Got back from vacation last Saturday, and jumped right back into work. Had a few revisions to an Adventure House project over the weekend, and a few pending projects with long deadlines to work on in the meantime. Otherwise, this first week back has been mostly Wall Street Journal assignments. The large Washington dollar portrait above will be the cover for the weekend edition (and appears quite large). Did this one a little differently than my usual scratchboard technique, working with a pencil tool and trying to emulate the original etching technique, while also trying to keep it loose and somewhat illustrative. Did a little manipulating of subtle textures and coloration using a few other tools from my ‘painter toolbox’. There wasn’t much in the way of sketching, layout or design with this assignment, as I was given the layout from the designer.
Above is another of the bi-monthly ‘health care’ spots for the same client (usually appears in Tuesday’s paper, but not always in color). This one was regarding Calcium as a PMS remedy. Out of the three sketches I provided for this one, this was the one I thought least likely to get picked. Sometimes they surprise me.
For the same client, as a rush job, I was handed a trio of small icons for a story about bank examiners and new policies in the shadow of the recent bank failures. This one came in around 2 in the afternoon, and the whole job was out the door by 5.
And then mid-week, I had another assignment for the same client, a smallish illustration spot for an article about new stringent loan policies. My original sketch had the banker looking just as worried and scared as the loan applicant, but the editors requested that I make the character more of a ‘Mr. Potter’ type businessman.