Promotional Artwork for International Non-Profit ‘Project 0’

• By Tess

I love it when my friends do something fantastic! Project 0 is the brainchild of my long time friend, Michele Clarke. The non-profit organization she helped to establish is dedicated to saving our oceans, a noble cause I support. It will be a vehicle to raise public awareness and also raise funding for further scientific research, projects, and organizations committed to ocean health. I’m excited to offer my support and pleased to be included in my small way.

Following are my notes from the project journal about the final execution.

Right now I am planning an original piece made with plastic debris collected on the coast close to home. It will be used in social media and for advertising. I wanted to share this process with you since it is such a compressed timeline. But first I must collect, sort, and wash and dry ocean plastic debris.

My plan is to make a sign reading ” PROJECT 0′” and include a social note to use in any post the world over, #getintoit. The final image of this piece will be used for marketing purposes to direct traffic to Project 0.

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Process for creating #getintoit – mouse-over the slide for info

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Day 1
It’s raining outside, pouring rain, and it’s a perfect day to wash plastic marine garbage. There is a handful of individuals around the world that do this and as I wash and scrub, I know I’m not alone. The process of washing garbage is very time-consuming, but necessary when using this awful waste as a pallet for creativity.

As a first step, I ‘ve had KINKO’s print the words in a large format. I hope, when I pick up the print I will have printed it large enough for the project. Tomorrow, I’ve arranged for studio space at The Image Flow and plan to spend the day creating this piece in place. Assembling it on the floor of the studio, I will create my mini-wasteland.

I will fill in the letters and background with black, white, pink and turquoise. These are the brands colors for Project 0. There will be some challenges when covering the lettering with plastics because the letters are round in shape and plastic is generally angular. I imagine I’ll have to do a lot of cutting to make bits and pieces fit. Trying to do this in one day is, in truth, rather ambitious. Even though I am not gluing they still need to fit like a puzzle in order for this to work properly.

But for now, I am washing–black widows have begun to crawl out of the floating plastic island in my bathtub; big and shiny, they look for refuge.

Day 2
Picking up at Kinko’s I was happy to see that the size of the print was just right. This will be used as a reference to size the letters properly. After arriving at the studio, I will paint the background black and then begin to lay in all of the pieces. Blue and pink will highlight the social messaging.

Annie Greene joined me at the studio and helped lay out the plastic pieces. I was thankful to have such a great assistant. Her help made the entire process much quicker than I had thought it would be. She’s also my daughter so it’s always an extra treat to be able to spend the day with her.

When it was complete, Stuart Schwartz, the owner of The Image Flow in Mill Valley, caught the light beautifully with his camera. The result came out just as I had imagined. It’s so satisfying when a project goes from an idea to completion.

I’ll be doing more work with Project 0 in the future, so stay tuned and don’t forget to share Project 0 and add #getintoit to all of your social media so the Project0 team can see all of the wonderful comments coming to them from the world over.

Learn more: Project 0
I also want to thank Stuart Schwartz, founder of The Image Flow for your support throughout the year.