Today Media

Sketch Day – Eye of the Storm

Dover, Hudson Valley, rough sketches, Today Media

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Been a while since I’ve shared any rough sketches. This week is sort of a ‘eye of the storm’ with several book projects at the halfway point between sketch and editor approval stages, and I’ve only got a few quick turnaround projects to occupy my time. The above is a rough sketch for a Hudson Valley illustration, and below is a rough sketch for another Dover Evergreen Classics book cover (‘A Little Princess’). I’ll be finishing these up later this week, and I’ll post the finishes at that time.

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In the meantime, I’ve also been digging through the archives and discovering a treasure trove of cartoon spot illustrations that I did for Instructional Fair back around 1999-2004 that I have not previously shared on this blog. I’m thinking of doing some colorizing and repurposing of those illustrations for the stock art market. I’ll be sharing some of these collections on upcoming ‘Throwback Thursday’ posts, so stay tuned.

 

Portraiture

Hudson Valley, Today Media

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After a year which has been filled with a lot of book projects, where I’ve been working on the same style every day for months on end (mostly pen and ink line art lately), it was nice today to have a change of pace. The above portrait was a two page spread for Hudson Valley magazine (usually I do spot art for them, and this was the first time they tried a portrait for a feature article, at least with me). Not a lot of photo reference for the face available, so I always get a little nervous that I’m capturing a close enough likeness. Anyhow, it was refreshing to work on some quick turnaround assignments (and a few more coming next week, as there is a brief lull in the book projects between sketch and final stage).

As July Hurries Into August

Hudson Valley, Today Media, Westchester Magazine

videowebusageAside from the book projects I am currently working on (“Peter Cottontail” and ‘What Was The Vietnam War?” – an interesting daily juxtaposition to be sure), I also had a few quick turnaround assignments from Westchester Magazine (above) and Hudson Valley Magazine (below) this week. Both these magazines are under the same parent company (Today Media), but I don’t think I’ve done any work for Westchester before this (perhaps there are two Westchester Magazines? I had a few assignments for a similarly named magazine back in 2005, but with a different address). Other than that, have been gearing up for my son’s wedding in Chicago at the beginning of next month, so the days are flying by at a rapid pace.

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Winding down 2017

Baker Book House, Hudson Valley, Today Media

crossweb2Last work day of 2017. Just finished the book project for Baker that I’ve been working on this month, and am uploading them for the client as I write this. 30 black and white illustrations for a young readers edition of a reprint inspirational title. I’ve attached two samples for now from this project, but will likely await publication before sharing the rest. Below is a quick color illustration for Hudson Valley for an upcoming Valentine’s issue. I’ve got work lined up for the first month of 2018 thanks to a couple last minute jobs that came in last night as well as another book finish for Penguin and I’ll be finishing up the ‘Western Heroes’ book in the next thirty days. Hopefully 2018 is a little better than 2017, and I’ll likely be doing an ‘overview’ of the past year for my annual ‘best of’ blogpost over the weekend. Happy New Years everyone.

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