I was really excited to get a call to create the cover illustration for this week’s Nashville Scene. The topic was an opinion piece based on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The Art Director and I thought that the concept of a pirate ship sneaking through a computer’s circuit board would make for a unique approach.
I recently completed this new personal piece based on my favorite recurring scene from my favorite book, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. The main character, Santiago, often dreams about lions playing on the beaches of Africa, which is something he witnessed in his younger days. The imagery of this recurring dream always struck me on an emotional level, and I have wanted to illustrate it for a long time. I was lucky enough to have a recent break in client work to see this concept through.
Here’s a recent illustration for Maui Time magazine, for an article based on the Hawaiian town of Wailuku. The local government there is going to great lengths to involve the entire community in the process of shaping the future of the town in the hopes that it will make Wailuku a better place to live for years to come.
I was struck by the intentional spirit of the community’s efforts, and chose to portray that with the visual metaphor of literally weaving their future. The town’s image on the Hawaiian shirt made the concept complete.
My latest assignment was for the cover of Westchester Magazine’s supplement publication, 914. This one was for a fun article that made a case for getting rid of ridiculous, outdated laws in New York. Although I submitted several more “concepty” ideas, the Art Director wanted to go in a more literal direction, so we settled on an image that depicted one of the silly laws in question. Apparently, there’s a law on the books that makes it illegal to wear mismatched jacket and pants in public.
For this image, I tried to find a nice balance between a clashing outfit and one that still worked well within the illustration as a whole. I named the character John Griffith because his appearance was somewhat inspired by John Candy’s character in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Del Griffith, with a little John Hodgman thrown in for good measure.
I also enjoyed going for a washed out, pasty lighting scheme reminiscent of actual mug shot photos.
I was very inspired by a recent editorial assignment from The Globe and Mail, which provided a perfect outlet for my new explorations in incorporating digital collage into my work. This particular story was about an Italian immigrant to Canada who carved out a life for himself through years of hard work and dedication. The article was written by his grandson, and what struck me about it was the portrayal of the man as a sort of giant among men, who lived an epic life and helped hundreds of others, directly and indirectly, to make the same migration to Canada. So, I decided to depict the immigrant as an actual giant in a mythic scene reminiscent of Paul Bunyan and other fables, literally helping others across “on the back” of his hard work.
The digital part of this piece involved painstakingly assembling the pier, ocean, beach scene, and smaller figures from bits and pieces of photographs and drawings, along with the grafting of fabrics and textures to tie it all together.
I recently completed the above illustration for McSweeney’s Grantland Quarterly publication based on the recent disgrace of Joe Paterno, legendary football coach of Penn State. Over several revisions with the Art Director, this concept was killed and the final that will be published is quite different, but this version (which I prefer) seems very fitting to share upon today’s announcement of Paterno’s death.
Here’s a new editorial illustration for The Capitol, based on the recent failure of the state government players in New York to follow through on their promises of reform. For this piece, the Art Director asked that I focus on the idea of government as a facade, and we agreed on the literal approach of depicting the state capitol building as a false front. This project also gave me a great opportunity to continue my recent experiments in blending line drawings, digital painting, and digital collage.
I love illustrating magazine covers, I love repeat clients, and I love working with Art Director Diane Sullivan of Seven Days Magazine. She’s a great collaborator for an artist like me who thrives on the conceptual side of the creative process, throwing ideas back and forth, and developing a theme until it’s just right.
For their Winter Reading issue, Diane wanted an image that played off the idea of cutting snowflakes out of book pages. I thought it was a great start, but I kept getting hung up on the fact that it seemed to highlight the crafting of the snowflakes, rather than the reading part. So, after kneading and turning the idea, I proposed pushing the concept further by making it actually snow book pages. This would hopefully result in a more iconic image that triggered the emotional excitement of seeing the first snow falling outside the window and parallel the excitement of the special issue (It’s snowing outside! / It’s the Winter Reading Issue!) I also like the fact that it lends itself to a multi-layered “read” of the image for the viewer.
Happy holidays, everyone!
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