Drawing On Deadline

Drawing In Church 1/22/2012

2012-01-23T13:45:00.001-08:00

Drawing in Church- 1/15/2012

2012-01-16T13:23:00.001-08:00

WalMart in China

2012-01-09T14:49:00.000-08:00

Walmart created a groundbreaking sustainability initiative a few years ago, pledging to work with vendors in China to create more sustainable manufacturing practices worldwide. This article from Mother Jones follows one reporter who went to check in on this program at the actual Chinese factories, and what he found wasn't good, in fact, it was terrible.

The drawing runs across the fold of the opening spread, plus an additional spot on the interior of the article.

Both of my initial ideas were simliar, but portrayed slightly differently. In this case I agreed with the art directors choice for the fuller treatment, reaching across the gutter into the headline. A detail below.

Autopsy Lake

2012-01-04T08:51:00.000-08:00

Perfect for a wintery January post, this cover was done for The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association. The only prompt they gave me was to make an image about Autopsies and the secrets a body holds after death. Art Director, Emma Dalby was great- the content was so open ended and they were looking for something expressive, personal and metaphorical.

A few of you asked about my process for creating this idea... so I thought I'd put up some of my rough thumbnails, which show the visual thread of my thinking.

There are very few of these thoughts that come be useful in the final art, but they are not wasted effort. For me, ideas develop not from careful thought, but from the actual process of drawing.

Above, the drawing I sent to the art director for approval of concept.

Here, final art as it will appear on the magazine itself.

Here is a shot of the drawing on my desk, in progress... with my color comp and ice reference.

Drawing in Church- Merry Christmas

2011-12-20T15:03:00.000-08:00

An advent sketchbook drawing. Onward to Bethlehem...

States of the Union

2011-12-19T12:50:00.000-08:00

A fun spot for use in an online project, for Alissa Levin, at Point 5 Design. How I love billboards!

New York Times Book Review

2011-12-16T09:42:00.000-08:00

Great news, my new book A Boy Called Dickens got a very nice review in the NYT Book Review this Sunday. Here is a preview of how it will appear in print.

UPDATE: here is the web link to the review.

Outside of the minor criticism about my figures, "for my taste, John Hendrix's illustrations of London succeed better than his figures" the review is very positive and features one of my images... which happens to include figures. Pretty amazing. Here is a readable image, thanks to blogger new image settings.

Running with Psychos

2011-11-29T22:21:00.001-08:00

Peter Sagal, the host of NPR's quiz show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! writes a monthly column for Runner's World, and I've been asked to illustrate it this month. When Peter travels on tour with his show, he often calls local running clubs to see if he can join a morning run with some other folks... often getting rides from total strangers in the middle of the night. This of course makes him think about

being murdered by some psychopathic marathon runner...

Had an initial idea for the color that worked in theory, but not in form. Wanted to make it spooky and unify the group in blue shadowy colors... but you lose the fun of seeing all the props. In fact, some of the characters need local color (as opposed to analogous colors) to help identify who they are. So, I came up with another color idea, which worked better.

Drawing In Church - 11/27 (with Jack)

2011-11-27T21:42:00.001-08:00

This week's church sketchbook drawing was inspired by this hairy robot that my son Jack drew the other day. So cool! His is much more interesting than mine I think.

detail of the flowers and head

Post-It Show 2011

2011-11-22T12:30:00.001-08:00

Here are some of my silly Post it Notes for the Mark Todd's annual show at Giant Robot. Get'em at the opening for ten bucks each. Always wish I had time to do more each year.

SI 54 Award Winners

2011-11-16T08:14:00.001-08:00

A big year for me at Society of Illustrators, I got 9 images in the show and also another piece I art directed. So thankful and humbled. The most prestigious illustration show in the world! I can only show 8 images, so I need to pull one of these, any thoughts?

All six from my Rolling Stone Trivia package, in the series category:

Three from my dickens book:

Not to mention I got a piece in as "Art Director" the amazing ICON poster!

Drawing in Church 11/6

2011-11-07T23:50:00.000-08:00

First page of a new sketchbook. This drawing came from a sermon about the book of Amos.

10 Year Anniversary

2011-11-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago today I turned in my first professional illustration job. I'm going to surpress my cringe reflex and post some images from that project, a interior full page for The Village Voice.

I have no idea what this was about, something about globalization and corporate pirates. (Nice idea!)
Here are a few of my thumbnails from that, and as I remember it, I think it was Minh who suggested the pirate ship idea. Note the "sails are dollarbills" stroke of genius in the bottom right.

My portfolio was a mess at the time, full of drawings and full of paintings, (I could do about ten posts on that alone) but art director Minh Uong saw something in there. He gave me a cover of the Village Voice arts guide, that ran inside the magazine. I'm grateful for him taking a chance on me, and for calling me afterwards after I gave him a sort-of-ok-not-amazing-image the first time around.

I don't want to get too wistful and self interested here, but I do want to say I'm incredibly astonished and grateful for what I've done professionally in the last ten years. In some ways, I've done more than I thought was possible in an entire career. Eager to start the next ten years of imagemaking. Thanks Minh for that first call!

50th Anniversary Cover Type

2011-11-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Alissa Levin at Point Five Design, I got the chance to do this cover package for Columbia Journalism Review about the future of media and reporting. All they wanted was big beautiful type on the cover, celebrating 50 years of CJR.

I did some portraits of a few prominent figures in the conversation, as well as this funny Mad Lib homage for the opening spread.

A few of my other ideas for the cover...

Drawing in Church- 10/16

2011-10-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

Here's one from a few weeks ago I just finished. FYYI: Neon spray paint looks much better in person than on screen. A better example of spray paint and drawing.

Drawing In Church- 10/23

2011-10-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

This is the last page in my current sketchbook, and I was hoping I could close it out on a good one.

As I sat in the pew, I saw that the passage preached on this week was from Luke, about storing up a treasure that cannot be destroyed by moths or rust. Giant moths are in the air this week, with apologies to Chris Buzelli, but clearly I was inspired!

2011-10-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a sneak peak of my spread in the upcoming Chronicle Book, by Julia Rothman, called The Where, The What & The How: 75 Artists Illustrate the Wondrous Mysteries of the Universe.
It looks like it will be a great book, a few thumbnails below from other artists. I'll post details for the release date soon.

Rolling Stone Trivia Issue

2011-10-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Rolling Stone asked me to illustrate their entire Rock Trivia issue. It was a huge commission, six images, 28 portraits covering 60 years of music. One image for each decade of Rock and Roll. Two weeks for final art! Many thanks to Joe Hutchinson for the amazing gig. I have practically the entire issue to myself. The issue isn't out for a few weeks, but, I'll post some images of the full spreads when I get them from the magazine.

I drew in different colored pens to add some graphic edge to these images, since the concepts for the images were less important than the drawings.

Here are the image by decade: 1950s

1960's

1970's

1980's

1990's

2000's

Illustrator as Art Director - ICON7

2011-10-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

Being the president of the upcoming ICON Conference, I had the amazing opportunity to art direct the ICON7 poster design. The theme of the conference is collaboration and the power of community, as represented by headline... Drawn Together. (Credit to board member Mark Todd for that beautiful piece of copy writing!) So, I wanted to create a poster that represented a collaboration: A two-sided poster that was an unusual collision between a design-ustrator and illu-signer. Ideally, I wanted each of the artists to influence the work of the other, if not co-create some of the elements.

My first choices were Jessica Hische and Chris Buzelli- total dream team... but perhaps unlikely pairs for something like this. One phone call and they were on board!

Here was my big idea in sketch form that I sent to the artists. Thankfully, at this point, I'm really in the backseat of the process of making these images. (Just like any good art director, right?) So grateful to these amazing artists donating their time to a great organization that promotes the illustration community. They took a silly scrap of an idea and made it way better than anything I could come up with alone.

I'll leave it to Chris and Jessica to post more images from the process, but I do want to show the best part of the collaborative design and illustration process, in my mind.

Chris actually designed the letterforms for the headline and took a shot at painting them, but Jessica thought sharper type would look better. So she took the baton and crushed it as usual with her uncanny vector-whispering.

I would not be prouder of this poster even if I had made the image myself. I see why art directors really love their job. What fun to set great pieces on the board and let the game play on!

Hey, you SHOULD GO TO ICON! REGISTER TODAY!

Jack draws Star Wars

2011-10-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

SO, I'm not wired to be very a emotional dude, yet when I tell you that these Star Wars drawings Jack did made me teary, you may think I'm being rhetorical or just plain ridiculous. He made these on his own and shared them with me tonight.

To have my 6 year old connect with these stories that meant so much to me as a child is really meaningful to me. Say what you want about the Star Wars legacy or dismiss the real value of the products of our stupid culture, BUT you can't change what these movies were to me: a doorway to a love of drawing and visual storytelling. Sharing that with him is SO valuable to me... and I'm probably dooming him to a life of nerd-dom. I'd want nothing more.

Now, we worked together on the Empire Strikes Back image... a fun collaboration. He is a very clear art director :"DAD! LUKE DIDN'T GET THE X-WING THAT FAR OUT OF THE WATER!!!"

He hasn't seen these movies all that often, in fact, he probably last watched Return of the Jedi about three months ago. Check out the great visual memory of the skiff scene, below. I love that kid!

Jabba the Hutt is my favorite part!

Drawing in Church 10/2/2011

2011-10-04T12:43:00.001-07:00

Digital vs. Handmade

2011-09-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

Gallery Nucleus is having a dragon themed show next month called Breath of Embers, opening October 8th. I'll be showing the original drawing from an illustration commission I did for SooJin Buzelli at Asset International back in August.

This gave me the unusual opportunity to try to execute a piece I finished digitally for print in actual media for the gallery show. I changed the color scheme as it didn't work with the actual pigments.

The original digital composite for print:

The NEW original drawing without digital alteration:

Is the original drawing now better than the digital one? It might be. I think the values are better. Dang. The magazine is just out now. Below, the spread from the magazine in context.

Ecotrust Poster

2011-09-16T06:56:00.000-07:00

This giant poster, which at full size is 24" x 36", was commissioned by Ecotrust, a really amazing organization dedicated to lobbying for better sustainable economic and environmental practices in the Pacific Northwest. They sent me a long list of jobs that would be found in a better, more sustainable economy. These jobs ranged from manual to technical and in all different kinds of terrain. The challenge became how to create a space that would allow me to demonstrate all these different jobs in their appropriate location- while also helping a viewer understand their benefit.

It was a challenge drawing that large and also keeping the figures playful and clear.

A few small details from the big image above. Thanks to Howard Silverman for the great project.

Pictures from the East

2011-09-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

A few photos of the amazing Rolling Stone opening and Princeton Book Festival. Some illustrator named Yuko Shimizu shared the bill on the poster outside the Society of Illustrators Building. (I can never beat Yuko at ANYTHING.) Thanks for a great time everyone! Apologies to Johnny Dombrowski, see above.

Thoughts on September 11th, 2001

2011-09-11T07:28:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago, I watched the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapse from my roof in Jersey City.
___

The biggest adventure of our newly married lives had started just two week earlier, when Andrea and I had moved to the city so I could attend graduate school in New York. We had no idea how to get anywhere, we were frightened of our new urban neighborhood and we were very lonely.

To call it a 'strange' way to frame our introduction to living in New York City is an inadequate service to the magnitude of the day to the thousands of others more significantly impacted than myself, but strange it was. I had moved there on a risky bet that I could be an artist. We sold our two cars, Andrea had left her job (and her dog!), I took out tens of thousands in loans and then we left everything we knew for the city of possibilities.

Those possibilites and dreams seemed irrelevant as we stood with our entire apartment building that morning. To the left and the right, the roofs of every brownstone and high-rise we could see were covered with people just like us- transfixed, bewildered and scared. Behind them, I could see the Statue of Liberty, clear as a bell.

Our television was out (the antenna signal we used came from the tower on top of the World Trade Center) and I had not brought a real radio with us from Kansas. The only radio we had was a small tschotske radio we got for free, ironically, when we had visited the World Trade Center a week earlier. We didn't go inside the towers, and we only stayed in the courtyard for about ten minutes. But, this was long enough to get a free radio from Bloomberg 1130am on which we'd listen to the news all day on Sept 11th.
___

I tried to work on some drawings that day, (after hours of news fatigue) but it was impossible. The very image on my desk at that moment was a promotional postcard that portrayed New York as The Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz, (my idea of a clever concept at the time, since we were moving from Kansas to New York). In the light of that day, this drawing seemed naive, even childish. I finished it anyway.

Andrea and I watched "You've Got Mail" that day, a romantic comedy that may be more about New York than it is about falling in love. It was one she and I would probably watch two dozen times that fall. It felt like an escape to a New York that might never have existed or never would again.

I feel grateful to have been in New York in the months that followed. This may seem counter-intuitive, but, to me, it instantly became a less intimidating place. As every blank surface was covered in missing person flyers, the town became a living memorial over-night, everyone was looking for some reassurance.

I have no significant reflections other than my own experience of that time. I did not know anyone in those towers, and had only one friend on my street who was inside ground zero when it happened. But, it started a new chapter in my life in so many ways, that I look back on that day with an unusual kind of greif and nostalgia.

I have no photos or drawings of September 11th. All I have of that day is a bottle of ash, above, that I kept from a windowsill in lower manhattan.

Rolling Stone + Princeton Children's Book Festival

2011-09-08T22:31:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I'll be attending Rolling Stone and the Art of the Record Review show at The Society of Illustrators in New York. The opening is Friday September 9th, and my Beastie Boys drawing from their 2004 release To the Five Boroughs is featured in the show.

Very honored to have got some good NY press on the show with my image as well. Two images from AM NewYork and The New York Post.

On Saturday, I'll be doing a reading and signing books at the amazing Princeton Public Library as a part of their annual Children's Book Festival. Come on down, 11:00am to 4pm!

The Art of Science- Rogue Waves

2011-08-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

Chronicle Books is publishing a visual anthology called The Art of Science and I was asked to participate in the collaboration. Each artist was paired with a scientist to answer a mysterious question. I was assigned "Do Rogue Waves Exist?"

Julia Rothman, the art director/curator, (for lack of a better description) described it like this:

We have been working with a huge group (more than 50) scientists from all different fields: Anthropology, Physics, Chemistry, Meteorology... They have described some of the big mysteries in their fields and the theories behind them. From the big picture (What existed before the Big Bang? What is dark matter? Are there more than three dimensions? Why does the Earth hum? Can evolution outpace climate change?) to the little wonders (Why do we yawn? Can trees talk to each other? Why do cats purr? What is the smallest unit of matter?). In many ways both scientists and artists are exploring the unknown, and we hope this book will amaze readers with both science's mysteries and artists' imagined explanations.

Needless to say, this is 100% fun, and the essential reason I love my job. Here are a few sketches, color studies and other thumbnail ideas from the creation process below.

I might be most proud of that super flat yellow, which was not created digitally. It is like I'm working in the 19th Century!

Didn't realize I used the golden rectangle... (sort of)

Come See the Design-ustrators!

2011-08-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce an upcoming Gallery Talk at The Society of Illustrators in New York, featuring Chris Silas Neal, Jennifer Daniel and myself titled Illustrator As Designer. It will be on October 1st, from 2 - 4pm at the Society of Illustrators, 128 East 63rd Street, New York, NY.
___

In all corners of the graphic world, the traditional line between designer and illustrator has been redrawn, smudged and reinvented. From book jackets, magazine spreads, hand-drawn type and informational images, illustrators and picture makers are no longer limited to the edges of the traditional art box.

Come see this three-ring-circus presentation about designed images, drawn text and the creative process. Featuring John Hendrix, Chris Silas Neal, and Jennifer Daniel.

Ghosts in the Floorboards

2011-08-18T13:41:00.000-07:00

A few overly-cute spots for Popular Mechanics about the troubles with living in old houses full of squeaky noises and mysterious sounds.

Drawing in Church- 8/7

2011-08-08T10:40:00.001-07:00

Dragon Detector

2011-08-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

The amazing art director from Asset International, SooJin Buzelli, gave me a fun assignment a few weeks back for the magazine Plan Sponsor. Now, this magazine has is about mutual funds and financial instruments that are way above my pay-grade and interest level. The particular piece I was given was summarized: Following the struggles of the financial crisis, the index providers are more important than ever for European plan sponsors. This is a very dense and not very enticing synopsis. But, SooJin asked me to respond to the prompt "Knowledge is Power." This is much easier to define for a visual metaphor, which is part of what makes her a great art director. (Take notes, student designers).

I had just seen one of my former students, Andrea Taylor, in a wonderful production of "The Hobbit" here in St. Louis. She played the Elf Queen but ALSO she created and built a wonderfully massive Smaug puppet for the shows final scene. I'd been in a mood for drawing dragons ever since!

Above, a very bad picture of it, I'm sure she has a better one somewhere.

I sent three sketches that focused on some kind of tactical advantage because of tools or intelligence, and they all involved dragons!

I did a few color studies and tests to figure out if I wanted to draw it all by hand or color it digitally. It ended up being a mix of both. Thanks for the piece SooJin!

Canary and Coal

2011-07-31T23:03:00.000-07:00

My advertising reps, Bernstein &Andriulli, asked me to contribute to a new promotional directory which pairs images and famous quotations. This is a self directed drawing I did that will be appearing alongside the Tom Brunner quotation "Inspiration can come from anywhere, and usually when you least expect it."

Anytime you are working primarily as your own art director, it is tempting to be rather indulgent. My first sketched was an attempt to get a larger narrative to work with this drawing, but I found it ultimately distracting.

Final Sketch

Drawing in Progress.

Final drawing without color.

Color study/ Value study.

Since the values of the ink were so rich, I used a very monotone/limited palate for the colors. I wanted the focus to be on the lighting effect and not the individual hues.

If you'd like to know more about these two characters, stay tuned for an upcoming picture book about them!

Coin-Op Cardinals

2011-07-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

ESPN the Magazine asked me to do a drawing for their front-of-the-magazine package which only calls for illustrated type that says "Go Play." As long as you include that, the content is wide open.

I sent these four ideas for the art director to choose from, and I was positive they would go with D (the playground type) but was thrilled they let me draw these cardinals in a rocket. Look for it in next months issue.

Drawing in Church- 7/17

2011-07-17T22:59:00.001-07:00

Free Buttons

2011-07-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

Attention Shoppers: All orders from my webstore for the rest of the month will get a free button!

Harry Potter T-Shirts! New Store!

2011-07-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

Breaking News: My new webstore is now live! Click the STORE tab on the left to start browsing now.

One item you might notice that is now for sale are my Hallows OR Horcruxes Harry Potter T-Shirts. A few images of the shirts are below.

As I tweeted about last week, my son Jack and I have been decorating our mantle with Harry Potter stuff, and of course, he is NOT allowed to play with any of these toys. They are for DISPLAY ONLY!

Expecto Patronum

2011-07-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

Gallery Nucleus asked me to participate in their Harry Potter tribute show, and it was an extreme pleasure to work on this image. The characters of J.K. Rowling's timeless stories have accompanied me on many late nights- a dear companion when I'm drawing in my dark attic.

Our house has gone a little Harry Potter crazy over the last few weeks- andrea, who is an astonishingly fast reader, is plowing through all the books again. Partially to refresh her memory for the upcoming movie, and partially to get me to stop pestering her with conversation about details of Harry-Potter-Lore-Minutia that she can't remember. Jack and I have built a bunch of the HP Lego sets together, and set them up on our mantle piece to celebrate. He loves to play with the gear from Alivans, Master Wand Makers. Check them out if you'd like your own Elder Wand. Who wouldn't?

The opening for the show is this Saturday at Gallery Nucleus, 7pm. Wish I could be there! Also, make sure you look for my HP "Hallows or Horcruxes" t-shirt that will be debuting there as well. I'll be posting pictures of those on Friday, as well as a link for purchase.

A few images from my process below:

Some rough thumbnails, which lead to my final sketch:

Some details of the final image, which has no digital trickery in it. So hard to make your images look right without the help of photoshop these days!

Drawing in Church 6/19 & 6/5

2011-06-21T08:16:00.000-07:00

I've had some actual deadlines recently, which have been unfairly getting in the way of finishing my recent church sketchbook drawings. Here is a rare double dose of pew doodles. Pentecost Sunday was last week, always a good subject for the sketchbook.

Living Lungs

2011-06-10T10:11:00.000-07:00

Scientific American called me for a illustration about new treatments for Cystic Fibrosis, a horrible illness that can cripple the lungs with mucus and gunk. These latest findings show evidence of cleaning up the lungs and making breathing easier.

Our last assignment, about the structure of the internet, was a fun problem, because it had to be metaphorical and accurate. As the magazine is geared towards the analytical, they feel a certain responsibility to making an illustration that is both true and beautiful, an exciting challenge. I was doodling during the graduation ceremony for Washington University, where I teach illustration, and came up with a couple good nuggets.

So, the sketches I showed focused on the feeling of being set free, finding new breath. I added a lot of gremlins and evil demons inside the gunk, but the art director felt those might be a bit distracting this time around. Ultimately, the one with the actual lungs was the best fit for the article. But they were concerned that the gunk seemed like liquid and not mucus, so I had to do another sketch (with thanks to Basil Wolverton) that had more goop in it.

A few details of the final art.... perhaps I'll go back and add some demonic piranhas anyway.

Done with Dickens

2011-06-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

I'm trilled to say I've just completed my fourth illustrated book for children, "A Boy Called Dickens," which will be published by Schwartz & Wade books in January 2012. The first draft of the story was roughed out in October, but I've been working on the final art since February.

The story follows the childhood of Charles Dickens, a true account of hardship and misery that informed his life's work writing stories about London's working class poor.

The book was written by Deborah Hopkinson, the author who collaborated with me on "Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek," my first foray in the world of picture books back in 2008. She is a huge fan of history and especially the stories of Charles Dickens. She's written a warm and charming book about his formative years highlighting a particularly foul time in Charles' life.

Though my publisher has asked me not to show all the images from the book, I've selected a few of my favorites to give you a sneak peek, including the cover and endpapers. Here is an image of the full jacket, including the back, flaps and spine without all the additional type on it.

When you think of a story about Dickens, you imagine a foggy soot covered London, which is exactly where we start. Much of the classic tropes about London life in the 19th century come directly from Dicken's childhood experiences.

For this book, I worked a bit differently than I have in the past. I used ink only in selective places, to highlight characters or objects, and the background and atmosphere of the images were created with graphite sticks and pencil. This was tricky to figure out how to keep the wash from obliterating the graphite entirely. I experimented and figured out I could lightly fix the pencil and still get the washes to go on top of it successfully. You'll see that most of these images have open/flat passages in them, which were designed for the story text to be placed there, which is not in these images.

He worked long days in a Blacking Factory (shoe polish), was cold and hungry at night while his parents we're incarcerated in debtors prison. The character of Bob Fagin, from Oliver Twist, was the name of good friend he knew at the Blacking Factory.

Deborah imagines him going home and making up stories about the characters he met during his long days. These characters and stories swirl around Charles throughout the book, like ghosts and spirits that haunt him, as he makes his way home.

At the age of 10, he longed to study and read like the boys in school, but his mother made him work to support the family. He visited the family in prison on Sundays and worked the other days to pay off his father's debts.

The endpapers are a visual nod to the different worlds he inhabited as a poor working child and one of the most influential writers of all time.

Time to brush up on your Charles Dickens before next year. In 2012, the publishing world will commemorate the 200th anniversary of his birth, so prepare yourself for Dickens-palooza. Have you got a favorite Dicken's book or a favorite character? I'd love to hear about it.

Drawing on Beer Bottles

2011-05-31T11:50:00.000-07:00

St. Louis, my home town, is known nationally for a few things, the Arch, good baseball, and beer. Specifically, St. Louis is the home of Anheuser-Busch, makers of Budweiser, Busch and Bud Light. This company has had a long history of working with St. Louis artists and illustrators in their campaigns- and now it is my turn in the batter's box.

A friend at Cannonball Agency called me for an unusual assignment, drawing on a Bud Light bottle. Bud Light has some new bottles out for the summer months that have a small section of the bottle where you can draw on it with a key or coin. Not only did I need to do the drawing, but they were going to film me doing it live, to demonstrate how it works.

When I first heard this idea, it seemed crazy. Based on the limitations, I really did not think I'd be able to get a good drawing out of it, but I loved the challenge. The creative directors came to my studio and we played around with the bottle and some ideas of how to draw on it. But, even if I could get a good drawing on a bottle in my studio, I'd eventually have to replicate it on set with cameras rolling! The final video is posted above, and here it is on the Bud Light facebook page. They want fans to upload images of their own drawing to the site (it is harder than it looks!)

I came up with a lot of concepts for the image, which had to focus around the idea of Bud Light, making friends and enjoying the summer.

I had a few meta 'art jokes' in there, including a reference to Magritte that would have required an expensive licensing fee (not to mention that fact that no one would get it).

The creative directors settled on two ideas, the aliens/astronaut peace treaty and the meta-BBQ image. Once we picked these, I started practicing on actual labels on a flat surface. The challenges were easy to identify right away. I'm creating a drawing in a space about 1" x 1.5" wide, on a rounded glass surface, using only a key or metal stylus. The one thing I didn't anticipate was how hard it was to draw on an unstable surface, especially one as small as a round bottle.

On the actual shoot, we had an afternoon to do two drawings, and it was much harder than I expected. Not only did I have to do the drawing on a rounded glass surface with an unusual stylus, I had to do it in front of 10 people. Getting the bottle to stay in place during the shoot was tough, and not only that but it was coated with water when I was drawing- making it slip out of my hands. I didn't practice that in my studio!

One of unexpected experiences along with this project was that I was required to get a manicure before we did the video shoot. Attention me: we are missing out on this experience. I didn't have the guts to go in alone... so Andrea went with me and had a good excuse for her own manicure.

Here are a few details of the actual bottles with the finished drawings on them. Next time you see one of these, pull out a key and see if you can knock out a quick masterpiece.

Boulevard of Killed Ad Campaigns

2011-05-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

As with any field, there are often disappointments in the world of commercial illustration. Advertising projects are notorious for shifting directions and fast changes in the scope of an assignment. A perfect example is this amazing project I worked on for months- that died on the operating table. I first got the call to work on an AT&T mobile campaign back in November 2010. The art director wanted it to feel something like my sketchbook, fast, loose and whimsical.

The assignment was based on the concept that when you call another country, "You're not calling London, you're calling Dad." An interesting construction of identity and nationality, which would eventually be expanded into many different countries and personalities. (Read: $$$$$!) This was imagined to be an OOH campaign (out-of-home) which would be in airports or bus stations.

The first round of ideas focused on whole countries, seen here with pencils and color comps. All the regions/names of the country were focused on memories of the person you were calling.

But this approach seemed too removed, so the decision was made to try it from a landscape view, where the border shape of the country was not visible.

This was a much better solution, and the scope of the drawing seemed a better fit for the projected scale of the ads. So I did color copy with a test image before going to final art on the first drawing.

This was approved by the client and then I made the final drawing at full scale. A few of the details below.

Alas, once we got this far, the campaign was killed, so it will never see the light of day. Hard to see a few months worth of revisions ( I didn't post even half of the sketches I did for this) go down the tubes, but you can't take it personally when it comes to advertising and live to draw another day.

BusinessWeek Cover

2011-05-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

Over the last year, BusinessWeek has emerged as a vanguard of cover and feature magazine design. Despite dealing with material traditionally associated with stuffiness, BusinessWeek has made a mark with forward looking graphic images.

I say that rather disingenuously, as you have guessed, because they called me last friday to do a cover image about the head of Facebook, not Mark Zuckerberg the founder, but Sheryl Sandberg, the CEO. The Art Director Richard Turley, was looking for something that had the look of my sketchbook pages, doodled and dense with zany imagery.

BusinessWeek closes on Wednesdays, and I sent a sketch in on Monday, so we had very little time for changes. The only catch was that the photo shoot was taking place Tuesday afternoon. So I had to do the drawing without any real sense of what the image was that my drawings would be accompanying. The AD sent me a rough idea of how he imagined the cover photo will be arranged, to help me get a general layout for my sketch.

I sent them the completed drawing on Tuesday afternoon without color tones once the photo came in, and it did not look as good as we expected in the smaller crop. Having her larger and intersecting the edges of the type boxes was the better solution. This would require some Photoshop surgery to get everything to fit, including the headline, which had lost it's real estate to the redesigned photo.

Richard used these colored bars to highlight the problem areas with this new photo. I added some new drawings to clutter the empty spaces and used my digital lasso to get make the fit work just right.

This is how the drawing looked without the photo on top of it, once the final digital edits were made.
Below are some detail images of the drawing. It was a great project, that ended with a flurry of drawing and anxiety as I once again lived up to the name of my blog. Thanks to all the great art directors and designers at Business Week!

Type Show at Gallery Nucleus

2011-05-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: My original drawing sold on opening night, and a friend sent me this image which reminded him of the drawing. Amazing! I had not seen this before I did the drawing. Clearly proving that there are no new ideas out there.

I was invited to make an original drawing as a part of the Gallery Nucleus Type Show, which features a wide range of typographic designers and illustrators including Jessica Hische, Josh Cochran, Mike Perry, Darren Booth and many others. The show opens tomorrow night in Alhambra, California, just north of Los Angeles.

It was so nice to get a chance to make an image without the constraints of an art director's vision or client needs... but of course, that kind of freedom presents other challenges. My solution is kinda cheating, I created a Bodoni inspired decorative letterform that gave me enough room in the stems to create a narrative landscape. One part of making images for gallery work I had forgotten about is the amount of care you have to take with your surfaces when it will not be seen without the help of photoshop. The white areas and the colored pencil passages had to be kept very clean. The image above is how it appears in person, though much bigger.

Close followers of my blog and sketchbook may be recognize the content. The ideas for both of these images came out of the pages of my church sketchbook, one from a few weeks back about Lazarus, and this one below which I'm just posting today. If you're out in LA, hope you can make it to the show!

New Book Reviews

2011-04-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share a few good reviews of the new book, "Nurse, Soldier, Spy: The Story of Sarah Edmonds." A nice review from The New York Times "Books about Fearless Women"- it should also appear in the Sunday Book Review as well. Amazing to be included in a review next to Chris Van Allsburg.

...in the last decade especially, authors of children’s biographies have put their “Free to Be” ideals to paper, not only writing sophisticated history, but also exploring the lives of women quite different from the usual girl-crush suspects. Two new biographies, the bittersweet “Queen of the Falls,” written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg, and the rollicking “Nurse, Soldier, Spy,” written by Marissa Moss and illustrated by John Hendrix, are admirable and enlightening examples.

The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books had this to say:

It’s a generally accepted fact that many women passed as men on Civil War battlefields, but the condition of secrecy, of course, rendered their stories untold. Much is known, though, about Sarah Edmonds, a young Canadian woman who enlisted in the Michigan Volunteer Infantry under the name of Frank Thompson. Serving first as a battlefield nurse, Sarah/Frank was recruited for espionage missions behind Confederate lines. Her spying days came to an end with a bout of malaria; unwilling to risk revealing her identity in a military hospital, she sought civilian medical attention instead. By the time “Sarah” had recovered, “Frank” was listed as a deserter, forcing Edmonds to retire from soldiering. Jones and Moss have sometimes conflicting, sometimes complementary takes on Edmonds’ story. Moss has her initially fleeing from an arranged marriage, and Jones from an abusive father. Moss emphasizes her nursing role and one mission as a spy; Jones discusses several of her disguises on various spy missions. Each title has a distinctive look: the jazzed-up folksiness of Hendrix’s pictures in Nurse and Oldroyd’s hazily atmospheric illustrations in Sarah. In a battle of the books, Nurse has a slight edge with snappier storytelling, a substantial historical note, remarks on the artist’s research, a glossary of Civil War terms, bibliographies, and an index, and even a pair of photographs of Edmonds and “Thompson.” There’s a pragmatic simplicity to Jones’ text, though, and she weighs in additionally with the “Thompson” photo, a brief note, and a briefer bibliography.

And a nice review from Booklist:

This lively picture book introduces Sarah Emma Edmonds, a Canadian girl who began dressing as a man at 16, later moved to Michigan to escape an arranged marriage, and joined the Union army under the name Frank Thompson. She served as a field-hospital nurse and a spy. Rather than squeezing all of Edmonds’ eventful life into a short book, Moss introduces her in a few paragraphs and spotlights particular experiences in greater detail, such as her enlistment in the army, her recruitment as a spy, and a successful mission to disguise herself as a slave and gather information behind enemy lines. Author’s and illustrator’s notes, a glossary, and source bibliographies are appended. In ink-and-wash illustrations, Hendrix, who illustrated Abe Lincoln Crosses the Creek (2008), again displays his knack for visual narrative. The aerial view of Edmonds approaching the Confederate camp is particularly effective. This large-format picture book illustrates Edmonds’ courage and determination while conveying a good deal of information in a highly readable way.

From The Sacramento Bee, a nice roundup including "Nurse, Soldier, Spy."

Readers won't stop until the last page of Marissa Moss' exciting Civil War story about Sarah Edmonds' life as a man in the Union Army. Moss drew from Edmonds' memoir for details about her military service as a fighter, nurse and spy. Edmonds had first dressed as a man in order to escape an arranged marriage. Even though soldier Sarah, serving as Frank Thompson, could outshoot and outride many of the country boys, they called her "our little woman" because of her small stature and baby face. She laughed. She fought in several major battles, including Bull Run and Fair Oaks and then, disguised as a freed slave, spied on the rebels. Vivid illustrations by artist John Hendrix match Moss' exciting account of Sarah's life in the Army.

Drawing in Church- Holy Week Edition

2011-04-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

My favorite Gospel story is, by far, the account of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. It seems every year I've tried to do a sketchbook drawing on Lazarus, and never get a good page out of it. Probably because I'm pressing hard to do 'a good page' (always a doomed pronouncement.)

Part of my affection for this story is the parallel to the coming resurrection of Jesus himself, but more of it has to do Jesus's reaction to death and doubt. If I were inventing the narrative of the perfect 'God-Man' character I think he'd look more like Superman than Jesus. But, confronted with the death of a friend and the anger and disappointment of his disciples, instead of acting like a Messiah-of-Steel, we see just how human Jesus was. Even with the knowledge that he can beat death, Jesus cries. Gone, but not lost, the ending of the life of his friend overcame him. I love that he looks right in Martha's face and refused to let her spiritualize the loss. If you read the account, what he says is, essentially, "Stop thinking about Pie-In-The-Sky! Stop pretending that God is far away! ... look at me, in my face, I AM the resurrection. It is me."

This week, Christians celebrate Easter, Jesus's stunning reversal of decay and death. Lazarus is who I think about before Easter. (Though I'm guessing he didn't look exactly like the friendly mummy I've drawn when he came out. Or, maybe he did.)

Spectrum 18 Selection

2011-04-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

These two images were selected to appear in Spectrum 18: The Best of Contemporary Fantastic Art. I've never entered this annual before, as I've never considered my drawings to be a part of any 'fantasy art' tradition. But recently, more and more editorial illustrators have been getting work into the book- as the realm of fantasy art is defined less by unicorns and armor, and more by flights of imagination. This shift is part of a trend in our culture- the exaltation of Nerd-dom. As a recovering/emergent nerd, I'm happy to welcome this return, and to be a part of a book celebrating Fantasy Art. One of the selected images is from my sketchbook, which is always really exciting.

American Illustration 30 - Selected

2011-04-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

I was notified this week that two of my drawings were selected for American Illustration 30, a juried annual of some of the best illustration work from the last year. The images selected were from my new book, "Nurse, Soldier, Spy," which is very exciting. It is the first time any of my children's book drawings have been selected to appear in the annual. Visually speaking, these are two of my favorite images from the entire book. I'm thrilled that they will be included in this years annual. See you in November at the opening!

Drawing in Church 4/10

2011-04-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

My Dicken's book is all due this week, so it is a perfect time to post some new procrastination work from my pew-side sketchbook. I've done other drawings about Psalm 29, as the metaphors are visually irresistible. The new one above is from this week, and the one below is from 2003.

Stroller Op-Ed

2011-04-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

I've got a drawing running on the Op-Ed page in the Sunday New York Times this weekend. This image is illustrating a very funny article about strollers in NYC. Thanks to guest art director, amazing illustrator, Josh Cochran.

Rocket Shoes

2011-03-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

A spot for the upcoming issue of Runner's World about speed. Thanks to Marc Kauffman for the fun job. Here are a few of the ideas I sent:

Drawing in Church 3/20

2011-03-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

...The Morning Star.

Book Signing

2011-03-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

The drawing on my next book continues- steadily plowing through fields of chimney soot, icy winds and hungry rats of 1820's London. In the current radio silence, enjoy a few blurry pictures from my book signing last week. Mobile phone cameras are the new polaroids. A warm thanks to all the kids from CCS school who came out to the signing!

My son, Jack, (in orange stripes and panting) wasn't excited at all.

I showed the process work for the cover image, version A sketches on the right and the revision ideas on the left. Many folks are astonished at the amount of 'behind-the-scenes' drawing that takes place in a project like this.

Kids books can only be seen one spread at a time. So I always find it neat to view a book like this, where you can see the whole thing at once.

Jack really wanted to sign each book with me. I compromised by letting him scream continuously.

Today in the Sketchbook

2011-03-04T09:59:00.000-08:00

Studio update: I've been working away on my Charles Dickens book the last four weeks, and I'll post some of these images eventually, but I'd like to keep them close to the vest for now. A recent sketchbook page... drawing on location always serves as a reminder of what I love most about creating images.

A Nice Comparison

2011-02-25T07:41:00.000-08:00

Barry Blitt's new book, The Adventures of Mark Twain, by Huckleberry Finn, a hysterically clever concept, is out now and getting good reviews. Barry was kind enough to forward me this review, which mentioned my work in an insanely flattering manner.

Hot on the heels of Susy Clemens, in Barbara Kerley’s The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy), comes a rival Mark Twain child biographer, of sorts—Huckleberry Finn himself. With Burleigh’s, ahem, editorial assistance, Huck recreates his creator, one might say, in his own homespun voice: “Sam tried soldierin’. But it didn’t take. There wasn’t much sand in his craw for killin’ people. And . . . he was very unfavorable to bein’ killed hisself.” Huck not only effectively and wittily conveys the basics of his literary father’s life, but he also displays an excellent grasp of the critiques addressed to Twain’s work by both contemporaries and later generations: “Before I came along, most folks wouldn’t pay no attention to a story ’bout a no-account boy. . . . And they wouldn’t like that my words ain’t always presented in the King’s English.” Huck is assisted in his authorial debut by Barry Blitt, whose spidery line-and-watercolor paintings echo the fluid ink work of Robert Andrew Parker and the spot-on caricature of John Hendrix. Our “author” admits he “left a lot out,” but he slyly puts responsibility for any of his work’s shortcomings on Twain himself: “I coulda throwed more style into it, but I can’t do that very handy, not being brought up to it.” Fortunately, his editor supplies additional data in an appended note, and as to style—well, I reckon most kids’ll think he done just fine.

I owe so much to Mr. Blitt in my work that it is almost embarrassing to read a review comparing his work to mine, but regardless, a very rich compliment.

Drawing in Church- 2/6

2011-02-08T09:21:00.001-08:00

Clearly, I'm procrastinating. Enjoy another one from the pew.

In the Art Cave

2011-02-04T07:25:00.000-08:00

For the next two months, I won't be taking any work outside of completing the final art for my next book, the true childhood story of Charles Dickens titled, A Boy Called Dickens which will be out in the spring of 2012. You might guess that 2012 is the 200th anniversary of Dicken's birth, and if you know anything about Charles Dickens writing, then you know something about his childhood. David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Little Dorrit and many of his other works come directly from his traumatic childhood experiences living in debtor's prison and working 12 hour days in a blacking factory.

I wanted to share a few of my sketches and drawings, and a bit of the final art. Here Charles is running down the streets of London, to Warren's Blacking Factory, where he packaged shoe polish.

I'm drawing without as much of the ink in this book, using instead graphite, pencil and charcoal to create much of the atmosphere. Look for some new work in a few weeks.

Sketchbook Show

2011-01-14T11:15:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back, Patrick, owner of my favorite dusty little coffeeshop, Meshuggahs, asked me if I'd like to show some work on his espresso scented walls. It offered a chance to put together a small collection of images from my ongoing "Drawing in Church" sketchbook series.

Sketchbooks are very difficult to present faithfully in any kind of exhibition. You really can't display original art as removing the images from the binding compromises the entire book, it is also clunky to ask a viewer to flip through an open book on a pedestal. As many of my students have seen at the Modern Graphic History Library at Washington University, we have an extensive collection of Robert Weaver's sketchbooks. What the students always say is "Why did he draw on the BACK of this amazing drawing with ANOTHER amazing drawing!" I made hi-res color prints and foam laminated them for hanging. My short introduction follows.

I love to draw. There is something magical about the solitude of pen, paper, and a voice. To me, the joy of making images is the opportunity to tell a small story. Not a lofty or unique goal, to be sure, but one that I enjoy. Working everyday as an editorial and book illustrator, I don’t consider drawing a mystical event, but a process. That said, there is something transcendental about the linear improvisation of working in a sketchbook. Much like jazz, it is unpredictable, exciting and unfiltered... with very good and very bad results.

Though I agonize over my more finished and composed drawings, the accidental doodads in my sketchbook represent the very best part of my work. I attend church every Sunday, and I draw during the sermon. All of these pages were done in a pew at Grace & Peace Fellowship, a Presbyterian church a few blocks east on Delmar. The images on the wall are a small collection of my favorites. Though I don't bring my watercolors with me (that waits till I get home and have an upcoming deadline) I draw with a variety of colored pens and inks. The collision of text and image on a page can bring new meaning not found in either passage alone. This is also true in the language of faith, as the parables of Jesus bring new meaning to difficult ideas. Simultaneous drawing and listening can transform familiar language into something new- a feedback loop of symbols, theology and wonder. -John Hendrix

The show will be up through February, a few images of the show.

Progressive Cover- Plutocracy

2011-01-12T20:13:00.000-08:00

Nick Jehlen from The Progressive gave me a fun assignment last week, the cover for the February issue about the visually gripping concept of plutocracy. It is an idealistic, if not academic, piece by Bill Moyers, about the dangers of a society controlled by wealth. Despite feeling like it would better fit in The Economist, sometimes these kinds of articles can yield fun, broad metaphors.

I'm happy to give Nick credit for suggesting the idea that 'a rising tide lifts all boats' as a way to think about the plutocratic rationality. Unfortunately for some, their boats are chained to the bottom.

This was a case where I only did one sketch, that came to me almost immediately. The idea was driven in some ways by a desire to draw on blue paper, like I did with my recent post-its for Mark Todd, which I enjoyed very much.

I set out to construct a little collage, assisted by Professor Photoshop. The blue paper is a high end colored paper, and I built the waves in multiple layers and intentionally emphasized the shadows behind each layer. A few details.

AIGA 50/50 Book Release

2011-01-10T08:06:00.000-08:00

The new AIGA 50/50 book showing the 50 best covers of 2009, including my cover of American Illustration 28, is out now, you can buy here it at blurb.com or even page through the whole book online! Thanks to art director Matthew Lenning for the heads up.

Sarah Edmonds Preview Copy

2011-01-07T09:53:00.000-08:00

Got an exciting package in the mail yesterday, my very first copy of Nurse, Soldier, Spy! It is such a wonderful moment to see a years worth of work turn into a real live book. Of course, I'm wracked with anxiety over certain choices I made that seem silly when the book is seen all together, but over all I think it looks great. The cover is coated with a spot varnish, which doesn't translate in photos, but is very striking in person. So, the moral is, order your copy now!

On this note, two of these images will be seen in the Society of Illustrators 53rd Annual Book & Editorial Show, highlighting the best work over the last year in these categories. Both the cover and the spread below of Sarah being teased as "Our Little Woman" will be on display. The opening is February 4th, 6pm, at the American Museum of Illustration at Society of Illustrators in New York.

Hallows or Horcruxes?

2011-01-06T21:27:00.000-08:00

With a new season of Harry Potter anticipation upon us, I've been working on a HP based t-shirt. For those of you who have no idea what this is about: 1.Unfriend me immediately 2. Read all seven Harry Potter books tonight (or this helpful wikipedia article on Horcruxes.) Will you buy one? They don't exist yet... but soon.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

A new advent themed church drawing from my sketchbook about today's sermon on King David and his distant grandson, Jesus. Noel!

Bloody Turnip

2010-12-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

Is this a phrase still in use for people under the age of 75? Hope so... this will be running in Men's Health in March. The full page design below... (I drew the silly faces too.)

There Will Be PR

2010-12-17T11:07:00.000-08:00

My new book about Sarah Edmonds, Nurse, Soldier, Spy is slated to come March 1st... and here is my pub page in the newest Abrams Spring catalog. So, let the public relations machine begin.

From the description:
This fast-paced, high-energy picture book tells the true story of Sarah Emma Edmonds, who at age 19 disguised herself as a man in order to fight in the Civil War. She took the name Frank Thompson and joined a Michigan army regiment to battle to confederacy. Sarah excelled as a solider and a nurse on the battlefield. Because of her heroism, she was asked to become a spy. Her story comes to life through the signature illustration and design of John Hendrix and the exciting storytelling of Marissa Moss.

Drawing in Church- 12/12

2010-12-13T01:22:00.000-08:00

From an Advent series on King David... I've never had the pleasure of drawing Goliath, with or without stone lodged inside his forehead. (Apologies and thanks to my senior Kate Oberg for her Goliath drawing inspiration!)

Tall Tale- Denver Edition

2010-12-10T10:25:00.000-08:00

Denver's city magazine 5280 called me with a fun project about famous Colorado facts and legends.
The opener was about a man in the 1930's who was officially titled the "State Liar" and paid a $1 salary after winning a tall-tale contest (his involving a cross-eyed wooden legged cat).

Both of my sketches focused on the various visual incarnations of lying... and sort of liked both equally. Usually a good indication that neither will be chosen. But they went with sketch A and the big goofy cat marionette.

The spots were also Colorado related. There are more medical marijuana shops than Starbucks, Denver has a significantly dominant male population, and the Uber-Macho Buffalo mascot for the University of Colorado 1. Isn't a Buffalo, (a Bison) and 2. He is actually a she- horns and all.

AIGA 50/50 Opening

2010-12-09T07:59:00.000-08:00

A few of my former students (if they are reading this, "my best students") sent me this picture from the AIGA 50 Books 50 Covers opening in New York on Wednesday. It is a huge honor to have my AI28 cover included in this show, wish I could have seen it in person. Thanks to Marissa Dessanti, Allegra Fisher and David Yanofsky.

School Portrait Fail

2010-11-26T11:43:00.001-08:00

Drawing in Church- 11/22

2010-11-23T12:50:00.001-08:00

A recent one from the pew... and yes, that IS a Yeti Crab.

I'm making a concerted effort over the next few weeks to get these collected into book format, hope to have some exciting news to share soon.

Post It Show 2010

2010-11-22T21:14:00.000-08:00

Mark Todd kindly invited me to be a part of his epic Post-It show this year. The show is at Giant Robot in LA, Opening on December 11th. I always love doing this show! You can buy all the 3x3 post-its for only $20 each.

I know some artists submit dozens of these every year... but I've got 12. Enjoy.

Designing Ideas - Faculty Show

2010-11-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of organizing and designing the Washington University Design Faculty Show, which highlights projects from the professional work of the Communication Design and Fashion Design faculty, that we called Designing Ideas.

Though I did the curating and designing of the show, it wouldn't have happened with the tireless work of the gallery director, Brandon Anschultz, who put in countless hours of painting, hanging and reprinting the typographic vinyl for the walls.

The show is up for the month of November at the Des Lee Gallery at 1627 Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis. The show offers a quick navigation of the design field as well as individual projects, all while trying to give the viewer a short education about how to look at such works in context.

Ye Olde Money Spot

2010-11-04T23:37:00.000-07:00

Men's health called me with a quick spot project for their upcoming issue on balanced budgets. Don't you wear a top hat and monocle when doing your bill paying?

Drawing the Internet

2010-10-16T08:02:00.000-07:00

I was contacted by Scientific American a few weeks back to illustrate an article by the guy who invented the internet. No, not Al Gore, but Tim Berners-Lee.

The article is really about the future of the internet. He posits that for the web to remain as vital and vibrant as it is today, we need to protect it from the threats of corporation and government. My first idea started with describing the threats to the future of the web by using the metaphor of a well with magic water that everyone needed but was being corrupted and constrained.

This idea didn't quite work for them. So I tried two others, that used a city metaphor and, of all things, Jack in the Beanstalk reference- to illuminate the threats to these channels of information.

None of these were working. What the art director wanted the illustration to do was NOT summarize the entire thesis of the article in the form of a visual metaphor, but help describe the somewhat abstract components of the online universe that become key players in the article. Almost like an informational graphic or a visual dictionary about how the web is constructed.

Do you know the different between the Web and the Internet? I certainly had used them interchangeably before this job- but they actually refer to different systems. Simply put, the internet is the tubes (hardware) and the web is the stuff that connects the tubes to other machines (the protocols).

The author states that the 'gremlins' live in the protocols- the hardware is in place and is multi-platformed and accessible but if the protocols change and websites can't be universally linked to each other without a special interface, the web could be in trouble. So we revisited the first composition and my final sketch illustrated these three levels- the internet below, the web on the surface and the protocols in between- with cities, gremlins and tubes.

The final art was a fun one to work on, with all those monsters and gremlins. We also added two spots to run with the package. A few details included below.

Meeting Doodles

2010-10-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

I've got a few irons in the fire this week, so I'll be posting a few new editorial projects by end of the week. But, until then, one of the benefits of a teaching community is all the time to draw during meetings. We've had a series of long meetings recently, with exciting new results coming to our curriculum. Here are a few of the drawings that help me listen... (yes, they HELP me listen).

Some of the text has been blurred to protect the innocent.

Drawing in Church- 9/27

2010-10-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Overheard at Hipster Coffee Shop

2010-09-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

"It's so sad really. Its not that she's socially awkward, exactly, it like she's the opposite of awkward."

"Well, maybe she's beautiful on the inside... right?"

"No, that's not it."

Op-Ed at 40

2010-09-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

Those of you who get the Sunday New York Times probably saw the beautiful 18-page section dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Op-Ed page. In addition to that, the NYT also produced a really touching video about the history of the page and it's illustrations. As many of you know, I used to work on the Op-Ed page as the Assistant Art Director from 2003-2005, so I have a special regard for the Op-Ed page.

To my great honor, one of my drawings was included in the video along side some of the most seminal names in the pages history. I truly have no business beside some of these folks. You can see the video here, enjoy!

Done!

2010-09-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to say that my newest book is finally done. With fingers crossed. It won't be out till January of 2011, but I'd like to give you a quick preview of Nurse, Soldier, Spy: Sarah Edmonds, A Civil War Hero!

For those of you who are not aware of the story of Sarah Edmonds- she was a passionate woman who wanted to fight for the Union in the Civil War. But in order to enlist, dressed up as a man, Frank Thompson. In this book, we tell the tale of her enlistment, her exceptional abilities in the battle field and her adventures as a spy behind the Confederate lines. She went on many clandestine missions, but in this book we depict one where she dressed as a slave.

Children's books really rely on a warm and enjoyable main character, like this fellow, for example. In the case of this story, creating a look for the main character was challenging, she had to be both a girl and a boy. She had to look like a passable union soldier, but also feel a bit feminine, so the girl readers could identify with her as well. In some drawings Sarah started to look neither male nor female- just a poorly drawn figure.

My Sarah Edmonds, as Frank Thompson.

The interior book art was finished in August, but the cover is hot off the press. As you might imagine, the cover is an essential part of branding and marketing a book. Because of the commerce part of this equation, the cover becomes the source of much hand-wringing, by artist, editor, art director and also the sales department.

I completed the first cover way back in July (below) so that it could be included in the catalog. After I finished all the final art for the interior we all decided that it needed to change. The cover was nice but it didn't feel as exciting as the story itself.

We were able to salvage the original cover, above, for the title page. Making for certainly the most elaborate title page of my book career. Once again, this is an example of a difficult change brought about by a good art director that resulted in a better final product. It is a hard thing to admit, but with good editing, most of the time your work will improve.

Here is the full wrap of the jacket, the front, back and flaps (without copy on flaps).

I've posted a few of the images from the book already, but now I'd like to give you a full sense of the books narrative by posting some of my favorite images from the story, in sequence.

My color arc cheat sheet- a thumbnail version of the entire book in order.

Sarah wants to enlist...

Sarah's journey from Boston as a woman to Canada as a man, and then to enlist in Michigan.

She is rejected the first time she enlists- they think she's too young.

Sarah desperately wants to serve in the Union Army, and will try to enlist again.

As the war drags on, the Union starts recruiting young boys- and Sarah signs up.

The men in her company called the dainty "Frank" by an ironic nickname, "Our Little Woman"

She worked as a field nurse, assisting in horrific surgery.

She also showed great heroism on the battlefield, pulling wounded soldiers to safety.

Her bravery earned her the chance to become a spy.

Dressed as a spy, with her skin darkened with silver nitrate powder, she crept behind enemy lines.

In confederate territory, she meets a group of slaves working on the trench lines.

She tries to evade capture, but is sent to work with the slaves.

During her work, she meets other slaves who help her learn about the Confederate Army's movements.

At night, she sneaks out to scout their cannon positions.

The work of the slaves is difficult, she trades jobs digging for carrying water so she can get close to the commanding officers.

She recognizes an officer who was in the Union camp, posing as another peddler, but who was actually a spy like her.

On her way back to the Union camp, she's caught by a guard. But he only tells her to take his position for the night - he even gives her a gun.

To get back past the front lines, she needed to say the password to the guards.

The process of working on a long term project like this is so different than a standard editorial job. Though the bulk of the final art was done between March and August, the entire process takes about a year. So, as I send Sarah out the door, it is time to start my next book, which will be out in January 2012 titled "A Boy Called Dickens" about the childhood of Charles Dickens. Time to start practicing my top-hats and crooked chimneys.

A few shots of the cover design in progress on my drawing table...

John Wayne's Best Scene Ever

2010-09-02T12:07:00.000-07:00

American Cowboy Magazine, which I confess I'd never heard of before they called, gave me a great assignment last week. They wanted a drawing of the famous "Fill Your Hands" gunfight from the John Wayne classic True Grit. As any illustrator might know, when you get the assignment that aligns with topics or content that you already LOVE, the resulting drawing is most assuredly doomed. You can't get enough distance from your obsession to evaluate it. (Like a surgeon operating on his own wife, or something.) True Grit is one of those movies that my dad taught me to love at a young age... like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters and The Sting.

With the bar set appropriately high- I watched the movie again. If you don't know the scene or haven't seen the film, it offers one of the immortal lines in the Western patheon. Perhaps even more memorable is the way he cocks the rifle one-handed, by spinning it around the cocking bar. Translating this into a drawing gave me an opportunity to goof around and try a few methods that might be more at home in my sketchbook. I've attached a few of the color comps and how my first sketch looked in their layout, which was also in progress. Turned out to be a fun diversion for the week. And I did the whole drawing while wearing an eyepatch.

The Land of BCS

2010-08-26T23:47:00.000-07:00

The college football season draws near, and this year there is some actual thought that perennial underdog Boise State just might be able to win a national title. This drawing is for the College Football Preview in Sunday's sports section of The New York Times.

Who is that in the basket? It's the TCU horned frog, another one of a sportswriter's favorite outliers with a real change of going all the way. This is one of the rare occasions when the very first sketch I did was the one I couldn't get away from. The chance to do an OZ homage was too alluring for my steel-trap brain to forget. I don't have an image of it in the page design, but I'll post it when I can.

In regards to my last mascot drawing, you can be praying that no earth-shattering college football news happens before Saturday.

Drawing In Church- 8/22

2010-08-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

Jesus once healed a blind man with spit and mud...

Vacation Sketchbook

2010-08-15T21:05:00.001-07:00

I've taken a week off from studio work and have been able to enjoy some time in my sketchbook (and I've also spoken to my family once or twice). A few selections from the week, with extended thoughts...

I spent the weekend with the Monks at Priory Abby, a nice place to get away from the world for a short time. The chapel, built by master architect Gyo Obata, was a perfect spot to spend time drawing. A woman came in while I was drawing to practice on the organ for Sunday Mass. The songs were unspeakably beautiful- notes made without effort. The residue is a confluence of a space and a time recorded on a notebook. I could have been drawing while perched on Saturn's rings, the point of view felt so fleeting and unlikely. Drawing on location is very different than just visiting a place. Even different than intentional touring, the act of drawing forces you to experience an extended slice of time in a place you normally would not. (On a similar theme but different subject, I think this also happens during prayer, when God is encountered not at a place or by an act, but only in a stretch of time.)

Part of the magic of drawing that I've long since understood but rarely heard articulated is how firmly drawing creates memories. Sure, drawing creates visual libraries of information like "How to Draw a Wood Duck." But, for me, drawing also firmly records my own presence next to the information about that wood duck.

When I draw, I remember.

See, I could draw this abby chapel again and again, perhaps with my eyes closed- because I took time to study how it worked and record it in a space that was connected to my hand. My hand was also connected to my ears, and my ears to my eyes. Drawing, I think, might be valuable to me because of these encoded time capsules. Drawing offers a way to capture the ephemeral in multiple vessels.

A drawing-in-church from today- a familiar parable I'm sure.

I have spoken to other artists about a similar drawing phenomenon, including the great Dan Zettwoch, that has to do with encoded memories in drawings. I have experienced, when looking at an old drawing I've created, a kind of narrative sensation that has to do with the audiobook I was listening to while creating the images. Each section of the drawing can carry a little parcel of the story or reveal a sensation about the narrative that comes to share part of the image's story as well. For example, the American Illustration 28 cover I worked on last year happened to collide with the first time I listened to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I can revisit particular sections of the drawing and the story comes rushing back, like a cracker-jack prize. Did that story affect the visual ideas for this cover? Not sure, but they are connected, to me, regardless.

School resumes in a few weeks- and I'll be posting my the final images from my newest book, which I just finished last week, very soon. "Nurse, Soldier, Spy: Sarah Edmonds, A Civil War Woman" comes out in January.

Speaking of the end of summer- my pool has a community reading shelf that cracks me up. A few observations:

Oil Spill Op-Ed

2010-08-05T08:04:00.001-07:00

Had the pleasure of being on The New York Times Op-Ed page today. A nice personal narrative about a man swimming in his Michigan lake despite a tragic oil spill, though much smaller than the one in the Gulf.

Sent two different ideas that tried to work with the page layout a bit. Loyal readers will remember that I had an oil-related Op-Ed killed a month ago, so I tried to recycle the aesthetic of those ideas.

Art Director Aviva went with A, and my first attempt used bloopy watercolor for the oil plume. It was ok, but I felt like a big black graphic shape was going to be needed to hold the page.

I tried a second time, this time using india ink and it was a big improvement. So here is the final page all together with copy and the swimmer (and buoy).

The ICON Wrap Up

2010-08-03T07:25:00.000-07:00

Before we get too far away from the ICON experience, I wanted to post some images and a few links to other reviews of the events.

A really interesting and extensive wrap-up from SCAD's Atlanta Campus blog.

Thomas James at Escape from Illustration Island, has posted a bunch of great video from the event including some of the keynote session discussion.

Michael Dooley reviewed the event for PRINT Magazine and discussed the big elephant from the weekend conversation- will the necessary future of illustration be animation?

All in all it was a great conference, even though I got zero time to sit and draw during the main-stage sessions. Here is a brief summary, from British phenom Rod Hunt that features a picture of me giving my talk dressed as John Brown. I talked about the six-year journey of my book and gave some modest advice about publishing an unlikely idea... like 'being obsessed with your subject matter.'

One of the many highlights from the main-stage were the lo-fi animated art-director horror stories from Jason Holley. All of them are super funny, at least to illustrators!

The Color from jason holley on Vimeo.

I'm happy to announce that I have been elected as the next ICON President! Now it is time to start the planning for an amazing and inspiring ICON7 in 2012. Anybody have some good ideas?

But, even though the actual conference was amazing, the highlight of the whole week was seeing my young Padawan, Jack, defeat the actual Darth Maul at the Jedi Training Academy at Disneyland on his 5th birthday! Wow!

Drawing In Church- 7/25

2010-07-25T21:10:00.001-07:00

A pew drawing from this week and two weeks ago... the text coming from one of the hymns we sang, anyone know the title?

Once I'm really done with my current project I'm going pour the gas on the effort to find a publisher for my church sketchbook drawings. We'll see if I can find someone willing to flush some cash down the drain.

Jack Pan

2010-07-20T12:34:00.000-07:00

A recap with pictures from ICON coming next. But first, a short break from the things of drawing and illustration for this very forlorn Peter Pan. Happy 5th Birthday Jack! I just love this picture. (Andrea made the amazing fairy crown for him...)

ICON | 6 | LA

2010-07-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Illustration Conference arrives in Pasadena next week, and I've had the honor of being a part of the board. Planning and organizing the biggest illustration event of the year has been a huge task and we're all eager to get it underway. I will be speaking from the main stage, as part of a panel about the adventures of editorial illustrators moving into children's books, with the illustrious Istavan Banyai, Adam McCauley and Jaime Zollars. I'm doing two lunch-time seminars on the book world vs. the editorial landscape as well.

There is still time to sign up over at the website, of course. I'm looking forward to many of the sessions, including the Future of Publishing Keynote, Todd Oldham, Wayne White, The Roadshow and the opening at Gallery Nucleus of the ICON 6 show "A Labor of Line". The Headless Villain Diptych has been selected to be in the exhibition and will also be for sale.

I'm also very excited about the two sessions I've produced.
Douglas B. Dowd, my esteemed colleague at Wash U, has agreed to do a lecture about the lack of a comprehensive historical framework for illustration titled Illustration on Mars Expedition to an Unseen World — A New Theory on the History of Illustration. Can't wait to see what folks do with this lecture, nothing like it has ever been offered at ICON.

David Saylor, editor/creative director/mega-genius at Scholastic books. Recounting stories and exciting events surrounding some of his most beloved projects like Caldecott Medal Winner, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," The "Harry Potter" Series, and the hundreds of picture books, his focus will be where it has always been- on the talented artists he works with every day. David Saylor's career in books has become defined by the exceptional and award winning books that come from the unique collaboration of artist and editor.

Of course, things in the studio have been hectic leading up the conference. The Sarah Edmonds book is very very close to done and I'll post a wrap up when I return. Here is one that just came off the drawing board.

Hope to see you out in LA!

The One that Got Away

2010-06-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

Friday at 5pm, I got the biggest call of my editorial career- the cover of Sports Illustrated. Illustrators certainly think of the cover of Time and the New Yorker as the crowning jewels of our industry- but Sport Illustrated hasn't had an illustrated cover in a long long time- according to their Design Director. Of course, with Sports Illustrated, a weekly magazine, you don't have much time. Final art due by Monday, they close the issue at 2pm. For the high honor of an SI cover I'd have to chain myself to my desk for the next three days- but it would be worth it if I could pose the following question to my friends at parties for years to come, "What do I have in common with LeBron James, Derek Jeter, Jacque Vaughn and Brooklyn Decker?"

With Colorado leaving the Big 12 conference for the PAC-10, and Nebraska leaving for the BIG TEN- the fate of the athletic college landscape rested with the University of Texas. They dramatically announced last week that they were leaving for the PAC-10 and taking four other with them. Goodbye Big 12. The concept for the cover was to illustrate the PAC-10 as a golden paradise- drawing all the great teams into the beautiful Rose Bowl.

I sent the first sketch on Saturday and we were revising the mascot placement every few hours as news broke about which teams were going where. I should have seen where this was going...

Sunday was quiet and I spent most of the 24 hours drawing and painting on the final art- just hoping that Texas didn't get cold feet before the closing of the magazine on Monday.

I sent in the final art, exhausted, right on time.

Just as the email leaves, I see this story on ESPN. Texas is going to stay. Story over. The PAC-10 isn't the promise land, it is just another conference. The cover is dead.

This is the point in the post where I write with great eloquence about the nature of our industry. Perhaps I will even evoke terms of poetry to describe how the tight deadlines and pressure-cooker editorial changes creates the very fiber of our business, which at the core, is thrilling to be a part of on a daily basis.

This is the point in the post when I can say that pouring three days into something like this to have it flushed by a 3pm press-release just stinks. Now, if you'll, excuse me, I need to get back to the drawing board.

Drawing in Church- 6/6

2010-06-10T10:20:00.000-07:00

I started this one on Pentecost a few weeks back and just finished it on Sunday.

Sarah Edmonds- Sneak Peak!

2010-06-04T13:29:00.000-07:00

I've been hiding in the art-cave for the last few weeks, laboring over the final images for my next book for children. Nearly there, but I have heard from many of you asking for a bit of a peek at the final images. One of the strange things about a doing such a large project, as opposed to the instant world of periodical illustration, is the year long delayed-gratification buzz of seeing your work in print and getting feedback on it. Hoping, like a sad junkie, to get a sufficient enough fix to propel me over the finish line.

For those of you who are not aware of the story of Sarah Edmonds- she was a passionate woman who wanted to fight for the Union in the Civil War. But in order to enlist, dressed up as a man, Frank Thompson. In this book, we tell the tale of her enlistment, her exceptional abilities in the battle field and her adventures as a spy behind the Confederate lines. She went on many clandestine missions, but in this book we depict one where she dressed as a slave.

These are just a small collection of the images I've got done- so I'll try to post some more images in a few weeks.

The Boulevard of Broken Dreams (and Killed Sketches)

2010-05-21T10:58:00.001-07:00

The business of illustration demands flexibility and kind of mercenary approach to image-making. Illustrators pride themselves on believing that nothing is too sacred or too important to scrap at a moments notice. But every now and then, it really hurts when a beloved image gets killed at the last minute. I was on the hot seat for the The New York Times Op-Ed Sunday page for over the weekend (Sunday is a most desirable page to get).

For this article about accurately measuring the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, I sent the following ideas.

It is rare that an art director will let you take a crack at the page design as well as the illustration. So, I was pretty sure we'd end up with idea C, the freestanding measuring cup. BUT, the very best idea approved, sketch B, where the column of text forms the oil spill. The amazing Aviva had even worked out a rough layout of the text for me to work with.

BUT, as is common in the newspaper business, things change quickly and the column was moved around, leaving no room for art. So, this amazing idea is dead in the water. Still a bit hurt. Viva La Illustration.

AIGA 50 Books/ 50 Covers Show

2010-05-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

Mark Helfin, Director of American Illustration and Matthew Lenning, Art Director Extraordinaire, contacted me yesterday with some great news. The American Illustration 28 book was juried into the AIGA 50/50 show, collecting the best book designs of 2009. It is an exciting honor because the competition is really about design and not specifically titled towards favoring illustration- so to be included is thrilling.

The AIGA website has a collection up of the 2008 winners.

The jury’s selections will be mounted as a public exhibition scheduled to open at the AIGA National Design Center in New York in 2010. In addition, the show will travel to AIGA chapters, student groups and galleries throughout the country and China during 2011. In addition, one copy of the book will be housed at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library within the Butler Library, Columbia University in New York, and a second one in the AIGA graphic design archives at the Denver Art Museum.

ICON Interview

2010-05-11T13:03:00.001-07:00

Most of you know that I am on the board producing ICON, The Illustration Conference, taking place this summer in Los Angeles. As the PR chair, I've done a interview with Escape from Illustration Island about the conference, my work and teaching. Check out the new podcast here along with several other great conversations about illustration on the archive. Thanks to Thomas James and his great work over at Escape from Illustration Island!

Drawing in Church- 5/9

2010-05-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

I've been in the batcave for the last month finishing up the art for my upcoming book about Civil War hero, Sarah Edmonds. It is a wonderful story written by Marissa Moss and the art is really starting to take shape, hope to post some sneak preview images soon. I have two more months left before the final deadline and I'll be drawing non-stop till then. But, somehow I find time to waste an hour drawing in my sketchbook. Did I mention I'm behind on the final art?

Seminar Sketchbook

2010-04-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Our seniors just presented their Senior Seminar Project, a self-generated semester long exploration that serves as a capstone experience for their undergraduate education.

I have a small tradition of doing a drawing during the three nights of presentations, touching on some of their themes. This year includes- Rasputin, talking bread, tigers in a grandmothers kimono, stepford wives, martians, dogs with jobs...etc. etc.

Congratulations to all of the seniors!

WORDPLAY at The New York Times

2010-04-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

Many of you know the "On Language" column from The New York Times Magazine, not just from the etymological brilliance of the late William Safire, but for the gorgeous hand-drawn/hand-built typography featured there every week.

The New York Times Gallery on the 7th Floor is opening a show called WORDPLAY, and features some of my illustrated type in an exhibition of these pages. If you are in New York, the opening is Thursday April 22nd 2010, at 7pm.

American Illustration 29 - Selected

2010-04-08T09:09:00.000-07:00

Good news from American Illustration yesterday, I got three images into the new annual, which will come out at the launch party this November. It is also exciting because they selected three images that didn't get into any other shows- so I'm excited that these drawings will have a bit of life beyond their original publication. An unusual year of annuals, with very little overlap between the images selected by the juries of the major shows. The winners:

The Headless Horse/Man- An uncommissioned drawing I created for Dan Zettwoch's Villains Show last fall.

Uncharted 2- Entertainment Weekly called me to create an image about "Uncharted 2," the top video game selected for the year end "Best of 2009" Issue. The main character Drake is a kind of Jason Bourne meets Indiana Jones: a fearless treasure-hunting tough guy with the aerial dexterity of a stunt double. As a conceptual image-maker, it really offered me a great chance to have some fun with the conventions of first-person shooter gaming.

Coloring New Orleans - The cover for United Airlines Hemispheres magazine about the new New Orleans.

Drawing in Church- Easter edition

2010-04-05T19:52:00.000-07:00

Gambling in the Locker Room

2010-03-31T12:45:00.000-07:00

Just finished a drawing for ESPN The Magazine about the astonishingly pervasive practice of gambling in professional athletic locker rooms. A recent gambling altercation that lead to Washington Wizards superstar Gilbert Arenas bringing multiple guns into the locker room to frighten a third-stringer indicate the extreme stakes of these wagers. Superstars have been known to lose hundreds and even tens of thousands of dollars on a single game of dominos, pool and the bet-inducing card games like "Hit the Post." In this insidious betting game, when you lose, you don't just pay in your share but match the whole pot on the table.

Perhaps this visual idea seems obvious (or inevitable), but using the look and palate of Vegas was an exciting solution to explore in my sketches. I barely had 5 days for this, so I didn't have much time to look around for other ideas. The scope of the drawing would take a majority of the time. So I was eager to get started on something.

I sent a super rough idea for a quick "you're on the right track" approval. I wouldn't want to spend 6 hours solving this drawing if they hated the idea of a vegas locker-room.

Once they signed off on the concept, I had to add some new player likenesses and adjust the layout accordingly. And they took out my favorite part, that the devil was dealing the cards. All the players are specific likenesses, though none anyone would really recognize.

The final art was executed in about 36 hours (not ideal)- which did allow time for a rough color study, above (which I ended up mostly ignoring). I rarely get a chance to use a garish high-saturation palate- so I went all out. Perhaps too far out. The drawing will run across the top of a magazine spread, and their format is a big larger than most magazine- a full 10 inches wide. The full drawing will be seen at about 20 inches long. A few details below.