Senior Recital

My son asked me to do a painting for his senior recital this spring. I'm not sure I'm 100% finished with it yet, but here's what I came up with so far. Always a danger of 'overworking' something like this. I think I'll take a break for a couple days and maybe go back into it again .

Searching for a Style

Working on developing a (somewhat) new style for an upcoming series of books. These were the first two experiments. The publisher hasn't yet decided whether they want to go with color or black and white, so I did one of each.

More upbeat economic indicators

A couple assignments for Dow Jones this past weekend, just before the Xmas break. Funnily enough, the illustration above was a concept that I had proposed for another 'year end' assignment two years ago, but at that time was thought to be too 'dire and depressing', but the AD at the Wall Street Journal came to me this week proposing a resurrection of the concept for a new article in the weekend edition (a spoof of the iconic photo from the depression era). Apparently, it isn't 'too depressing' anymore. (since it was such a strong horizontal, I've also posted a larger version, you can see by clicking on the image above).
Below, is an assignment for Barrons, about the pitfalls of having too much of a 'hands on' approach to managing your investments. After a lot of stylistic experimenting over the past few months, it was nice to get back to some comfy scratchboard again.

Greetings from the Krampus

Last year's xmas promotional postcard has been enjoying a second life of sorts at my zazzle store this season (there's still time to give tee shirts to bratty children on your gift list), and interestingly enough, the whole 'Krampus' legend seems to be having a resurgence this year (here's an article a friend of mine linked to on facebook).
Happy Holidays everyone, and I'll resume posting next week.

Additional midweek entries

A few more pieces this week, these are both for US Catholic. Since these will no doubt appear in the same issue, I tried to make the style a little different for each.

Some Assembly Required

Above was an illustration for Barrons this week for an upcoming article on 'fixing the budget'. Also, this week, I finished up a series of caricature illustrations for Dover for an upcoming book (I did a similar series of illos on baseball themes last year this time).

Union Boogeymen

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

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

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.