In a Rut?

Freaks of Nurture Comics, WSJ


It’s funny, but I didn’t notice until I saw these two recent illustrations side by side, that I unconsciously repeated myself, both from a color choice standpoint, and from a layout and design standpoint. Even though the two illustrations were in different styles, and for vastly different clients and applications, they came out remarkably similar.

I need to shake things up a bit, obviously.

Hot Flashes

Baker Book House, Cobblestone


Finished up a 4 page project for a children’s magazine publisher this week. This will be for an upcoming story in the October issue, an adaptation of the ‘Minotaur’ story from Greek myth. I went back and forth on this one, with regards to how I should portray the figures on the faux ‘greek urn pieces’. On the one hand, I wanted to emulate the style of Grecian figures that you would normally see on pottery of this type, but at the same time, I also wanted to stay in keeping with my normal ‘scratchboard style’. So I ended up sort of doing a cross between the two.
These ‘broken pottery shards’ actually spread themselves across a two page spread, and in and around the type, but in order to show it on the blog, I’ve done a little editing and rearranging.



Also this week, I had a fast turnaround book cover assignment from a local publisher. This is for a humorous book on female menopause, and is a rare chance to work in a cartoon style. A fun little assignment.

ADDENDUM: This, in fact, ended up being the very last time I would do any work for Carus Publishing, after a nearly twenty year relationship. I had grown frustrated with their policy of taking over a year to pay for work. A shame, because I often enjoyed the assignments.

Madness

Self Promotion


Did a favor for a friend this afternoon. He’s involved with a local theater company that is putting on ‘Reefer Madness: The Musical’, and needed a quick and dirty tee shirt design (‘quick and dirty’ is my middle name).
I also decided to make this image available at my Zazzle Storefront on a series of tee shirts, cards, posters and mugs.

Weekend Spot

WSJ


This was one for the Wall Street Journal over the past weekend. Been also working on a 4 illustration project for another client which I’ll probably have samples to post in a few days.

In unrelated news, proud to say that my son’s grades just came in from Columbia in Chicago, and he managed a 4.0 this semester. He’ll be starting his senior year in college this coming fall, and it seems like just yesterday he was starting his senior year of high school.