WOE!

More disasters, this time on the home-front. A collection of contractor horror stories for This Old House Magazine. A long weekend, as I was working with some digital chicanery I haven't tried before.

Annuals

Great news from Communication Arts and American Illustration. Two images will be appearing in American Illustration 27, and one in CA Illustration 49. From the pair that got tapped for AI, one of the images selected is from my 'Drawing in Church' series, which is really wonderful. I'm excited that more people will get to see my pew-based work. 

It has been an unusual annual season for me. All 6 images selected by the three major shows are different- usually there is at least one drawing that gets multiple nods. It shows how unpredictable juries can be. Ultimately, it is 12 Angry Men (read universal 'men'), and you hope Henry Fonda has got your back this time. Two of these three were done for Christianity Today. They'll be getting roses later this afternoon.

American Illustration 27

Communication Arts 49

Subaqueous Sabotage

PC Magazine asks: Who is cutting giant underwater internet cables in the Pacific? Yep. Russians dressed up like Creatures from the Black Lagoon (a liberal interpretation). After weeks of constantly lecturing my juniors about the advantage of flat graphic shape in image-making, I decided to try it out. It works!

CLEARANCE SALE! Selections from the Vault

I updated my website proper this week with some new items on the For $ale page. Thanks to a connection with a great Giclee printer on the west coast, and so have a few new prints available for purchase. Also, I've posted some original art from the archives. Much of this is from previous shows and exhibitions- I'd love if it found a place on your wall. Let's make a deal.

Moon Mortgages

A drawing for Popular Mechanics. Countries are forbidden, due to a pre-Apollo interstellar treaty, from claiming lunar property. But, corporations are not bound to such treaties... 21st century LAND RUSH!

Logotype Nostalgia

A mark for my church, Grace & Peace fellowship, that I finished up a few weeks back. Thought it would be fun to post. I used to do this stuff all the time when I held the job title 'designer/coffee-getter' before my life as an illustrator. It's always enjoyable to flex this muscle every now and then.

Concept Pictionary

Lets play a game.
Can anyone suss out the meaning of this illustration? Now, it was done for a rather theology heavy article appearing in the June issue of Christianity Today- so the metaphor is a bit abstract. Pithy visuals for spiritual concepts aren't exactly dime-a-dozen. (Thus the need Jesus saw for his parables. As I stated once before, he would make a great illustrator. And clearly he had a penchant for mark-making: see John, Ch. 8. Or this rare photo... Attentive church go-ers may get a slight advantage on this one.

Drawing in Church - 3/16 & 2/24

I forgot to post this one from New York a few weeks back.
Also, the new one from Sunday.

Drawing In Church-3/9

A slight delay in posting this week's pew doodles- had a few crows and cowboys I had to clear out beforehand.

This drawing taken from one of the most bizarre, haunting and enchanting passages in all of the Old Testament (which is saying something), the Dry Bones Dance...

More Birds

Another one for Paste Magazine- an album review for the Counting Crows.

Eyewitness Video: The Billboard

Ok, this is the last post about the billboard.

If you go look here, you can enjoy a video of me seeing the giant drawing for the first time in NYC with my friends Kirk and Sarah.

Red River

I always love doing this job for the New Yorker. The drastic horizontal and tiny format is such a challenge. The image serves as a header that runs over a weekly movies and cultural events calendar in the Goings-On-About-Town section. This time, to highlight the 60th anniversary of John Wayne's western Red River, I had a great excuse to hit the town on a thursday night in search of a copy of the film.

Meeting Doodles- 3/5

IAM Conference Sketchbook

A selection of pages from last weekend. I attended the IAM Conference in New York, where there is much to learn and plenty to draw. Take a gander- I burnt up a full set of microns.

The NBA Map

On top of the fact that, this week, I got to see my Penn Station billboard in person, I was sent this link. In short, they made my drawings move and sometimes blink. Very fun to see.

Also, here is the final map as it will appear in the 10th anniversary issue of ESPN The Magazine on March 24th.

Drawing in Church - Round-Up

My top 10: I've entered this set into a few award shows in the uncommissioned series category. I enjoyed seeing the drawings together as a group, so I thought I'd share them.

Dr. Liar

A full page for Best Life Magazine (Germany Edition) that is about popular medical myths and misconceptions.

Couture

For the high-fashion mag W:
Thanks to style-oriented reality shows and Project Runway the word "Couture," which used to mean custom-fit hand-sewn high fashion, no longer carries the same panache.

Drawing In Church - 2/17

One of Jesus's most pithy and sophisticated rebukes in all of scripture. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's...

NBA/ESPN Project wrap-up

All these ads are finishing up their run over the next few weeks. Below, how they looked with the type. The map will be coming from the agency soon. Hoping the billboard stays up for another fortnight.

A prize for the first person to name all the likenesses in these three ads inside the comments section.

Re-Branding

Welcome back.

Using the name of my recent solo exhibition, I have re-branded this blog Drawing on Deadline. The former name, Illustration is Easy (an obscure reference to a delightful Ross MacDonald artist statement from an exhibition I worked on back in 2004) was the source of much consternation from the viewing public, now it seems, unaware of the intended absurdity of such a claim. Similar assumptions about commercial image-making are made all the time, usually without real consideration. When looking at the work of understated genius Hanoch Piven, for example, one might muse "How long did this really take?" This conjecture is instantly clarified when you try to create a portrait of Ronald Reagan out of three jellybeans and a piece of carpet.

So, for the record: Illustration is very very hard. I'd write a bit more but, I'm on deadline, so I'd better go draw.

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

A spot for PC World about internet communities working together to identify malware.



Anyone notice the binary code in the snakes pattern?
Didn't think so.

Art-Ball at Graphic Tales

How to occupy an hour at the bar with a beer, a pen and a napkin: Design a baseball lineup card by stocking the positions with only illustrators.



Check out my picks over at Graphic Tales. Proprietor, DB Dowd, has posted my illo-roster for the "New York Deadlines." His comments clearly indicate he has the classic American-League-Napoleon-Complex, and if you'd like to see my justification for Barry Blitt as catcher and why the "over-rated" Coby Whitmore is hitting lead off, visit the comments section.

Want to play along?

Golf Eclipse

A spot for Golf Digest Q&A section.
Is it legal to cast a shadow on your ball when its hanging on the lip of the cup?

Drawing In Church - 1/27

Sorry for the mid-week delay on this one (actual paying gigs getting in the way again!)

Stampede!

If you are flying American Airlines in March, look for this in the seat-pocket in front of you. A story for the in-flight magazine American Way about the Canadian Rodeo "The Calgary Stampede" ...

Drawing In Church - 1/20

Of Lilies and Ravens.

Meeting Doodles

The sign of a productive staff meeting? Drawings! Two pages from recent church and school forums.

Spiders: Attack!

For PC Magazine: Researchers are using web 'spiders' to track down terrorists online.

BILLBOARD!

Thanks to my intrepid photographer Yuko, I have proof! If you are in New York at this very moment, you can see this at 7th Avenue and 34th Street, near Penn Station. This is my first billboard, and let me tell you, it is magnificent.

NBA/ESPN Campaign- Part 1

It has been great to be part of an advertising campaign that is everywhere. Its a huge campaign running the entire NBA season. There are commercials using the RV on ESPN, and even the bumper graphics into NBA games on ABC use the road signage. Below is a scan of the first of three ads I did for the NBA (as it appears in WIRED. I have also seen it in Rolling Stone, GQ and Sports Illustrated).



BREAKING NEWS: There is a billboard near Penn Station in New York City that has one of these drawings on it! Picture coming tomorrow courtesy of our staff photographer at the JH New York Bureau, Yuko Shimizu.

This is a giant map of NBA related landmarks and trivia-inducing road-stops. I'll have a scan of it in context with the final hand drawn typographic banner in a week or two.

Typical Day: Lobster Riding Segway on Skis

A illustration package for a funny upcoming article in SKI magazine. The story involves a slopes sales pitch for do-it-yourself lobster-rolls and senior-citizen Segway-tours in Maine.