Art for animals and birds in Gulf oil disaster

Today is Day 56 in the Gulf Oil Spill Disaster.  Yesterday I was told about an art blog initiative which aims to raise funds to try and help those the animals and birds which are themselves completely helpless in the face of the ravages of the oil affecting their bodies and the environment in which they live.

We don't have to feel helpless. We can help. Our small actions together will ripple outward. 

On June 3rd Kelly Light created a brand new blog called Ripple specifically to benefit the birds and animals affected by the oil spill.

Each sketchcard on this blog is $10.00. The $10.00 is a donation to help the animal victims of the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil Spill. Every penny is donated. The two Non-Profits that are benefitting are The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center. You can purchase a card if you donate directly to one of the non-profits and email me the confirmation and your address to ripplesketches@verizon.net. The artist will mail you the signed card.

Here's Kelly's explanation of why she started the blog Be the Change you want to see in the World

So, Ok. Here is me , NOT doing nothing. I don't want to feel helpless and hopeless again. I feel I've spent the last ten years of my life feeling that way: 9/11, The Iraq War, The Tsunami, Katrina, The Economic Crisis, the earthquake in Haiti - my entire 10 years as a mother - my thirties - flash by in a string of overwhelming catastrophes.

Why this? Why Now? This Oil Spill is so big, so terrible, we will all be altered. Species will go extinct. When we poison our seas - we poison ourselves. -I'm really torn up about it and didn't want to go inward with these feelings. So I'm out here - asking for help to help them.

These are small sketch-cards. 2.5" by 3.5". They are done quickly. They can be yours for a small donation of $10.00 to The International Bird Rescue Research Center. I have no affiliation with them. I just looked them up. You can donate directly and email me the donation confirmation OR you can email me- and I will send you a Paypal link and I will donate for you. You will be sent a confirmation. Every penny will go. Send me your address and the card will be mailed to you.

As of this morning there have been 188 blog posts with 308 images which to date have raised over $2,000.


To give this some context

• here are pictures of the oiled birds that were captured in Grand Isle, Louisiana
• this is a video of the impact on wildlife in the Louisiana marshland
• this is the blog of the International Bird Rescue Centre and this is their photostream on Flickr
• the oil slick is estimated to cover 2,500 square miles with vast underwater plumes of oil which can't be seen from the surface.

 A Brown Pelican is mired in heavy oil on the beach 

at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast on Thursday, June 3, 2010. 

(Soutrce: Caught in the Oil / AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Penelope Dullaghan picked up on it and has made Ripple this week's topic on Illustration Friday.  You can also see people who have produced Ripple illustrations

Sea turtle by Bonnie Jean Woolger Decatur,Ga.

This is an extract from Penelope's announcement of the theme for the week (my bold).

"It's hard to make ripples in oil soaked water. But throw enough stones and you will!

It's not about the politics or the corporation. It's about the animals. It's about not feeling helpless in the face of an overwhelming disaster. We're illustrators. We don't lose touch with that kid inside who marvels at the creatures who swim below and fly above the sea. We draw them. We are inspired by them. We need to help them.

The Ripple blog was started on the 45th day of the Deepwater Horizon Catastrophe. The oil spill in the Gulf is now over 50 days old with no sign of stopping. We may be too small as individuals to do some grand gesture- but together our small gestures can be grand.

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Ripple" and I ask you to consider creating your work this week as a small 2.5"  x  3.5" sketchcard. The subject should pertain somehow to the Gulf - the oil spill - the oceans and the creatures that live in it and around it. The cards can be submitted to ripplesketches@verizon.net  as a jpeg along with your links and a few sentences about you (ie: where you live, etc).

These will be made available for a small donation of $10.00 to either The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies (http://www.imms.org/);  The International Bird Rescue Research Center (http://www.ibrrc.org/).  I have no affiliation with them. Every penny will go. When the cards sell, We ask for a donation confirmation and you will be asked to sign the back with a thank you. Then mail them to the address you are sent. If we all do small acts together- we can cause a ripple- and it can grow. We can DO SOMETHING.  Thank you, thank you for checking this out and thinking about it."

Kelly Light

Any questions or need clarification? Please send inquiries to Kelly at

Tonight Barack Obama will make his first address to the American people from the Oval Office, underlining the scale of the catastrophe now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

Many thanks to Alecia Goodman (Alecia Goodman Illustration) who let me know about these two initiatives.

Thanks also to photographers like Charlie Reidel who are covering this disaster and highlighting the impact on the animals.  His work will make the cover of next week's Time Magazine

Let me leave you with an image of how you can help.  Please tweet the Ripple blog and/or this post and/or or mention it on your blog if you'd like to help spread the word.

Before and After oiled Brown Pelican 

washed at the Fort Jackson, LA Oiled Wildlife Center. May 14, 2010
International Bird Rescue Research Center (http://www.ibrrc.org)