Oct. 15, 2009
Maitland artist Dawn Schreiner began showcasing her work on Facebook. On Oct. 3, she hosted her first "live" exhibit.
Photo by Isaac Babcock — The Observer
By Abraham Aboraya
Guest Reporter
At first, the back of the Fiber One cereal box has little more than a green silhouette of a man with a peach face and green hair. Then the green gets darker, the hair is painted brown and hands begin to take shape at the bottom.
By the third and fourth step, the nose, eyes and mouth form and white wisps of swamp matter begin to take over the body. And finally, the Observer's reporter comes to life with glasses, an iPhone and a Sony tape recorder in hand.
Maitland artist Dawn Schreiner made me into one of her Daily Doodles, a Swamp Thing graphic-novel portrait on the back of a cereal box. And on Saturday, Oct. 3, she debuted those doodles to the world in an exhibit at the Seven Sisters Coffee House.
"Reporters get a bad rap," Schreiner said of her decision to make me into Swamp Thing. "I thought your tools of the trade are a big part of what you do."
Schreiner could easily be considered a Facebook artist. She worked as a designer and an illustrator, but scaled it back to part-time when she became a mother. When her son began kindergarten, she yearned for full-time work again. But she was away from the scene for so long, people had forgotten her. Rather than cold-calling clients for work, she turned her attention to Facebook.
"I couldn't get anyone's attention," Schreiner said. "I think a big part of working in my business is you want people to talk about you. If they're not talking about you, they forget about you."
And that's how Dawn Schreiner Illustration started: as a Facebook group. Initially, she would do her Daily Doodle — the signature acrylic portraits on the backs of cereal and brownie boxes — as promotion for her work. But then people started buying the pieces, moving her art from the digital world to the real world.
Elizabeth Brady Robinson, the graduate program coordinator for UCF's art department, said more artists are using social media as a way to reach a larger audience, both of regular customers and collectors and dealers. The October issue of Art Calendar featured the phenomenon.
"It's a really interesting crossover, how something might exist online and how it ends up in the real, in the gallery," Robinson said about Brady's exhibit.
Schreiner's show in the coffee house, where most of the art adorning the walls is hers, will be there until mid-November. The pieces cost about $75 each.
"That's what keeps me current and keeps people talking about me," Schreiner said. "I've gotten a few jobs since then. This keeps me on the tip of people's tongues and it worked better than I expected."
You can also find her on Facebook, by searching for "Dawn Schreiner Illustration" — and beware, she draws the members of the group. You could become the next Swamp Thing.
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