After a quiet November, it was a relief to have the phone start ringing again in the first week of December. The above cover assignment (with accompanying inside piece) came across the desk in that first weekend after Thanksgiving, and a flurry of jobs followed in its wake. The ‘on hold’ job that I superstitiously blamed for the slow down got the go ahead that same week, and another job (that at the moment is rather hush hush) that was proposed in the early part of the year, got the green light as well. The cover and inside illustration above and below were for the Chronicle of Higher Education. I certainly threw myself at this project with a lot of pent up enthusiasm and gusto.
The Far Eastern Economic Review from Hong Kong emailed that same weekend and handed me a pair of illustrations, one of them an ‘overview’ of a telecommunications segment of the paper, and another one was a portrait of an up and coming politician. I also had due around this time, a series of small cartoon spots for Christian Home and School, having to do with various ways of showing kids that you care. (pictured below)
I was reminiscing with this client (who was retiring after the end of November), how when I first started working with him, how I would routinely use my son as reference for ‘kids’ in the illustrations, and how he’s now taller than me and looking at colleges for next year.
It was nice to have a chance to work in this loose cartoon style again. It had been long time since an assignment like this had come along. It seems like I’ve done little other than scratchboard for the past year.
I also had a couple of spots for my ‘health care’ column gig that I do every other week for The Wall Street Journal during that slow period in November. The one above was about some sort of ‘new improved’ chicken feed that makes the chicken more healthy to eat (or the eggs, I forget).
And the other ‘health care’ spot concerned the purported health benefits of eating garlic.
And of course, as is usually the case with these ‘cartoon’ pieces, I try to sneak in a picture of my dog, Lady. (bottom left)
I had a few other jobs going on around this time, but I think I’ll save them for a future posting. (some of them I’m not sure have been published yet). The postcard went out last weekend, and it already seems to be getting some responses back (it seems to have printed a little darker than I anticipated, but it still looks pretty good). Nice to be getting back to work again. All Play and no Work makes Tim a dull boy (not to mention anxious).