April Showers

Green Prints

Besides the book projects I’ve been working on this month, the rest of the past thirty days have been rather quiet. Here are a few illustration sets for GreenPrints that I did at the end of last week. These assignments usually consist of a main illustration, sometimes with a companion spot, and then a variety of ‘drop cap’ illustrations or ‘page break’ tiny icons.

Since I’m nearly done with the rough sketch phase of the latest ‘What Was’ book, I’ll likely be posting some samples from a previous book in the next few days, just to give this blog some content and to showcase some of my published work from this series.

Quietly Sketching Away

First Second, MacMillan, Penguin

Been a long time between posts. After a period of quiet, this past week I’ve been caught up with sketches for an upcoming ‘Who Was’ project. My favorite part of these books is the portraits, and here’s a few rough sketch versions of some of the cast of characters from this project. I’ll also be finally starting work on another book project for MacMillan (which got sidelined during the whole pandemic of 2020), and with one more ‘Who Was’ project waiting in the wings, it should be a pretty busy spring.

In the meantime, the ‘What Unites Us’ graphic novel has been making the rounds, and there was a very nice review for it on Multiversity Comics.

Pirate Ship Revisited

Uncategorized

The client for whom I did the ‘Pirate Ship’ illustration a few weeks back, requested another version with extended size, and details, and a border and overlaid text. Here’s how that turned out.

Ex Libris

personal

In a holding pattern this week, awaiting the go ahead on a trio of book projects. I’ll be doing some misc work this week for a couple of author/clients, but in the meantime I thought I’d work up a design for a bookplate for my own personal use. My home library is quite extensive and I’ve long contemplated doing some custom stickers to add to my books.

Annual Oscar Poster

Oscar Poster, personal

Since around 2005, I’ve done an Oscar Nominations Caricature poster for my brother, to commemorate his annual ‘Oscar Viewing Party’ that he has thrown at his restaurant in Chicago (and for years prior to the restaurants’ opening in his own home). Me and my brother watched our first Oscar broadcast together in 1974, and whether apart or together, we always touch base and compare notes each year. I doubt if he will be doing his party this year, but I’ve gotten into the habit of doing these posters, and look forward to the challenge once the nominations have been announced. This year was interesting due to the pandemic, and the fact that a lot of theaters were closed, and many of the nominated films are available on streaming services (or even originated there). Anyhow, you can see the rest of the posters in the series here.