Its just business... *Now with Final*

Any business work I do is probably my favorite. There are so many ways to get conceptual, but remain clear. Heres is the final rough of a recent project ( I will be posting the final final shortly) - The piece centered around banks, and how their resources are continually being "tapped" - this leads to temporary strain, but if done at the right time then given time to re-strengthen it can be a rich resource. Given the description (and lucky break that pillars look just like trees) it sounded just like gathering maple syrup. a sweet solution indeed.
It sure is fun (AND FAST) doing a bulk of my rough work in illustrator. Im jealous of the skilled illustrators who use this program on the regular.

IM BACK!

Tired? Yes.
But had an amazing time! Big up's to Mark Smith - got to meet up with him for a night out of drinks and chatting about old punk rock and skateboarding- great bloke!!! Now for a little work - this piece in in the new issue of The Progressive and was about corporate criminals. I had a lot of ideas for this piece - but the briefcase doubling as a mugshot slate seemed too good to be true. painting this was also so fun - i had a few days to get it done so i took my time and really played around. some airbrushing, some stencils, some straight up brush work. Thanks for reading - lots to come!!

Hot fun in the summer

This is for my summer promo postcard.
The idea was initially for another project, but wasnt chosen and i always liked it -
Im gonna go with the tag line of working together, or finding solutions / opportunities etc.
I've been painting it in my spare time for the last week or so, so overall i had more time that usual to develop it - pretty happy with it.
Also, Im going back to England on Friday for a few weeks - for Glastonbury festival (willie nelson, snoop dogg, others) so thats going to be awesome. Im also going to try to stalk Mark Smith while im there!

REAL

Heres a piece appearing in todays LATimes, again for the envelope section. This time, it was Wes' idea I was illustrating. He had this image in mind and it was my job to bring it to life. Its sometimes fun painting someone elses idea - in a way it takes a bit of pressure off - and it gives you a chance to make the image as close to what they had in mind as possible - in this case, branding irons in a fire that spell R E A L. I've been working a lot on this airbrush technique and this piece offered a great venue to push it a bit further. it really works smoothly with the texture that comes from silkscreening. heres the image and a little detail of the texture.
Thanks Wes!!
oh and everyone check this out: http://hawkandsquirrel.wordpress.com/ its a fun illustration podcast some friends have put together

Junebug

Heres a piece appearing in todays LATimes.
The article is about how tv is changing, and the audience has more say than ever.
Programs are listening to feedback and episodes are being tailored to popular opinion.
some roughs:

wha chu know about dat

Heres a quick piece I had in Sundays WSJ - for the Yoder & Son feature in personal finance - my second for them. When i say quick i mean that i started painting at about 6pm and it was due the next day at noon. The piece is about Yoder & Levi answering letters re: travel -
The chosen idea was the two of them looking at an envelope / map
Heres how the piece was initially finished:
parts of painting this made me want to kill myself - but I was happy with how it looked in the final and the likenesses of father and son -
However, due to some last minute issues I had to photoshop the addresses out, then turn it B&W- not sure if its as clear as the initial final - but still happy with it and obviously thrilled to work with Mark again. Thanks Mark!!
Heres some roughs:
stamps on suitcases instead of travel stickersstamps like odometer:also played with the theme "GO"

sumore

Heres some more spots for the big project I mentioned earlier (see two posts down with the hand)
some fun ideas and a great project. all 6 pieces were painted in 4 days - so it was pretty hectic and involved VERY little sleep - but it was great fun and i was really happy to be doing it.
The thing i like about spots is that they have to be really clear because they're small - so you weed out a lot of whats unnecessary. a few of them required white backgrounds which always makes me worried they wont look "finished" but in this case i think it worked out well. It was awesome to work on one project that ranged from realistic painting (hand one) all the way to super graphic (foam finger)
Thanks to Mary the wonderful, wonderful AD.
1. about teamwork:2. about business selling themselves (pumped about this idea - the pinstripes as a barcode)3. getting ahead with referrals 4. this one was a bit bigger - about the changes computer technology offerI also got some good news this week that a few pieces i did got into the 3x3 pro show - I dont really enter awards annuals so this felt awesome!
finally - big shout out to Jill - whos work was featured in ELLE magazine this month!! Very proud of her!! See more here: www.loveheadmistress.com
fin

new cottage life

i did a few more of those info graphics in this months cottage life ... at least thats what they initially were ... the pieces took some unexpected turns. first, there was a small piece about environmentally friendly BBQ's. pretty straight forward - heres some roughs - there were tonnes for these projects, so heres just a taste:

heres the final:and the layout:
and here's where it gets a little wild - this next one was meant to be a straight up info piece showing a bear a cottage and an electric fence - heres where we began:

then I thought it would be fun to include a funny one of the bear testing the fence...
then it was suggested that i draw the bear doing a sort of limbo under the fence...ok, that could be funny...
then it was suggested that it would be even funnier if we ditched the cottage in the bg. and focused on the bear, the limbo and toss in a hawaiian shirt and a fun drink, and so...
its true, it is pretty funny. and it looks nice in the layout:
Thanks as always to Steve - he's clearly a very fun AD - who else would go in this direction??!?!

shake your booty

Heres a taste of a recent large project I finished up recently. I'll have some time later this week or next to post the whole enchilada, but for now this'll have to do. I will say that this project was great, I was able to take to finish some ideas i was really excited about - and also really push my approaches, both painting and screening. This particular piece was about how direct mail / letters in general is a great way to introduce your self to new clients / prospects. I was so happy this solution was chosen. Mary the AD was amazing and i wish every illustrator had the good fortune to work with someone like her.

nuclear and present danger...

Heres an op-ed i did running in todays LATimes - the story was about how its very dangerous for women sailors working on submarines, due to the high level of radioactivity. it focused on the damage done to the reproductive organs - and a few of my roughs focused on that - but the overall theme was the general danger the nuclear energy has on women - so thats the way we went. Wes, who is seriously the greatest AD had some fun ideas on the layout - which happened to work well with the chosen idea - of having the periscope travel up to the top of the text. Like every op-ed the turn around was pretty fast, but Wes made it smooth and easy.
heres the main part of the image:
heres a close-up - yep, im airbrushing in pieces now :)
a rough of the layout - i'll post a proper pdf as soon as i get one:
some roughs:

Thanks as always to Wes, and to you for reading.

im with the (broad)band

This piece was for CIO about how broadband is offering opportunities to those living in inner cities. the idea is that the computer world can offer more than the real world can to them. i really like working with Terri, shes amazing and was kind enough to give me a few extra days which i used to have some fun painting. Thanks Terri for the great assignment and thanks to the band WAR for some inspiration for the neighborhood! - couple of the roughs i sent in

children behave

heres a recent piece done for Adweek. now, its kinda a complicated image - basically adweek was doing a monthly review and the issue ended with the theme "What kids want". The AD wanted one image that would cover three completely different subjects. the first subject - how 2nd tier media companies are able to stand up to first tier ones - 2nd tiers arent standing in the shadow, but rather on the shadow even steven . the second - was children's influence on parents purchasing habits - and even in a recession kids generally make a majority of buying decisions. and finally, the medias impact on childhood obesity and its responsibilities. tying all of this together in one image was a bit tricky. Ron the AD had the great idea of using a triptych - one image broken into 3 parts - tied together by colour scheme - shape etc. each indavidual section was treated like its own illustration with plently of roughs etc - then when we had our set directions i worked on drawing them so that they fit together. the final piece i think is pretty successful and i was able to try / push some new techniques.
you can read more here if you like. Thanks Ron - lots of fun working with you!!