the right wall.

in the case of the dready i like to leave a little space between the image and the mat when they're done on paper: I like that space, i think it brings the eye in to the art ... on canvas i like the visual of a shadow box frame with space around the art ... but you know, maybe that's just the artist in me talking ...

easy!

in your eyes ...

2010-09-23T10:33:00.003-05:00

i don't have to tell the whole story cause your mind's going to tell the rest of it ...

i've just got to give you the essence of the people, their shape, the way they stand, an approximation of their hair and you'll fill in the rest ...

there's a lot about this image that i like; the colours for one, the caricature, the chicken, the text with its subtle humor, the fact their heads are floating, the tennis ('cause i like tennis) ... i like racquet sports; i play squash and badminton and table tennis which, oddly is also a racquet sport (i think!) ...

smile!

by any other name!

2010-09-16T16:14:00.003-05:00

in jamaica everybody have a different name; horace's name is really stephenson, bull's name was richard, skinny is skinny, but slim is not and neither of them really name skinny nor slim!

anyhow so i met a girl name chineyphat, but that's not her name and i never really even met her either; we just talk, electronically, you know, as is the way of this new world where we live and work and eat ... and this is the end result ...

i'd wondered how i was going to depict bamboo ave/walk: i know it well, have friends live right there and used to travel that road to kingston in the happy hilltop days of enfield and darliston: but dready 's about the impression of a thing, not the thing and so i didn't depict bamboo ave i just put up a sign and a shadow, because that's the cool of bamboo ave, the mottled, light, the shadow, the sense of a tunnel ...

ride with a friend!

rum bearer!

2010-09-12T21:34:00.003-05:00

it's the colours in this dready that i really like; i kind of let the mind run wild through the pastures of its imagination ...

the beginning of a day, the deep soft warm; the photo doesn't do them justice; the sky is gold, the sea cerulean, the clouds bauxite lined with yellow, the rays of sunlight in cream.

The dready girl on the right is lovely, her shape, her expression, the rum on the tray ... it's for the bacardi family and the final cards were printed by roli garcia at http://www.originalimpressions.com/ ... he done good work; if you need him, call him.

cheers!

bone fishin'

2010-09-02T13:47:00.004-05:00

sometimes, just sometimes, inspiration seems to click and i think that this was one of those times ... the colours, my work on the characters, the composition, the fish in the foreground ...

i not a big fisherman, i been fishing, been fishing a lot, but is really not my thing ... i like catching, now that's fun: ricky and me trolling the edges of falmouth harbour pulling in one small barra after another and releasing them ... the dock at morgans harbour and sprats on a hand-line ... i like that; trolling hours out at big sea looking for seaweed and flotsam in the hot sun, not so much!

happiness!

new dready ness!

2010-08-25T16:10:00.005-05:00

you can see an evolution in the dready ness in this image, while still seeing the original context and intent.

A new client wanted to differentiate themselves from the pack while still using dready images and this was the direction we went in, moving from the surfer image inspired by mel macdonald's cornwall surfing images.

i went paddle boarding at cayman kai the other day in the bio-luminescent lagoon; now that's something to write in a blog about!

never stand still!

bookmarks ...

2010-08-23T10:55:00.002-05:00

I think that this was one of the coolest dready things I ever did ... I love these bookmarks, love their simplicity and their absolute cool.

Nuff Said!

Something finished?

2010-08-23T10:19:00.003-05:00

when you finish a project like this it isn't the end, it's the beginning ... beginning of your relationship with the buyer and with the people that the cards go out to ...

dready cards have been lurking around since 2004, I used them to test the whole idea of dreadyness to see what people liked in an image, what they didn't like - it was an inexpensive and effective tool because you could produce multiple images and put them in many places and see what people were attracted to.

what I found was that people liked images that related to their personal experience and not just fun cool images ...

Learn something new every day!

art on the wall too!

2010-07-31T23:28:00.002-05:00

there's something salubrious about seeing your art on a wall ... an almost salacious satisfaction

this piece is especially beautiful.

I did this dready image for the very first taste of cayman food and wine festival at camana bay, now it's a print and this is #1 in the series.

lovely!

planes, trains and automobiles?

2010-07-23T18:44:00.006-05:00

should dready art be simple or more detailed ...

it's a question ...

it's a question that i'm both asked and ask of myself all the time.

and yu know what, i kinda going with the opinion that the art speaks to you as you do it; it requires certain things from you to be finished.

take this and the previous post ... the ferrari, the converse all stars, are detail, but the whole image is very spare; this image not dissimilar in the idea of detail is very full ... it kind of filled itself.

wanga gut!

it ain't easy!

2010-07-09T09:29:00.004-05:00

when I was a yute-ish yute my father used to drive an e-type Jag, my godfather used to drive a 250GT California ...

then my father got a Buick Skylark convertible, of which I have stronger memories, but not fonder ones as it was nowhere near as lovely.

the 250GT California and the e-type could be the most beautiful cars ever designed.

Now it ain't easy to draw something like this, it doesn't take minutes but hours ... but yow, hear dis, dready likes cars, I like cars and both of us like the ferrari ...

Vroom!

what's a dready worth?

2010-07-01T22:07:00.002-05:00

what's a dready worth?
One of the joys of dready art is that it's personalized, very personalized; the client can participate in the process from start to finsih.
the avg commission takes 2 months to complete; back and forth with client, the art itself, project management involved in printing, shipping, often framing and sometimes installation.

1st class customer service
If you had to spend 2 months on a project what would that be worth to you?

that little twist!

2010-06-23T22:58:00.002-05:00

i drank a small glass of rum on the rocks today as the sun went down over 7 mile beach ... and it was lovely.

rum's part of the fabric of the caribbean ...

the rum on that tray is part of the fabric of cuba, puerto rico, bahamas, miami and bermuda; bacardi encompasses all of that.

dready might drink white rum and milk; I don't, I like a nice gold rum over lots of ice ... but never to excess ... strictly for flavour!

see you in the rum bar!

iconic?

2010-06-20T22:28:00.002-05:00

I been thinking a lot lately about where it all started and where it's going to ... on both a personal and an artistic level ...

and am wondering if the whole concept of this Jus' Chillin dready image mightn't be the answer to all those questions!!

not that the goal's to chill, but to be chilled about the goal; that whatever is to be will be, you work hard, you keep your eye on the goal posts, focus on the task at hand and everything else will just do what it is doing ...

and while you're working hard everything else may well work out just the way it is supposed to.

Zen-ish!

old school!

2010-06-02T11:43:00.004-05:00

the vw combi is 60 years old, dready isn't!

so many emails from friends and family of fond memories of old vw buses on the old roads of childhood.

dready's children love them ...

sweet memories!

on the wall!

2010-05-30T21:41:00.003-05:00

the art on paper is one thing (or in this case aluminum), but seeing it on the wall is a whole different thing ...

happiness!

The missing link!

2010-05-30T21:39:00.003-05:00

3 months ago as part of a gallery exhibition I painted on a gig (spinning top) for the national gallery ...

the idea had been that the gig would be shown in tandem with the image I had in my mind at the time I did the gig ...

it never quite worked out that way ... things sometimes don't; but here it is in the flesh the idea of a gig as space craft.

way out!

Rum Rum Rum!

2010-05-26T12:04:00.002-05:00

rumbera is a boat.

the idea is to design a dready that can represent the name, the boat and the people who own both and can go on note cards and cards ...

coolness!

for all the rice in china

2010-05-07T23:27:00.003-05:00

this, is a pitch for a shanghai bicycle shop guy ...

it's okay, I think, to have something made in china that is for china!

lot of the boys I knew, when I was a callow yute, had racing bikes and used to go to stadium and ride round the track, drafting and racing ... all about speed; the bikes had fixed pedals, you couldn't coast, as the wheels moved the pedals moved and as the pedals moved the wheels moved; a continuous cycle that was hard to break ...

I didn't have such a bike ... besides, dready's more of a skeng foot ambler than a racer, dallying through traffic knees out, heels in, elbows in, pant foot rolled up ...

ride natty ride!

something unfinished ...

2010-04-26T20:32:00.003-05:00

this, like me, is a work in progress ...

I am absolutely in love with this image.

one of the coolest things about a dready is the client's ability to participate in the process - they can feel attached to the work.

in the case of this image i'm simply waiting for the client's input to finalize ... and then it's off to scotland with it.

Aye!

earth day

2010-04-23T11:50:00.002-05:00

A year ago I did a series of flowers, for the national gallery's earth day project at the Glass House construction wall -

5 different flowers, 4 ft in diameter, on board, 8' square and painted green.

A year later, battered by the harsh environment, they're still lovely ...

love!

going somewhere

2010-04-16T13:18:00.002-05:00

you do a thing sometimes not understanding where that thing will lead you ... the barque in this image, the canoe, and the characters are simple as pie silhouettes ...

but the idea of more fleshed out characters started right here and moved along till I got to the dready surfers that are further south in the posts below.

also below is the dashing white sergeant who for reasons of costume had to be portrayed front on ... this doesn't mean that the traditional dready is no more just that I now have more ways of expressing him if needed ...

I'm growing up and dready is growing up with me.

flow!

the sleepy turtle

2010-04-09T09:38:00.003-05:00

a series of 7 deady cards based on west indian sayings that are evocative of Caymanian culture for a beautiful cottage hotel http://www.caymancottontree.com/

I loved this project ...

sweet!

ps: cause there's always a ps, the image didn't register properly in the transfer to jpeg, the turtle in the shadow's actually red yellow and green; bright and cool and fun!

big ship sailing on the ocean!

2010-04-05T20:41:00.004-05:00

Apoise the yacht depicted in this image has just sold at auction and i've been secretly working away at it as a commission to the old owners.

a few days ago I showed it to a dready lova who said to me; "it's very cool but, you know, I just really like the rustic dreadys ..." And I like the rustic dreadys too ...

yet, I and the person who commissioned the art, love this ... I love it because I see the dreadyness in it, I see the colour, the simplicity in the intricacy; I see how, especially in the aft end I've created a very dready sense of Apoise.

but but but you see, for me, it also fills in a space in dready's world ... he and I look out and see this boat and although I don't have it yet, sooner or later, dready and this boat will meet in an image. and that's part of the point, it's not just dready, it's dreadyworld.

but more than just that, there was a time around 1985 (so much happening in those years they're a bit of a blur) dready and I'd just come back from New Mexico and I was working on a 117 foot yacht anchored in the new river canal behind las olas blvd and working other boat jobs same time ... I worked on boats, dready works on boats.

vibes!

post cards

2010-03-30T14:13:00.003-05:00

post cards, like this, were where dready first started out ... because of the low cost we could run a test of several images and see how they worked ...

learnt some stuff.

Then took the basic pattern of the card and stuck it on a shirt ...

And learnt some more stuff.

So we elongated the design for the shirts, evolved the dialogue and changed the cards all to reflect what that test had taught us.

one of the things that I've learnt is that collaboration and listening to the opinions of others is critical ...

On of the things that dready learned is that round shoes is out of style!

cool!

the picture-less post!

2010-03-29T13:50:00.001-05:00

the idea is not to just to do dready but to create a 'world' that dready can occupy ...

2 things

2010-03-27T22:33:00.001-05:00

there are two things I love about this image ...

I love the hand drawings that are the start of a dready image, so simple ...

I scratch them out on pieces of 8.5 x 11 paper, start with pencil and then fill with fine tipped black marker and paint with watercoulour paints.

And I love the commentary ... I've done a few dreadys with the commentary built in because I like the humour of it ...

look at the shape of him, he's delightful ...

Laugh alot!

swim with the fishes

2010-03-27T09:35:00.003-05:00

it was over a coffee in guy harvey's studio that the idea of a dready marlin first came up ... we were discussing the idea of stuff that I could put into his cayman shoppe.

I love the Bob Marlin series I've done to date ... some body said to me Bob just seems to be having more fun than the other marlin's!

Stir it up!

white horses.

2010-03-23T21:25:00.005-05:00

the hot weather warm sea dready riding the waves version ...

still it's different, like the dashing white sargeant image before it (somewhere below) because out of necessity the dready character is more 'formed' than would be normal, at the same time I tried to stay within the bounds of dready-ness.

I think I'm on a quest now to try a skateboarder ... as a yute in the rolling suburban-itys of Victoria BC where i was partially 'schooled' we did a lot of skateboarding ...

boom shaka laka!

new influences!

2010-03-22T12:30:00.005-05:00

i keep telling the children that fiddling gets you nowhere ... don't tell them but I lied ... I been fiddling with surfing images mostly because a delightful guy from Portsmouth, Nigel Petty, has been trying to get me to come up with dready surfing images ...

and then I came across an artist named Mel McDonald who does these lovely paintings of surfers off the cornish coast and her colours inspired me and her art gave me a slightly different direction to go in than the images I'd been pursuing before ...

Jus' so you know, dready ain't be surfing no cornwall coast or the severn estuary ... dready surfing warm, caribbean breaks where you can stop for rum and fish fry!

'ang ten!

old friends

2010-03-20T22:34:00.005-05:00

I went to a birthday party the other day and this dready was on the wall over an elegant antique mahogany sideboard ... when I was a boy there was a similar sideboard in the house, with similar decanters of rum and scotch and gin; their sterling silver labels like chains around sweet bwoy's neck. Seeing the dready there on that wall, above that sideboard gave it a sense of place in my mind. Dready would like it there.

I did a series like this, (dare I say I went through a period ... though short lived if I recall) a very minimalist yet 'evolved' style of a revisiting of some of the very early dreadys ... but you know, with the characters progressed, matured ...

much like me.

It's not the first time dready's been through a period of 'sameness'; I did a series with a large window in an otherwise cream space (art chick and lawyer boy: the red headed artist: are two that I remember.) and right now I'm in a bit of a blue sky with cloud phase ...

The idea of this piece was to show the lives of the owner and of dready; the baller, the working man, the sweet bwoy ... dready likes to dance, I like to dance ... back to the old motto; live, love, life!

take your shirt off and dance!

the 7 words you can't say on TV!

2010-03-16T21:15:00.006-05:00

this image makes people nervous ... and i've never quite understood why.

the thought process behind this dready, was looking at 'racism' in the caribbean context with a not very dark skinned character writing 'kill whitey' across a wall.

growing up in a mixed society like jamaica, where elitism (money in the bank ism) rather than racism was the dominant factor, at least in my mind, in mixed company when 'white' was referred to it didn't mean any jamaican in the room, it meant foreigners; North Americans, Europeans (no matter what the complexion of their skin) ...

out of many one people!

power of flower

2010-03-16T21:04:00.004-05:00

this very simple image has its roots in earth day 2009; dready did a series of 8 foot square flower murals for the national gallery of cayman on the construction wall around the new government office building.

on the back of that I was asked to design some note cards for someone based on the flowers ... and this was the end result of that design.

this isn't really what you'd think of as a traditional dready ... but I feel that the dreadyness of this image is in its simplicity, its whimsy ...

(and the fact that i designed it!!!)

I never promised you a rose garden!

wedded bliss?

2010-03-13T20:26:00.003-05:00

This is one of my favourite recent dreadys; it was done for a save the date notice for a wedding ... still waiting for the two of them to decide to get married ... he's italian she's african ... together they'll have beautiful little 'afrilian' children!

dready's loves children; children are our future.

runnin wild an free!

time longer than rope

2010-03-11T22:18:00.005-05:00

as part of an ongoing commission to produce 7 images based on old time cayman sayings we resorted to a very cool book (if you're a Jamaican or a Caymanian I guess), published in 1910, called Jamaica Negro Proverbs and Sayings ...

this image is called 'time longer than rope'! which means both that 'time solves everything' and 'time is your enemy'

But this dready could equally have been called christmas beef!

the idea of christmas beef is that you buy a 'cow' early in the year and you fatten 'he' up with all kinds of good food, you spend time with he and you nurture he and you chat with he, you and your friends sit around and drink rum next to he and then when christmas comes ... you slit he throat and make he inna steaks!

keep your head!

PS I just noticed that I used the same cloud and birds as the pedro castle image ... repetitive cloud syndrome! And then I remembered why; because I used the Pedro Castle image as the template for these.

taking the next step forward

2010-03-07T21:12:00.007-05:00

pedro castle is a landmark building in the cayman islands, the end result of an undertaking by the local government to rebuild a piece of cultural heritage.

it was also a landmark in the progression of dready art ... this was the first time i'd used shadow and shading in an image and it spun me off to a whole new way of portraying the simple dready ideas.

it also started me doing a series of buildings; I did a 22' mural for antigua featuring a series of historic buildings, the image of devon house, jamaica, in the header above for a group of guys that wanted to commemorate a rugby tour ...

but more importantly, this single image was the precursor to dready images of yachts and cars and stuff that i can only think to describe as 2 dimensional 'plus' ... you know just like getting an A+ in school, shouldn't really exist but we dig it when we get one anyway!

evolution revolution!

PS this original sold at a charity auction in London to benefit island games ... cool

dready gear

2010-03-01T21:57:00.005-05:00

everybody needs stuff and dready's got stuff; shirts, caps, bags, art, postcards, coffee cups, custom cards, bookmarks and inlaid cedar boxes ...

not everything available everywhere but everything available somewhere!

caps, bags and shirts in barbados and grenada, shirts in antigua, shirts, art and boxes in Jamaica, shirts, caps, art, boxes and postcards, caps in cayman, shirts and coffee cups at portsmouth ... everything on the world wide web ... and in each place a different dreadyness, one that reflects the time and place.

I'm really proud of the cap; great quality printing, fine twill, velcro backstrap ...

(A lesson learned is that you have to be careful of the continuity of quality through your brand, that something's as good in timbuktu as it is in providence ... so to speak!)

you can buy stuff at www.dreadyworld.com ... the site hasn't evolved as fast as dready has and certainly not as fast as this blog but you can still buy stuff, that part's easy ...

chillin!

friends in administration!

2010-02-28T19:37:00.008-05:00

i've been following portsmouth football club ...

portsmouth went into voluntary administration on friday to avoid being forced into liquidation by what would seem to be a rather petulant 'her majesty's government'.

I like portsmouth, they like dready, I like dready, you like dready, you should like portsmouth ... in some form of happily twisted semi logic.

the attached image is one of two that i created just for portsmouth; very cool, very fun, very dready. The other one is somewhere below in the plethora of dready-ful thought and wonder-full imagery.

take the time, go to http://www.portsmouthfc.co.uk/ keep up with them, follow their football, follow their news, cheer them on, it's nice to root for the underdog! I'm rooting for them.

live strong!

Rasta Auzzie!

2010-02-20T14:08:00.005-05:00

things evolve into other things ...

i liked the harley rider's dreadlocks-ed hair from the previous post and you know i dig the dready vdub: and then someone came along and asked me to mock up a surfing idea for a pitch in australia and these things all seemed to suit the evolution into this other thing ... this 'surfing' image thing.

the flag in the background is intended to be a changeable 'icon' so that you can use the image in multiple locations just by changing that one element ... if dready wants to surf the waves in cornwall, or barbados, or white horses by yallahs, is cool!

I never surfed (i skateboarded) and i don't know why because i've always wanted to ... the lifestyle, the sea, the beach, the sport ... the surfing ... all of it would seem to be just the thing for me ... and for dready, seen ... but I just never evolved that way!

magic!

feel the motor running!

2010-02-20T13:43:00.006-05:00

two of the things in life that i can always remember liking; steppenwolf and bikes ... neathersole, the gardner, introduced me to his honda 50 when I was just a 'liccle yute'! i used to ride on the back or sometimes on the front and hold the handle bars with him ... the honda 50's not much of a bike, but for a 5 year old it was very cool

my older sister introduced me to steppenwolf ...

and so this is what nurture vs nature is all about ... bob marley on one teat, john kay and magic carpet ride on the other.

anyhow, the other day a friend introduced me, by phone, to the guys from full throttle saloon (check them out at www.fullthrottlesaloon.com ... i ain't seen it but i hear the tv show rocks as much as the bar) and asked me to do a pitch for mike ballard and his girl ... attached is the concept.

dready likes to ride, i ride, not much, but when i do i ride happy ... me (and dready) we used to work sheep by 650 honda in the backwoods of new mexico and we've been 130 miles per hour on a race rigged suzuki katana ... the suzuki was fast, but then so was that particular life.

blouse and skirt!

2010-02-12T19:19:00.005-05:00

I drew the kangaroo and the range rover for another piece of art (to be found somewhere below) and when I was done I'd fallen in love with them and created art around them -

I sent this art along with the following pitch to the top of Range Rover ...

"Attached is a quick sketch of the idea just to lay out look and feel (and a LR series II as a sweetner) ... you’d have animals and places and vehicles, humour, landscape, comic situations, colour, verve etc ... All easily animated ... Easily mutable to print, video, outdoor etc. transferable from culture to culture (by a change of say the hat in this case!!)."

there's nothing like shooting for the stars, the worst that can happen is that they say no and then you haven't lost a thing, you've only gained in trying ... dready, believes in himself and therefore is fearless!

badness!

Togetherness!

2010-02-08T09:17:00.004-05:00

this is our second year with the Massive sponsored Squash Nationals - last year's image was equally 'iconic'.

this goes back to a mixture of the ideas of personalized invitation cards and personalized advertising design all together as a T shirt design - not so unlike making Tshirt designs for Chukka Caribbean or Stingray City Antigua, but different still!

this is us doing our thing to help your thing; in general terms dready likes that idea.

nice!

Ps go check out massive group they're an interesting company, very nimble and easy to evolve to change and possibility.

http://www.massivegroup.com/

graphically designed?

2010-02-05T17:28:00.005-05:00

I dug this out because the discussion had turned toward advertising again, or maybe i'd taken it there ...

this was the image for the inaugural Taste of Cayman Food and Wine Festival at Camana Bay in 2009.

it's a good example of dready art, one, without dready actually in it (using only the idea of whimsy and primitive design and bright colours) ... and two of dready art as advertising, as marketing -

this dready pops! but it's more than that, the image has character and interest, it has verve ...

if this were on a board across a room, you'd see it right away; dready art is distinctive!

drink the koolaid and give me some love, baby!

driven to distraction!

2010-02-05T17:08:00.005-05:00

I'd been on a kick of dready 'vehicles' and it started, I think, simultaneously with the need to draw the range rover for one client and this jeep for another -

It was a very cool commission; it included this T Shirt design and two pieces of original art based on the design one that's hanging in the new car city offices ...

The melding of dready and advertising design ...

I love the humour in this ... the husband casually sitting on the hood of a car that's perched on a sign, the salesman looking up ... the way the wife's head is cocked to one side quizically ...

artistically I fiddled with the 'box' on purpose by pushing the vehicle out of the frame ...

Vroom!

da prints on da paper!

2010-02-03T09:31:00.009-05:00

the whole idea had been to make prints, of varying sizes on very nice paper of the images we'd already put on Tshirt, post card and cedar box inlays ... as a way of giving the customer choices ... but it ended up giving dready choices of how he could be seen ... prints are cool, a way of owning some of the love ... and they're an ever evolving pantheon ... diver on blue and wrong ray

zeeeen!

dready don't sail!

2010-02-01T22:20:00.003-05:00

talking about boats ... this image of Java Knight was done to commemorate java's pineapple cup voyage in Feb 2009.

I went down to Jamaica for the prize giving at Montego Bay Yacht Club, dready don't like to miss a party where the rum ... and the women ... might be free. I saw some friends while I was there; nodded at a few.

the commission tested me, as it was difficult to coax that hull's shape out of what I began with ... but it taught me to start to think about the end result when I made my first mark on the paper or the screen for that matter, to visualize what I was going to do.

free yu mind!

the deep blue sea

2010-01-29T21:59:00.007-05:00

There was a boat gracing the horizon of dready's view and she was beautiful ...

dig I'm not a seafaring guy ... in good yard man fashion my father never learnt to swim till he was 40 and my grandfather's favourite form of transport was a mule (well a mule and a Jaguar motor car!) ... sure, I been to sea, I fished the straits of Juan de Fuca and the deep Caribbean sea, dived off negril and snorkeled off george town, I worked on boats while they sat on dry land and while they went to sea ... but dready's really a beach bwoy, a dry land tour-ist.

All that said this boat was plain beautiful and so I felt compelled to capture it in that way that I like to ...

Ah Oy!

for better or worse!

2010-01-29T21:15:00.011-05:00

Someone said after seeing this image that Dready had "left the shallow end of creativity for the paddling pool of commercialization [sic]"; that I'd left the unique simplicity of dready's early beginnings for something less unique and more commercial.

The first incarnation of this image, seen somewhere below, was simply the bus against a coloured background; to which someone said - "it doesn't say anything to me, it needs dreadys in the bus [sic]."

Me, I think that either as the Vdub bus alone or the band and the bus; either evolved, evolving or still just too unique to even be in the pool, it is, absolutely, positively, one of the coolest pieces of dready art I've ever done.

... and as to commercialism ...

man gotta eat!

hot footin' through the gears!

2010-01-14T20:08:00.009-05:00

a faded blue Land Rover 90 Series II's clattering and bouncing around farms and down country roads ... the doors on the shell tops always used to end up loose and rattling ... the idiosyncrasies are what make people love land rovers.

toyota and nissan taxis used to scatter in half way tree, parting like moses and the red sea for the land rover to pass, tyres humming, engine whirring, exhaust coughing from the hot footing through the gears.

The image is based on the 90 my auntie used to have, although hers didn't have the shell top (the top seemed to fit the purpose of the art) the polo yute is fixing it up to drive, resurrecting her from the the grave ...

Easy nuh supa!

There's a club for series II's http://www.series2club.co.uk/

dashing white sargeants!

2010-01-14T19:56:00.004-05:00

Back to the whole idea of personalized invitation art ...

This one is an invitation to a Ceilidh (caylee), a type of Scottish party at which there are traditional dances like 'the dashing white sargeant' and 'the gay gordons' (not that there's anything wrong with that!)

dready is a bashment steppa he don't whirl an' turn an tumble down to the squeal of pipes, but he like a party, so he'll go, he'll sip a rum and skank it easy especially 'cause the girl, big her up, for whom the party will rock, is turning 40!

Live long an' prospa!

that long and winding road!

2010-01-05T16:59:00.008-05:00

When I was a young dread-I growing up, we used to play a game, called 'beatle bug and bash bash', when we traveled the long and winding road from Kingston to country, on our way to visit grandparents on the farm - the idea being to look out for volkswagens on the road.

We also played a game called 'mile post' the gist of which I'm sure you get ...

I can truly imagine a cool 'country' dready driving a bash bash bus out past yallahs to white horses, where everybody surfs ... then and now; only now is bigger!

ride natty ride!

Bob Marlin?

2009-12-28T13:56:00.008-05:00

When I took this image off the dready blog header I found that I missed it so here it is again.

Blue Marlin, White Marlin, Black Marlin, Bob is an original on aluminium, it is 7" tall by 32" long and it is gorgeously beautiful! I left it in England on my recent trip to see it sold.

The first dready Marlins were done as an over and under dyptich called Blue Marlin, Bob Marlin, in a limited edition of 99 ...

I did them as an homage to Guy Harvey - www.guyharvey.com - in whose gallery I was putting them. If by some great stretch of the imagination you don't know who Guy Harvey is; he's one of the world's foremost marine wildlife artist's, a scientist and a conservationist ... and one of the world's great guys.

vibes!

PS The idea of 'bob marlin' isn't original to dready there's a boat at Glistening Waters near Falmouth with that name for one ...

character study

2009-12-28T08:58:00.004-05:00

creating caricatures is about finding that distinctive peculiarity with which to portray someone ...

when you're using dready art, which already has its own distinctive look and the added feature of its characters being both faceless and 2 dimensional you really have to think outside the box to find that representation ...

there is a huge plus side to this, and it is that you invite the viewer's imagination to come into the art with you; you give him or her a hint and let their comic mind take over.

I think this is one of the aspects of dready art that people attach to; like reading a book they're asked to participate in the art ... and that participation makes them smile.

In the attached image I used all sorts of characters, animals and other images to get the 'idea' of 17 people involved across.

I fell in love with the Kangaroo on the far left and created an image of his own for him.

dready's fire burning on the dance floor!

swimming to the beat of a different drum!

2009-12-20T20:47:00.006-05:00

Some friends of dready's own a company called Scimitar sportswear ...

http://www.scimitarsports.com/

Scimitar specializes in bespoke/custom team sportswear for soccer, cricket, netball, rugby, basketball etc and with a division that manages sports holidays for teams that want competition away from home.

They're great set of guys with a strong future in sports clothing.

Together, we are in the process of creating a very cool line of dready swim and sun wear for men, women and children that includes bikinis, jams, surfer shorts, sun tops and sun hats.

Watch this space and go take a look at scimitar.

peace and love and expectations!

dancing through the snow!

2009-12-14T22:12:00.004-05:00

We live in the Caribbean ... not the you and I we, but the me and dready we!

and so because christmas is coming it seemed only right that there be some snow ...

notice there's no dreadys in the picture; that's because they're all inside where it's warm!!

The first snow and blue blue sky image I did was 4.5 feet long and hangs on a wall up Richmond Hill in London - I loved the bright simplicity of it in a dark wood frame ...

the sun is shining!

as seen on the radio!

2009-12-12T16:54:00.004-05:00

As you go about your business doing that thing that you do you meet people that strike a chord with you ... we sat on the radio with carl ralley, DJ and the programming manager at Quay FM in Portsmouth, and we 'labrished', we chatted about dready about blue iguanas about football clubs and about how people go about the business of giving back to the community ... I liked carl.

There were a group of great people that I came across while I was lurking in their shadows: linvoy, aaron, carl, clare, the guys from jerk pan, john and basher, just to name names that I can remember in my travel worn fuzziness ...

I'm going to try and listen in on Quay when I get back home and in the mean time ...

Peace and Love!

giving back some of the love!

2009-12-09T20:39:00.005-05:00

It warmed the heart to watch kids, dressed in my designs, doing the Limbo and when you look here and see John Westwood and his team, who are wearing the said dready-portsmouth shirts, celebrating at the kids Cayman Christmas party at Portsmouth's Fratton Park stadium, you know what kind of fun they had ...

some people with phenomenal energy put this gig together and they all know who they are and to them you can only say ...

cool!

PS this photograph was taken by gail ward of www.gailwardphotography.co.uk

gail's not only a photographer but a journalist and a lady with a big social consciousness ... take the time to check her out; I enjoyed her company and you may too.

got the blues?

2009-12-09T20:19:00.006-05:00

It rains a lot in England and dready knows this because he's at Portsmouth Football Club in the UK for the launch of dready-portsmouth fc merchandise and the beginning of a partnership between dready, the cayman islands and porstmouth fc that includes the adoption of 'Pompey', a rare Cayman Blue Iguana by the Portsmouth club - you can learn more about the blue iguana at:

http://www.blueiguana.ky/

and if you facebook you can find a 'friends of pompey the cayman blue iguana' page where you can learn more about Pompey herself.

The Blue Iguana is the most endangered iguana on the planet, brought back from the brink of extinction by some very hard work ... and every little bit helps; so think about it and then maybe act on that thought.

One Love!

speaking in tongues!

2009-11-30T12:47:00.004-05:00

Tis the season to be jolly ... 'en francais'!

dready speaks french, who knew ... but the truth is you can't make new friends unless you speak their language, whether that language is french, spanish, italian, german, malay, sinhalese maybe (because we just tested an image for Singapore); russian, 'da da nyet nyet, da!' ... english or patois.

I like this image, in french or english ... the character on the left seems to have suddenly realized that we are out here, looking in at dready's world; it's not quite a look of surprise, but one of interest ...

trop cool ca!

Through the mystics of tomorrow!

2009-11-29T20:18:00.007-05:00

Reading a copy of Southwestern Art magazine, that was lurking around somebody else's space, set me to doing this dready ...

my father, at one stage in his life, oddly for a Jamaican I thought, loved western/cowboy art ... but then I suppose it befitted that place and that time in which he loved it ...

And I spent a lot of time on horses growing up and some of that time included ropes and spurs and cows ... some of it included sheep and motorcycles, but that's for another image and I haven't gotten to it yet ...

There might be another point to this and it's that evolution that I spoke about before where dready moved from being about tourists and rum to being about other things...

but this one's mostly about horses and riding; I ride and I suppose because I do dready must ride as well, nuh?

Go deh dready go deh!

yeah, but can you draw?

2009-11-24T21:03:00.004-05:00

I dunno ...

there are a few still life's and nudes, with my name on them, lurking on people's walls ...

but why be normal ... why not do dreadys?

live love life

letting your dogs run wild

2009-11-24T10:48:00.008-05:00

somebody told me the other day that they loved the dready art because of its 'whimsy' ...

a bit of a cool word that ... sometimes I think you just kinda have to let the dogs run wild and do what's in your head and don't pay too much attention to all the wrong noise others are going to make about what you're doing.

I did this dready for a girl and her man.

easy nuh super!

some things are different ...

2009-11-23T19:39:00.009-05:00

I fell into doing dready designs on boats with one called Mudslide Run ...

what attracted me to Mundele was that I could do something a little different; if I simply thought in terms of dready being faux primitive art this would fit into that 'box' while being outside of it!

Mundele is a Central African word for white man and the 'carriole' image is of a typical hewn canoe of the kind that's punted up and down places like the Zaire river, in West Africa, carrying goods ...

all of that and we're still having fun; inshallah brother gregg.

playing #3 for Portsmouth FC

2009-11-18T13:15:00.008-05:00

As part of the dready project with British Premier League team Portsmouth FC, dready got his own Portsmouth shirt and number ...

(dready plays left half back (left wing back) because he's equally good with both feet and he's quick!)

people passion pride is the Pompey motto ... good people, good football club; I'm enjoying myself already ... big up!

...

as a little aside; it's funny how some people just wear clothes and others make them look good!!!

thanks to the model India and the photographers Stephen Clark and Justin Uzzell -

http://www.caycompass.com/photogallery/

Peace and Love

dreadyworld

and then ...

back in the business ...

what's new ...

bits and pieces

dready in new group show ...

dready's little cayman flight

dready smart car!

active lifestyle

new stuff

back to the drawing board ...

working in TV

another life ...

an heirloom?

many rivers to cross!

Dready, version 5!

everybody wants to be jus' a likkle bit Bob!

do you know where you going to!

things a go on!

Friends in hotels!

life calling!

new ideas!

Dready in the paper

A new series?

leaving on a prop plane!

new things!

the road is long and there are chickens!

showing off!

changing the flag!

time flies

back of the bus!

evolution ...

collaboration ...

less as more!

deep blue sea sea sea!

in your eyes ...

by any other name!

rum bearer!

bone fishin'

new dready ness!

bookmarks ...

Something finished?

art on the wall too!

planes, trains and automobiles?

it ain't easy!

what's a dready worth?

1st class customer serviceIf you had to spend 2 months on a project what would that be worth to you?

that little twist!

iconic?

old school!

on the wall!

The missing link!

Rum Rum Rum!

for all the rice in china

something unfinished ...

earth day

going somewhere

the sleepy turtle

big ship sailing on the ocean!

post cards

the picture-less post!

2 things

swim with the fishes

white horses.

new influences!

old friends

the 7 words you can't say on TV!

power of flower

wedded bliss?

time longer than rope

taking the next step forward

dready gear

friends in administration!

Rasta Auzzie!

feel the motor running!

Togetherness!

graphically designed?

driven to distraction!

da prints on da paper!

dready don't sail!

1st class customer service
If you had to spend 2 months on a project what would that be worth to you?