Paul from the wizard rock band, Harry and the Potters asked me to help find artist friends to contribute a few pieces of fan art to a worthy cause. If you have some extra drawing time over the holidays and can draw some Harry Potter characters (specifics below) it would be a great help!
Check out the message below:
This is Paul DeGeorge of the band Harry and the Potters writing to invite you to participate in a very special and unique fundraiser for an extraordinary non-profit organization.
A few years back, I helped co-found a group called the Harry Potter Alliance. When the adults and politicians of the magical world fail to address the concerns of the day, Harry and his friends start a student activist group called Dumbledore's Army. The Harry Potter Alliance is essentially a Dumbledore's Army for the real world. By drawing parallels between the muggle and magical worlds, we are able to harness the creativity, passion and enthusiasm of thousands of Harry Potter fans in a completely new approach to civic engagement. The HPA works with a number of partner NGOs on on a variety of campaigns around global warming, equal rights, poverty, genocide and self-empowerment. We now have over 60 active chapters in high schools, colleges and communities across the world, and an almost entirely volunteer based staff working over 300 hours per week! We've sent thousands of books to youth villages in Rwanda, called thousands of voters for the recent equal rights effort in Maine, and raised over $10,000 for civilian protection in Darfur.
That's the "About Us" kind of spiel, but in all honesty, this is quite an incredible organization that I feel honored to be a part of. It's basically a first-of-its-kind approach to activism, and it's really producing amazing results, especially by getting young people involved and socially conscious. JK Rowling herself praised our mission on her website, writing "I am honored and humbled that Harry's name has been given to such an extraordinary campaign, which really does exemplify the values for which Dumbledore's Army fought in the books."
Another unique aspect of the Harry Potter Alliance is that it's almost entirely supported by the Harry Potter fan community. This is made possible by donations, benefit shows, and charitable music compilations. This year, I'm hoping to expand the fundraising offerings through a project called "Adopt a Hypothetical Orphan Wizard Baby."
People interested in the program will be able to choose from 3 different Hypothetical Orphan Wizard Babies: Harry Potter, Teddy Lupin, and Tom Riddle. For an adoption fee of $50, these proud new parents will receive quarterly updates over the course of the 2010 calendar year. Each update will contain an original, hand-drawn 4" x 6" portrait of their selected character, along with a status update and other goodies. So it's basically an art subscription club based around portraits of Harry Potter characters. All proceeds from this endeavor will be donated to the Harry Potter Alliance.
And that's where YOU come in! We are now recruiting artists to generate these character portraits! We are hoping to offer between 50-100 of these Hypothetical Orphans for adoption, and to do that we'll need four times as many portraits. Do you think that you'll be able to help us by providing us with some of the original art for this project? As this is a benefit effort, we're not able to offer you any compensation, but if you want a Harry and the Potters CD or something, let me know and I'll get it in the mail for you. I've got loads of em in my parent's basement.
The MINIMUM commitment we are asking from artists is that they choose one of the characters (Harry, Teddy, or little baby Voldemort), and draw four different portraits of that character at four different points in their life. Specifically, we decided to have the portraits be from age 1, age 6, age 11, and age 16. This way, the status updates can match the portraits.
Should you choose to LEVEL UP your contributor status, you can submit additional sets of portraits of the other characters being offered - or even multiple portraits of the same character. This is certainly encouraged since the more sets we can offer, the more money we will raise! Did I mention that those who submit multiple portrait sets score bonus points with McGonagall - amazing, but true!
All works should be original, with the character's name and age, and the artist's name included on the back of the work.
You can see some of Alec Longstreth's sample work here at our pre-launch, sample website.
[link]We are looking to have all this art generated by Dec 31, 2009, so that we can make our first mailing at some point in January 2010.
Still confused? Here are some FAQs.
Q: So you want my original, hand-drawn art right?
A: Yes
Q: At what size?
A: 4" x 6" please. Vertical or horizontally oriented, your choice.
Q: How are these distributed to these so-called "adoptive parents."
A: When those "adoptive parents" sign up, they choose which character they would like to adopt. At the time of each mailing, they are mailed a randomly-chosen portrait of their character from the available pool. Kind of like a Secret Santa with each mailing. So the parents never know which artist will be doing their next character portrait. This way no one will get locked in to a particular artist they may not necessarily be fond of.
Q: Who is your favorite Harry Potter character?
A: Dumbledore
Q: How many of each character will you sell?
A: Only as many as are generated by the artists. So if we only get 4 artists to submit Tom Riddle portrait sets, then we will only allow 4 people to adopt Tom Riddle.
Q: Do I get paid for this?
A: Lots of people donate their time and money to support the HPA. We are asking that you consider donating some of your time and artistic skill to help keep this incredible organization going. But like I said, if you want a CD, just let me know.
Q: Whoa, this Harry Potter Alliance business sounds cool. Where can I learn more?
A:
[link]Q: This is an awesome idea! I already did my drawings! Where do I mail them?
A: Wow! Cool! So glad you are pumped on it! You can mail those to:
Paul DeGeorge
26A Bar Neck Rd.
Woods Hole, MA 02543
Q: What do you plan to do with your band now that the book series is over?
A: Adopt a Hypothetical Orphan Wizard Baby!
Did that answer all your questions? If not, feel free to email me. Actually, all interested parties should shoot me an email to let me know you're on board and what level of commitment you think you can make.
I'm really psyched about this project and I hope you may be equally pumped to be a part of it. Thanks for reading and thanks for helping!
Paul T. DeGeorge
Harry and the Potters
Sta.sh
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