I was delighted to get the opportunity to work with the always cheerful and positive Art Director April Montgomery at Computerworld. This piece dealt with technological issues that travel eons beyond my technological limitation, so it was a good challenge to find a way to illustrate Holistic Virtualization. Keywords from the creative brief included meditation, manipulating virtual technology, all-inclusive, organizing and streamlining.
here are the roughs:
and being that the cover was going to run again on the interior, we thought it would be nice have the spectrum flow across the gutter and above the text.
these were April’s initial rough layouts with the sketches
here is a progress shot of the figure
and my attempts at inking the spectrum lines…
there is something very meditative about the simplicity of pigment, water, bristles and paper.
the sound of the brush drawing over the paper, wonderful.
once the final shot was taken on set, the ink work was scanned in and then layered over the photo.
the backdrops were the backsides of an old roll of bathroom wallpaper, it had a beautiful, soft, off-white color.
and here is where April worked her magic and made everything ‘flow’.
I have never considered myself having the chops for teaching. Over the years I have done a lecture or a talk or a 3 hour workshop here and there, but that has always been the extent of my ability. Last year the fine folks at MiMaster asked if I would consider leading a week long workshop at their facility In Milan, Italy. The MiMaster is a project of a group of Italian illustrators, to extend an idea of international specialization in the illustration’s culture. It’s a project focused to professionals, especially in editorial illustration, with interest in meetings with other international illustrators and authors.
here is Anita spinning on the bull in the Galleria.
Although it was clear to me that I was out of my league I decided to take a chance, give it a go, and maybe talk my wife into a jaunt to Milan, which would be a first for the both of us.
I would be remiss if I didn’t post a couple photos from the infamous Duomo. Minus the tourists, it is a time machine.
a 5 inch detail hidden in a corner…
One thing I didn’t want to do was lead a workshop based strictly on my process, firstly it is god-awfully complicated and secondly I know there are better ways of doing what I do and for me to tell them this is the way to do something would be a disaster.
So I concocted a project that would touch on all of the aspects of what I deal with daily, while creating the images I make.
Students were instructed to amass at least a shoebox full of found objects prior to the workshop along with a list of materials ranging from paints, glues, wire and a chunk of wood.
The goal of the workshop was to assemble an object (i.e fighter, skeleton, pear, bull etc) with the found objects the students had collected. Once assembled the object, when rotated 90 degrees, had to reveal the letterform of the first letter in the name of the object. To add one more layer of difficulty to the project, it wasn’t the sculpture/assemblage that was used in the end but the shadow of the sculpture/assemblage was what had to read as the object and letterform.
The first day was focused on one exercise that I had seen practiced by the great illustrator Bill Mayer. He calls it Stay Sharp. Where you take an ordinary object and draw sketches integrating the object. I humbly asked Mr Mayer if I could use his exercise to kick off the workshop, he kindly agreed and it was a hit. It was a perfect way to get the students to start to think with found objects and see how the object can be seen in different ways and imply different concepts.
The rest of the workshop was me doing my best to share with each student that the sculpture/assemblage they were slaving over was not going to be the final, but that it was all about how the shadow looked and how the letterform would be revealed.
Needing found object material for my demonstration, my patient and understanding wife accompanied me for an evening stroll around Turro while I scavenged for junk in the back alleys.
This was the bounty.
Based on the junk, the word I picked was Libulella which is Italian for Dragonfly.
The students were forced to constantly stop and test how their piece was working with the shadow, showing them that revision and flexibility is crucial to creating images.
This reinforced that no matter what the technique, the end result (with illustration) was how the image would look and work in context. especially with 3D illustration, it is not about how the sculpture looks in front of you but how it looks to the camera, in the photo and especially in the final layout.
Here are a few of the final animations from the students.
I was able to visit a few illustrators that I have known of their work but never had a chance to meet in person.
This is Marco Ventura on the left along with Elena and Anna Balbusso, in the Balbusso twin’s sweet little studio. It was an evening filed with shop talk, tales of growth, good snacks, drink and skilled translation by Marco.
We also had a chance to meet with Alessandro Gottardo AKA Shout for a delightful dinner, including an amazing artichoke heart dish that he is surely to be famous for.
I was honored to be introduced to a pioneering 3D illustrator by the name of Libero Gozzini. Here he is with a figure from a 3D illustration he did in 1973!!
We also had a chance to have dinner, conversation and an evening drive with Emiliano Ponzi. His navigational skills are unique.
The good folks at MiMaster were kind enough to arrange a visit to Teatro Laboratorio Mangiafuoco a puppet studio that has been run by Paola Bassani for over 30years. Paola graciously shared her vast array of puppets, she dug out crates from every nook in her studio. I was overwhelmed and practically brought to tears by her passion and breadth of work.
I had one puppet that I had brought with me to share with her.. It is not often that I feel a kinship with another maker of objects, but this visit was amazing. One of her students broke out an accordion to top off the evening.
Special thanks:
To Giacomo for making us feel right at home in the big city.
To Piera for all of her graceful translations.
To Stefan for taking care of all things I.T. including camera, lights and tools.
Especially to Ivan for trusting me enough to invite me to lead the workshop.
I look forward to hopefully getting a chance to return to Milano down the road…
Announcing my little contribution to the ICON7 Illustration Conference in Providence RI June 13-16 2012.
I have offered up Neven and his pet moth ’7′ as one of the raffle prizes to those who register for the conference. Hoping to help encourage folks who are on the fence about registering or not. The end date for eligibility to win Neven is end of day March 11th. You can find out more about registration here.
I have attended the conferences 2, 4, and 6. You can read about my attendee interview here .
After attending ICON6 I reviewed the conference and compared it to the previous conferences I attended. You can read that review on the Cincinnati Illustrators Blog.
Meet Neven (photos below). Resting upon his shoulder is his pet moth “7”, who is fashioned from a Speedball B-5 nib. Together they make perfect companions for ICON7. Ever dapper in his paisely suit, Neven is valued at $2100.
Go to it. You will like it, trust me, I am betting a puppet on it!
I have been asked to create the website mastheads for Deliver Magazine for 2012. All in all, there will be four total.
This is the process for the current masthead. the goal of the project is to create a header image that embodies what Deliver can facilitate in the relationship between marketers and consumers. In this case, Deliver is the machine that utilizes many aspects of communication to help you best reach your customers.
Here is the thumbnail and refined sketch for the piece.
These are the junk boxes that I begin to source my materials from.
roughing out heads and sorting gears over a ‘actual size’ print out of sketch
machine starts to take shape. including everything from typewriter parts to dishwasher parts
the receiving end of the machine
assembling the heart of the machine with the deliver masthead
washing in the type
refining the heads and sourcing fabric
adding color to the type, late friday…. feeling good.
the weekend leads to waking up in night with cold sweat about how the masthead is too disjointed from the machine and doubting all my decisions up to this point…
this is my monday morning rush to redesign the masthead section of the machine to give it more of a unified look and create a better ‘heart’ to the machine.
here is how the final illustration works in the website setting. Follow this link to see it live Deliver Magazine .
I am looking forward to continuing on this series.
anyone who has dared to ascend the 13 creaky steps into the studio knows how unorganized and dusty this place is. i am not saying that its a bad thing, its just i am not the neatest illustrator out there. When i received a call from the organized and meticulous Creative Director SooJin Buzelli of Asset International to create an illustration for an upcoming survey on how Plan Advisers run their practices, i was a little stumped at first on how to best visually solve this one.
here are the four sketches i submitted, based on the theme of sorting complicated data:
we decided that the librarian on stilts was the best choice.
(honesty, looking back, i am not sure why i thought the basketball players would have worked very well…)
with this piece it came down to the light. getting that light to stream in at the right density and angle almost drove me nuts, but it finally worked out. it is the little things like that, that keep me fired up about what i get to do everyday.
if you were ever curious as to my preferred mode of transportation, the good folks at Good Spark Garage have put together a cool video along with stills from my dusty studio and my equally dusty motorbike. you can see their post here.
Corey and Casey aka the Wilkinson Brothers aka Good Spark Garage are two of the hardest working designers i know. I had the pleasure of meeting them over 7 years ago. it is rare that you meet folks with an equal passion for design, illustration and motorcycling in these parts. good stuff.
The largest east coast showing of my work is currently on display at The Art Institute of Boston through Dec. 18th.
the last time i visited Boston was for the 2008 HOW design conference, and i have to admit that i am growing quite fond of Boston.
i was asked to give a talk about my creative process and my career path on the opening night of the show, and this lovely group of folks were kind enough to sit through 60 minutes of my talking and 220+ slides.
a HUGE thanks to AIB for being such a welcoming institution. I immediately felt right at home.
i apparently am inept at using a camera outside of the studio, but fortunately the school has a nice set of photos of the show and my visit on their illustration and animation blog.
here are a few pages from my sketchbook during my brief trip to Boston.
Not long after Bob Hunt of the Hancock County Arts and Cultural Council asked me to consider creating an image for a downtown mural on our humble Main Street, I recalled the historical recollections and photos of the Interurban Rail that used to run right by that location. Starting up in 1899 the Interurban Rail Line ran right down the center of Main Street and was the ‘rapid transit’ compared to the common horse and buggy of the day. With the wide horizontal format of the space, it seemed like a perfect fit to be able to see an almost full scale interurban car on Main Street 70 years after the last one ran in Indiana.
My goal was to have the mural honor the innovative past of Indiana and Greenfield, encouraging the community to ‘tip their hat’ to the past but also look forward to the future and the possibilities of where Greenfield can go.
There will be a public dedication at 2 West Main St on Saturday November 12, at 10am where the model used in the mural image will also be on display.
Special thanks to Nathan Bilger for his knowledge and guidance in gathering historical and pictorial reference for this mural.
here are some behind the scenes images of the project:
proposal:
references:
the build:
chipboard, wood, old bearings, old screen door hinges:
more wood, old springs, wire:
first coat of paint:
final coat of paint, patina, grime, chrome railings, bits of found objects for details
Working for the formidable Creative Director SooJin Chun Buzelli of PlanSponsor magazine is always a pleasure. She has an amazing way of cutting through the muck and putting the heart of the content into a one or two line synopsis and asking the illustrator to do what they to best.
this particular article is about asking retirement industry professionals to look at “10 things your are (probably) doing wrong”
the piece was running on the cover and also being used on an interior spread, so i wanted to see if there was a way to do a bit of a reveal, where the spread unveils a bit more information then the covers allows.
here were the initial concepts:
these fellas are just plain wrong, my intention was that they made the number 10 but SooJin thought it best that these ‘gentlemen’ not be on the cover, completely understandable.
i know the empty pool concept isnt original, but i was drawn to the composition along with the confident and relaxed expression on the diver’s face.
this guy needs no explanation. this was the concept that was picked, but he looked to be skipping instead of running which of course is a bit more dangerous, so these sketches came next.
the 3″ scissors were custom built out of copper scrap:
