Drawing in Church 6/19 & 6/5

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

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

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

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

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.