Do you have mad art skills and some time on your hands? American Whitewater is producing a document titled Recreational Considerations for Stream Channel Design, and we need some help. The goal is to help restoration project designers create stream channels that are as natural, safe, and fun as possible.
Currently when engineers, landscape architects, and restoration ecologists sit down to design a new stream channel or in-stream structures like log accumulations and rock weirs they may consider only physics and fish. In doing so they may unintentionally create hazards for paddlers, anglers, or swimmers. They may also miss out on opportunities to design a great wave, boof rock, or eddy. With more dams coming out and other impacted rivers being restored, we want to help those projects be as beneficial as possible.
American Whitewater staff are in the process of writing the guide and sketching out ideas for how to visually convey the basic river features that either threaten or thrill paddlers, and also how paddlers interact with those features. We are now seeking an artist to help us convey these technical concepts in an aesthetic, consistent, clean, and accessible way. Examples include images of logs spanning a river at different heights, rock weirs of various shapes, a paddler boofing into an eddy, etc.
We are open to various artistic mediums and styles including technical drawing, realistic drawing or painting, digital art, or even cartoons. We currently estimate the need for 15 small simple drawings and 5 larger more complex drawings. Compensation will be determined when the specific scope of work is agreed upon. To apply, please email kevin[at]americanwhitewater.org an electronic version of one image you created in the style you propose to use for this project by August 1st, 2011.