Logo: BEAR MOUNTAIN PADDLE RACE

I designed this logo for HVH2O's first paddle race. (The plan is to have it printed on T-shirts.) The initial idea was to show a bear on a paddle board with Bear Mountain in the background. I didn't think that alone would work, so I played around with adding an outline of Puerto Rico. Then someone really wanted the Bear Mountain Bridge as part of the design, so that ended up replacing the mountain. The bridge is much more iconic anyway.

HVH2O is hosting this race as a fundraiser for Salon Angelitos de Amor, Inc., an organization that works to help improve the lives of children with Down’s syndrome in Puerto Rico, which was affected by the recent natural disasters. One of my husband's friends came up with this idea for the race, when a paddle race he had signed up for that was being held in Puerto Rico to raise funds for Salon Angelitos de Amor was cancelled due to the ongoing bad conditions in Puerto Rico. He still wanted to raise funds, so he approached HVH2O with a plan for the race.

HVH2O: Costume Paddle

I was asked to create an illustration for a poster advertising HVH2O's Costume Paddle event. Entrants were encouraged to come in costume and/or decorate their paddle boards, kayaks and canoes. I had a lot of fun doing this, especially the visual research into other such events. Much to amusement, I saw that people really did paddle in their T-Rex costumes, so of course I had to add one to my illustration. 

Below is the final design of the poster.

HVH2O: Sea Shanty Jamboree

In 2019, HVH2O held a Sea Shanty Jamboree fundraiser. For the postcard advertising the event, I was asked to create an image showing the Half Moon on the Hudson River, passing by Bear Mountain. I was asked to show some paddlers alongside the ship. If you look closely, there is also a swimmer next to the paddleboarder. A giant sturgeon is leaping out of the water behind them.

Below is the postcard. The postcard was designed by Taryn Murphy.

HVH2O: Site Rendering

Along with two of his friends, my husband recently founded HVH2O, a paddle sports and environmental education non-profit organization. HVH2O stands for Hudson Valley Water (aka the Hudson River). He asked me to create an image that shows a visualization of what a permanent site for the organization could look like at the Peekskill Landing Park. The large structure at the right are kayak and storage lockers, along with a changing room, that HVH2O hopes to get funded through a grant. A previous version of this image didn't show the storage lockers, nor the logo. I patched those in recently. 

To create this, I made a pencil drawing that I scanned, printed out on watercolor paper, and then painted with watercolor. 

Here is what the early version of the HVH2O paddle sports center rendering looked like. Can you spot the differences?