Over the past two days, I’ve worked on a few quick black and white illustrations for River Styx Magazine. Checking my records, it’s been a year or so since my last assignment for them, so it was nice to hear from them again. I’ve been a contributor to this literary magazine since 2011. At the bottom, I’ve included the rough sketch versions from earlier in the week.
Heard from Dover books this past weekend, and they are gearing up for some paper dolls for the new administration. This won’t likely go into full production until after the inauguration, but they asked for a couple of sample dolls to present to the editors. Here’s my Biden and Harris sample dolls. Also, I’ve got a few smaller projects coming up later in the week (and then due around Thanksgiving), plus I’ve got a few book projects lined up for the coming spring. Only 6 weeks left of this horrible year. Looking forward to a (hopefully) brighter 2021.
This will probably end up being the high point of the year for me. After over 30 years of interior black and white illustrations from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, I had my first color cover assignment. I took a lot of time on this one (more so than usual), and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. The story for this one was a Sherlock Holmes mystery, in which Watson is left to solve the case on his own, and is set on the British moors (a very specific location, in fact, which I had to do a little research on). Some things are worth waiting for.
I’ve been taking old art from the archives and repurposing them as Zazzle products recently. This was an illustration for Newsday back in 2012, now colorized (original version was in black and white) available as greeting cards.
Rough sketch for a Delaware Today portrait that came in over the weekend. I’ve got a bit of time on this one (not due until 2021), but other than a few other assignments, and some book projects ‘on hold’ until an unspecified time in the future, there’s not much else going on at the moment, so got the sketch done early.
A couple weeks back, I did a woodcut Biden portrait, in the style of a series of presidential portraits for a set of President Wooden Blocks that I had done for Uncle Goose Toys many years ago. (They have contacted me over the past two elections for ‘updates’ of both the incumbent and the challenger, “Just In Case”). Turns out the President Blocks have been discontinued due to poor sales, so my Biden portrait wasn’t necessary. But that’s ok, it will be put to work in my Zazzle store, like the rest of the presidents from this series. Surprisingly enough, I sell a fair amount of merchandise of even the most obscure presidents in the series. Who would’ve guessed?