Digital Sketchbook: July 2016

Greetings picture people! I started the year with a game plan that I deviated from almost immediately: To spend part of every work week creating drawings for myself. I was able to get a little rhythm going in January + February, but a couple of big projects in the Spring knocked me off my groove, and by the time May rolled around my resolution was a distant memory. I still think it's possible to balance client work & side projects, but I haven't quite figured it out yet. Finally, in June (six months later) I decided to give it another try. Here is the latest batch, made over the last month or two.

Greetings picture people! I'm rummaging through my hard drive to scrape together the highlights from the last few months of assignments and personal projects. Over the winter break I did some re-evaluating of my studio priorities and came back to work in January recommitted to doing a little bit of drawing for myself every day. It seems obvious, but it's incredible how easy it is to get out of the habit. And when you haven't drawn any thing for fun in a week or two you kind of forget what sorts of pictures you like to draw, and your client work gets stale too. The big epiphany (such as it was) was that everything I've done that I've been proud of (work wise anyway) has started as a little idea in a sketchbook, so if I want to do better work moving forward, the logical place to start is my setchbook. To that end, I've penciled in a daily 25 minute brainstorming/drawing session at the beginning of each day (modest, I realize, but I'm trying to commit to something I won't give up on.) At the same time, I've been picking a favorite sketch each week (or two) and taking it through the vector pipeline. (As always, it is so interesting to see how a little drawing I might completely dismiss in sketch form takes on new life when it has color and dimension.) The illustrations below are the results of that process, (with the exception one illo that was commissioned, but highly influenced by the doodling I was doing at the time.)

Vectober baby! I spent the last month trying to hit a target of putting out one drawing a day (and coming closer to 1 every 2 days.) It was a great way to kickstart my drawing brain after a little post-vacation rut. Enjoy!

Usually my sketchbook is a place for me to take a little break from the screen and flex my drawing muscles without burning myself out on the tools that I use for my commissioned work. However, as a result, I fear I might not be giving myself the chance of stumbling upon new ways of taking advantage of my vectors. I had slow couple of weeks anyway, so I decided to move my sketchbook habit over to the Cintiq. One hour of drawing every work day for two weeks. Some days worked better than others, but I definitely felt a lot looser with my digital drawing by the end of the experiment, and ended up with a couple of weird little ideas that I hope to explore further.

A new illustration on America’s favorite bod for the Upshot. (Check out the full analysis here: link.) Thanks to Nicholas Blechman for the assignment!

Dad Bods
NY Times
AD: Nicholas Blechman

A little sampling of animation experiments from the last few years. Enjoy!

These illustrations were all for the "Big Questions" issue of Mental Floss. Thanks to Lucy Quintanilla for the great assignment!

I got the chance to illustrate the cover and four interior spreads of this week’s Washington Post Magazine. This was for the Post’s annual scavenger hunt. I was sworn to secrecy so as not to reveal any of the clues, but luckily for them I wouldn’t have been able to decode them anyway. Thanks to Beth Broadwater for the assignment!

A new illustration for Jakprints, a fine art printer that plants a tree for every order. Thanks to Ted Barnes for the assignment!

A new illustration for the New Yorker for a great piece by Hallie Cantor in Shouts and Murmurs. A huge thanks to Deanna Donegan for the assignment!

This was a fun one for the alumni magazine of my old highschool (go Coyotes!) One of the big traditions of the school was a yearly trip up to king's canyon. They would give us a list of supplies we had to put together before we headed out, and for some reason wool pants were mandatory, so I went to a thrift store and got these ancient wool army pants that were as stiff as cardboard and about as comfortable. Somehow, everyone else had realized they should just bring the normal pants they always wore. Formative experiences. Thanks to Randy Bertin for thinking of me for this! 

An illustration for a piece in the Boston Globe about a man’s relationship with his first house. He has moved years ago, but checks in on it from time to time, and watches as the neighborhood slowly changes until he can no longer recognize it. I had a lot of fun working on this one! Thanks to Greg Klee for the great assignment!

This was a fun one for the Washington post. This was for a story about how it's better to plan for a market downturn when your investments are still showing good returns (something we can all relate to no doubt.) I spent about as long on the checkered shirt as I did on the rest of the illustration, and now that I'm looking at it I am seeing some adjustments I'd like to make, but I'll just have to save that nit picking for the next time. Thanks to Christian Font for the assignment!

This little series of adventure illos were commissioned for the latest issue of Climbing Magazine. It might sound strange (probably not though if you are spending a lot of time in a studio) but I actually feel a little bit healthier after drawing people hiking. I might have to make this a part of my studio health regimine. Thanks to Claire Eckstrom for the great assignment!

This spread for Mental floss is pretty much my dream assignment. The piece is a history of different scientific (and not so scientific) attempts to control weather over the last century or two. Alot of the stories end (predictably) in failure, but there were some successes too that I’d never heard of. A standout: in 1915 San Diego is experiencing an epic drought and commissions chemist Charles Hatfield to use his science know-how to bring the rain. A month later the San Diego is flooded and the city sues Hatfield for damages. Big thanks to Winslow Taft for the great assignment!

I am extremely honored to have a selection of illustrations from "On The Road" accepted into the Society of Illustrators 57. A huge thanks to SOI and to Bob Goetz and Joe Sharkey!

A roundup of the last few months of commissions. Some fun ones in here for The New York Times, Tufts Magazine and UT Arlington. Thanks to AD's David Horton, Barbara Richer and Bob Goetz for the great assignments!