Lindsey Stirling will do a show in London in November 2014. As a promotion, she put out a contest to get a poster for the event. So I contacted my local violinist talent to do a photo shoot in preparation for winning the award.

The design was to include imagery inspired by the art work associated with her “Shattered” album which was released a few months back. The story line centered on a music figurine who had been trapped in the glass sphere of a music box globe. The glass was shattered, releasing her.

It wasn’t long before I found the design and execution of the concept to be eating up a great deal of time, so I devised a strategy to defeat the drain. With the poster designed and all but painted, I put it off until the day prior to put myself in a heightened state with regard to the production and thereby salvage days of work.

As it happened, those days were squandered doing things that had little compensatory value and as I prepared to go into an all-nighter just before the deadline, I began to fear that I’d cut it too close.

I got online and looked at the submissions that had already been received and then took courage from that because the vantage I would bring to the table was unlike any of the rest. So I kept at it until three in the morning. The amount of paint it takes to paint under the gun without a precision layout guide is comparatively huge and the time requirements can vary wildly from one project to another.

So now, having missed the deadline I assess the fallout.

It was a net gain. A gigantic net gain.

That photo shoot with my unfailingly wonderful model, who is also my beloved grand daughter, turned out enough material for numerous exciting violinist themed art pieces. Plus, it was great fun.

I also adjusted my strategies for future gambles such that poster contest (“gamble”, in the sense that payment was never assured  and was entirely conditional on the poster being chosen).

Frankly, I still think I had one of the better ideas.

Next time, I’ll budget my resources  to win.

Lindsey Stirling’s recent album art was to inspire the poster for her London show, This was my mock up for the poster design, using Leah