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table saw roller outfeed table

table saw roller outfeed table

OK – I’m not really looking for someone who can draw a turtle; I need an illustrator who can take over our Tricks and Letters drawings, to develop digitally deliverable images (four to six illustrations per issue, seven issues per year) working from photos and text. And obviously, a solid understanding of woodworking is key.

MJsawingOur long-time and much-beloved illustrator, Mary Jane (MJ) Favorite, has an exciting venture on the near horizon. She and her husband, Nick Engler (author of “The Workshop Companion” series along with tons of articles and other books), are headed to China.

Nick, you see, learned to fly in 1984, and quickly became fascinated with the Wright brothers. He and MJ have built replicas of the Wright Flyer, and developed a cool flight simulator (version 12) that allows people to see and feel what it was like to fly in that 1903 plane. He and Mary Jane have been traveling the world to share their love for early aviation, and to inspire young people with the Wright Flyer Flight Simulator. (You can read about their trip to India here.)

So it’s off to China, where MJ will be too busy with airplanes to draw pictures of handplanes.

MJPlaneStorageWe’re not looking for someone who can perfectly replicate the look of MJ’s drawings; bring your own style! What’s key, though, is that our illustrator be able to render sometimes-complex ideas in a clean and easy-to-understand manner – sort of a bridge between technical drawings and cartoons. And ideally, he or she will deliver final versions in Adobe Illustrator (that program allows us to add backgrounds, and make minor tweaks). But we are certainly willing to consider other platforms.

Also key is the ability to deliver on deadline (and I almost always give MJ at least three weeks to get the illustrations done. Almost always…so flexibility is also much appreciated).

If you’re interested, please drop me a line, along with a sample illustration or two: megan.fitzpatrick@fwcommunity.com.

— Megan Fitzpatrick


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  • jbaker.rower@gmai.com

    How about a team … one old man trying to be a woodworker and his daughter, an excellent artist?

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James Hamilton