Alec's Animal Alphabet: Unicorn!

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Turtle

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Scorpion

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Raccoon

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Quail

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Pangolin

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Otter

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Narwhal

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Meerkat

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Lemur

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Kangaroo

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Jellyfish

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Iguana

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Hedgehog

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Goat

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Fox

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Eel

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Duck

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Chicken

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Bat

This painting is from Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

Alec's Animal Alphabet: Aardvark

During my last semester at Pratt Institute I started a "series" where I painted one animal for each letter of the alphabet.  These were about 10" square done in acrylic paint.  I got up to Meerkat before school ended.

I began my career as a freelance illustrator after graduating in 2007 and when I came up a little short on rent that year, I finished off the paintings and sold them to my incredibly supportive friends, family and fans.  I also compiled all of the paintings into the book Alec's Animal Alphabet which is still available both as a physical and electronic book over on Lulu.com

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.  I will be posting one animal per day until I get them all back online!

So Long, Flickr!

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I got an email from Flickr notifying me that their site had been "improved."  There is a new user interface (which is horrible), but that only represents changes on the surface of the site.  With this planned update Flickr has fundamentally changed the underlying structure of their site.

It used to operate with a "freemium" model in which casual users could use the site for free, and a smaller group of people who wanted to use the site professionally paid a fee for more space and more control over their settings.  I have paid for this service since 2006.  Never again.

Flickr will now operate on an advertising model, in which ads will appear next to all Flickr photos.  To maximize the number of images on the site, they are now giving away a terabyte of free space to all users, thus making "pro" accounts redundant.

I bring this all up because a few years ago I went to a lot of trouble to synch up all the images on this site with my Flickr account.  Up until now, when you clicked on one of my illustrations on this site, it took you to that same image in my Flickr account so that people could easily comment on the images, share them, favorite them, etc.  It was also a great way to keep groups of images organized.

Last week I replaced all of my illustrations on Flickr with this image:

I did this for a few reasons: 1) I am mad at Flickr and the poor way they handled this transition (no advanced warning, no options provided) 2) My illustrations generate hundreds of thousands of views per year on Flickr and as an illustrator, I am not okay with my copyrighted intellectual property being used to generate advertising income for Yahoo (without my permission!)  3) This site is one giant advertisement - for ME!  Because of that, I intentionally keep this site ad-free for my readers and I do not want ads surrounding my work on other sites either.

I have moved all of the images back over to this blog.  It was kind of a pain, but it also gave me an opportunity to put copyright notices on all of my images, which is something I've been meaning to do for a long time.

So now if you want to find one of my old images, I suggest you use the "CATEGORIES" links on the righthand side of this blog.  You can also use the search bar at the very top of this page to track down anything you're looking for.  If any of you have images favorited or bookmarked from my Flickr, I have also provided links from Flickr back to this blog.

There were a few images in my Flickr account that were never posted on this blog, so I will begin posting those here next week.  Get ready for a tour of illustrations-gone-by!