bow wow wow, yippie yo yippie yea

For business week about facebook in Japan. The Japanese are using facebook as their principal social networking site - so get out there and start making friend requests. As you can imagine, its difficult to use a logo in a natural way, but it turns out that the curve of the iconic facebook F looks a heck of a lot like a bowing body. to round out the concept I added another person - both to push the concept of bowing, but almost hinting at facebook spreading, being introduced to one another, and being passed on. Thanks Maayan!! Oh, heres an idea that didnt make it, but that i loved.

cry me a river

quick piece for the Globe and Mail about a woman who is upset because she cant chop wood.
had only about an hour for sketches, so was presently surprised when a nice idea came my way. thought it would be cool to show the water ripple from tears be the rings of the wood. quickly painted, quickly sent in.

Zen, and the art of painting on a deadline.

This week I was fortunate enough to work with my ol' buddy Wes at the LATimes about how music (and specifically your playlist) can influence your mood. Initially, i approached this all wrong - giving more attention to music over playlist to convey a sense of calm - I focused on things associated with music, like raising your lighter for an encore, or playing a record.
However, Wes seems to have infinite patience for me missing the mark. He suggested relooking at my ideas, but incorporating the idea of a playlist - and this could be done easily by showing the type of mobile device we carry our music on. There were a variety of ways i could show an ipod type device - and shows its effect of peoples mood, thoughts and relaxation. After a few more attempts we had more than enough good ideas, and decided to show our 3 favorites together in a fun sort of triptych.
music effect of your thoughts, your peace of mind, and your body.
Thanks Wes!

when the love is gone, and the lights go down

Had so much fun working with Tom Carlson while he has been briefly taking the reigns at the Dallas Observer. He had a story for me about major Texas power suppliers running out of money and power due to greed and deregulation. To compensate for this they hike the price way up during peak usage. further to this, many plants are being shut down, as they are in no way meeting EPA regulations on health and safety for themselves, and neighboring states. rather than clean up their act (because they've pissed all their money away) they're lobbying against the EPA - blaming THEM for the shortages and high cost. For the cover, i wanted to paint the light bulb so that it was just on the edge of burning out - the filament was starting to burn and brown the glass. Tom mentioned that he wanted the darks dark - so i tried to carry that through to the other pieces too. This inside piece was actually considered for the cover - would that have been amazing!! still, i feel very fortunate to have been given a green light to make it at all - it sits on a full page on the inside - and is basically a comment on Texans taking it. - last image was a spot that was meant to show the blame aspect - liked how the pointing arms doubled as part of the hydro tower. really fun project!!

light in the dark

every few months i seem to do a fairly large set of illustrations for Alberta Venture. more and more i've seen the piece i do for them deviate from regular business illustration. This piece was for a big package i did on trade shows. I've wanted to do a more ..."surreal" piece for a while, and usually offer sketches of that nature, but they're almost never picked. This time Lindsay (the AD)took a shot! the subject was little trade booths stealing the focus from big booths - i had this idea that all the lights could be on the little table, and added a fun touch by tying the lights together, like a curtain. initially, i had the small booth featured very large in the drawing, but Lindsay suggested really zooming out, and showing the other booths looming. i was nervous, because i dont normally do such small figures w/ so much background - but it was an awesome bit of growth, and i really appreciate her pushing for it!