Union Boogeymen

AHMM, Business North Carolina, Dover


Taking the day off today for my 28th wedding anniversary, driving down to Chicago to see my son blow his horn at school in their ‘Combo Fest’ (he’ll be graduating this spring). Here are a few more finished illustrations to round out the end of the week. The above illustration was one I wasn’t initially all that excited about, due to the subject matter, but I somehow managed to find a solution that both made both me and the client happy. This was a cover illustration or Business North Carolina about that state’s long standing antipathy towards unions. (at one point, they requested a policeman’s hat on the fellow coming out of the closet, but then it ended up looking like there was something perverse going on in the bed).
Below is an illustration for Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Been doing work for them since my first year in business back in 1989. Been kind of slow in 2011, I think I only did about 4 of these this year, but from what I can see of the samples they send, it looks like they’ve cut way back on illustration overall, so maybe I should consider myself lucky to have gotten those 4.
Below that is a sample illustration that I did for an upcoming possible book project.

Sketchaholics Anonymous

Business North Carolina, ChronicleHE


Above is a quick turnaround illustration for the Chronicle that I did on Monday. Otherwise, the workload continues to be rather heavy on the prelim sketch phase. Below are a sampling of sketches for further upcoming projects, and I’ll see you later in the week when I start finishing some of these up.




Going to be a busy music weekend coming up, I’ll be taking the day off on Friday to drive down to Chicago to hear my son blow his sax at his college’s ‘Combo Fest’, and then driving back home to prepare for the Jukejoint Handmedowns first appearance at ‘Nick Fink’s’ (this is a cool old bar on the other side of the river from us in Comstock Park, been around since 1888 with some great black vinyl booths and velvet wallpaper), and then our adult string orchestra will be having its christmas concert on Sunday afternoon (I play cello in this group, and the wife plays viola).

Sketch Friday

AHMM, Baker Book House



Recovering nicely from my surgery on Monday, but still having trouble sitting upright for long stretches of time at my desk. I managed to finish up the big book project that I’d been working on for the past month and a half (but can’t post samples of until next year sometime), and am starting work on several other projects for December. Here’s a few rough sketches for various assignments for the coming weeks, plus an unused sketch from an assignment last week that I preferred over the one that eventually got chosen by the client.