I had the good fortune to work with Mike at City Pages on their cover this week. The story was about a neighborhood in north Minneapolis that was just totally decimated by a Tornado about a year ago. The neighborhood, and its people are still in ruins. They're mostly poor, and theres been little in the way of aid. The power of the subject matter aside, i grew up OBSESSED with, and terrified by tornadoes. We lived in the country, and in my mind that was the only place they struck - i used to hide under the basement stairs at even the sight of storm clouds. Lately, i've been working on making my illustration more autobiographical. I dont want to compromise the conceptual nature, but my pieces seem strongest when both co-exist. The image we settled on shows a cowering mans life being up, and taken from him. Thats really the biggest fear, right? elements of his neighborhood and life are sucked up (including an adorable Boston Terrier). I had a lot of fun painting this, and am unusually happy with how it turned out. This is probably a result of my continued fascination with the subject matter - and maybe aided by the 1996 movie "Twister" which i watched while painting, for good measure.
I had the good fortune to work with Mike at City Pages on their cover this week. The story was about a neighborhood in north Minneapolis that was just totally decimated by a Tornado about a year ago. The neighborhood, and its people are still in ruins. They're mostly poor, and theres been little in the way of aid. The power of the subject matter aside, i grew up OBSESSED with, and terrified by tornadoes. We lived in the country, and in my mind that was the only place they struck - i used to hide under the basement stairs at even the sight of storm clouds. Lately, i've been working on making my illustration more autobiographical. I dont want to compromise the conceptual nature, but my pieces seem strongest when both co-exist. The image we settled on shows a cowering mans life being up, and taken from him. Thats really the biggest fear, right? elements of his neighborhood and life are sucked up (including an adorable Boston Terrier). I had a lot of fun painting this, and am unusually happy with how it turned out. This is probably a result of my continued fascination with the subject matter - and maybe aided by the 1996 movie "Twister" which i watched while painting, for good measure.
2 comments:
Whoaaaa! This is quite something. Mad props, as usual.
Okay the cover is good and probably fits the story better, BUT that first sketch with the snake fang is absolutely the BEST!
Do you want to sell me the rights to that idea?
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