A few pages from the sketchbook - drawn while my wife Kristina and I honeymooned in amazing Costa Rica. If you ever find yourself there, I highly recommend a visit to the MonteVerde Cloud Forest Preserve:
This crab was drawn on the beach in Mal Pais. If you ever find yourself there I'd recommend a stay at the very tranquil Beija Flor.
Some primary forest:
My beautiful wife Kristina and I recently returned from Costa Rica where we were honeymooning after a great wedding in the Hudson Valley. We spent amazing time down there surfing, sloth watching and fish-taco eating, all the while befriending local gatos.
I sketched the paintings below in my moleskine watercolor sketchbook:
Tools of the trade:
And let it be known that when I see a strange sea-monster shuffling it's way back to sea,
I do what has to be done:
Behold the illustration for this summer's Siren Music Festival and crazily enough, it's my ninth year creating the poster art for the Village Voice. For this years iteration I was really inspired by the new Cooper Union logo designed by Stephen Doyle and its primary palette. I also wanted the art to have a bright, positive vibe to it in this year of shaky confidence (it is after all a free, all-ages, rain-or-shine deal). Click on the image for a larger view.
I'd also like to give props to Diane Perini who is the brilliant mastermind behind the Siren Fest, picking the bands and overseeing the whole event. Also to Mike Gibson who's done the design work for this and last years festivals.
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This was an illo for the Wall St Journal which was publishing an excerpt from Bryan Gruley's upcoming mystery novel Starvation Lake. The portion I read highlighted some hardscrabble hockey players in northern Michigan and from what I read seemed like a really good read. I only had about 6 hours to do the entire illustration so I kept it simple. For the final we cropped in close on his face since the excerpt dealt with the goalies need stay focused on the puck at all times and never look the opposing player in the eyes.
A recent illo for the Wall Street Journal economic forecast report, which is obviously not predicting a rosy scenario. Right after I finished the pencil drawing for this I came down with a stomach virus. It was a rough slog dragging myself back and forth from the couch to the computer trying to finish it in the few hours I had before it was due. All and all I was happy with the outcome.
In early January Kristina and I spent an amazing week snowboarding at Powder Mountain which is situated west of Ogden Utah and is about an hour and a half from Salt Lake City. It was some of the best riding we've ever experienced and was six days of plundering powder for days on end. Powder Mountain has over 7000+ acres of skiable terrain which is the most in the U.S.
There's a portion of the mountain named Lightning Ridge and is accessible via snowcat and costs a mere $12 - which is a total bargain as it covers a 700 acre area of often-varying terrain from woods to bowls to steep chutes. We found the mountain to be completely uncrowded with a friendly mellow staff.
I'd intended to do some sketching but instead stuck to a strict schedule of riding all day, consuming cheeseburgers and beer, watching a Hitchcock film and passing out by 9pm.
One night we received a foot of snow and by morning the mountain was enshrouded within a dense cloud. I stuck mostly in the trees to get a lay of the land but would often find myself out in the open areas where there was nothing to see but a foggy whiteness. The low visibility, abundant snow and Jedi skill-set made for a peaceful and incredibly fun day of riding. We stayed at the Columbine Inn which was a great little place directly next to the main lodge and we were shuttled out there by Wasatch Crest Shuttle who were great in getting us up the snowy and steep road to PowMow.
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Just finished this illo for the Wall St Journal economic forecast report. It was the first time I've ever drawn Barack Obama and it's thrilling to know his presidency is looming only hours away now. This inspiration for this illo probably came from all the 'Top Chef' viewings I've had as of late.
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Just finished an a interactive guide for wsj.com of these bowl game mascots facing off. We've been looking to do projects which could incorporate lots of illustration and the BCS match-ups seemed like a good candidate. Big props to my colleague Susan McGregor who did the animating and interactivity. Below is a look at the final layout which has a slight comic book cover composition going on.
Click on the images to view larger and here to view the guide.
Below is an early sketch done before match-up announcements were made.
Josh Brown and Jeff Rooney operate the Capacitor Design Network, a very rad agency which works out of Burlington VT/Portland OR. They contacted me about illustrating my interpretation of a volcano for a Gordini magazine ad. I was stoked to have the opportunity to draw mountains, yetis, a volcano - stuff thats right in my wheelhouse. It was an interesting challenge incorporating this photo of Banks Gilberti jibbing in Colorado with my illo and ultimately a really fun project to work on. Click on the image for a larger view.
Here's a good interview with Josh and Jeff from the folks at Josh Spear.
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This image started with the background in which I was going for a 'surface of the Death Star' type of look in photoshop. Then I thought to rework some sketchbook drawings of a Joel Shapiro sculpture and in the end they seemed to have a lumbering-robot feel about them which worked well with my Death Star theme.
In less than two weeks the snowboarding season opens for those of us who reside on the east-coast - and I am damn excited for it. The drawing above was initially just a quick drawing in the sketchbook which I then scanned, augmented with a sharpie-drawn background and gave it the whole photoshop treatment. More than ever I've enjoyed rendering our elusive Yeti brethren and for some reason they seemed an appropriate addition to the lone operator of the shred-sled.
If you are in need of some additional snow-stoke (and who isn't?) I would recommend downloading the very awesome and very free snowboarding film 'Pony Tale' by the fine folks of Actionhorse Films. It's quite good - especially the Utah backcountry section.
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Recently I caught the WunderKammer exhibit at MOMA here in New York. It's akin to the chambre des merveilles or 'cabinet of curiosities' shows of 16th century Europe. It's a good show and I was sort of taken with the whole idea of a collection of strange objects and specimens. I absent-mindedly doodled this cabinet in my sketchbook, then sketched out an old musty room for it to sit in and quickly finished up the color and such in photoshop.
Next I want to see what's in the drawers.
With the nervewracking state of the economy as of late, I was hesitant to go too overboard with this month's WSJ Economic forecast. I'd already done the whirlpool of doom a few months ago, so it felt right to show Hank and Ben working to fix the dire situation. By the way, that's the fed rate that Dr. Bernanke is about to snip.
Multiple views of Joel Shaprio's sculpture 'Untitled' drawn in the sketchbook and tweaked a bit in photoshop. I like the AT-AT Walker-like feel to the overall sketch.
Drawn in the sketchbook while enjoying the MOMA sculpture garden's warm autumn weather. Lamentably I neglected to write down the sculptor's name.
I'm tying the knot in May to my sweet Kristina and am in the midst of some designs for the invites and other assorted design elements. These trees were some tests.
The art director at the Riverfront Times (Sarah Norwood) gave me this assignment last week and the brief I was given was 'goth cruise'. That was all the information I wanted to know. My favorite detail is that the fellow in the lower right corner appears to be wearing a Dracula-style cape. Click on the image for a larger view.
An illustration for the Wall Street Journal Economic Survey.
It's fun to draw other peoples sculptures. These were drawn in my sketchbook and tweaked in Photoshop. To the left is a piece by Herbert Ferber titled 'Homage to Piranesi' and on the right is an untitled sculpture by Joel Shapiro.
the central park variety
A few week back my three older brother and I hiked across the stunning Presidential Range in New Hampshire staying in the AMC huts along the way. The sketchbook drawings above were done in the Lakes of the Clouds common room overlooking the Ammonoosuc Ravine. Each summer my brothers and I try to gather in a nice outdoor location for an 'Art Lodge' in which we begin paintings and drawings and pass them around until each has taken a turn (these will be seen in a future post). Below brothers Phil, James and Stephen take their turns:
Illo for wsj.com regarding fantasy sports and if/when parents should allow their kids to get involved. I think the kid in the stroller here may be headed for trouble.
Click to grow trees
Sketching subway passengers and trees will never grow old for me.
This past Saturday while strolling through Central Park I stopped to draw the rocks and tree above. Later in the weekend a great idea for a children's book dawned on me and I added the elusive creature as a nod to the inspiration.
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I created this illustration for this past week's Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Report. It's been a long bout but according to a bunch of economists, Bernanke has the bear on the ropes. If I were that bear I'd lose the gloves and start utilizing a strategy of claws, paws and fangs.
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A couple sketchbook pages made while wandering the grounds of Rockefeller University.
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With Washington Square park mostly under construction the array of musicians have been squeezed into a denser area. This makes for some quality sketching and as well as some outstanding musicianship. The older gentleman with the saxophone wore a Members Only jacket and operated his instrument with amazing fluidity.
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The lonely yeti surveys his kingdom. These were separate drawings compiled and colored in photoshop. I thought the near-empty sky (with the exception of some owls) would be a good location to place some text at some point.
A few recent pages from the sketchbook.
Recently I was perusing the website of illustrator & mad-genius Roger DeMuth whom I was lucky enough to have as a professor at Syracuse University. There's a great video interview of Roger on his site as well as a ton of his drawings, paintings, pop-ups, sketchbooks, boxes, plantlife etc and I immediately set about some creative output of my own. After I finished the drawing above it slowly dawned on me the DeMuthesque nature of what I'd done and I realized: I was under the influence of Roger.
I recall he gave me some of the best and most frank advice I ever received as I was preparing to graduate. He said "Paul... just go out there and fail." Roger has graciously accepted our offer to do a bit of guest posting on InvisibleMan so you'll see some of his amazing works here soon.
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This is the eighth year of illustrating for the Siren Music Festival and I went with a half land/half sea composition. Props to Jon Keegan for encouraging me to go aquatic. The Creature from the Black Lagoon makes a strong showing this year but then again he does have centuries of passion pent up in his savage heart - so it sort of makes sense. Click on the image for a larger view.
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Testing out a new Lamy pen.
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Recently broke out one of those watercolor sketchbooks that Moleskin make and did a few draintings (just made up that word) of Alaska using GoogleEarth as reference. Volcanoes in the Aleutian islands and the Kenai mountains, rendered with watercolor pencil.
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I made this pattern to use as texture and background for this year's siren illustration which I just completed. The sea hag of my dreams makes an appearance in up there. Congrats also to my fellow invisibleman and invisiblewomen as this marks our 600th post.
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In past years I would get a bit morose come springtime if I hadn't gotten enough snowboarding under the belt. This is not one of those years. From the deep drifts of Utah to the hidden stashes of Vermont's woods it's been a splendid year of riding either solo or with Kristina and Keith. The pattern image at the bottom was part of my entry to this years Salomon board art contest. I didn't have much time to put anything together so I quickly plundered some of the patterns I've been recently working on
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I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts while working on illustrations lately. A great resource for this is LibriVox which features readings of works which are in the public domain. A great one I recently toiled to was The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells which was written in 1897 and is an absolute sci-fi classic.
The image above of The Invisible Man (who is also a co-founder of this website) was done in my sketchbook a while back and tweaked digitally.
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A recent illustration for WSJ.com regarding economists current view of our economic standing. I usually have around 24 hours to turn these illo's around and in this case I wish I had a bit more time to work on the drawing.
Just found out that the great Arthur C. Clarke has passed away. This past fall I came across a dusty and yellowed pile of his books in The Stone Soup Bookstore of Camden Maine. I began to quickly digest his amazing stories and man were they in my wheelhouse. The Times has a great obit. I'd recommend Rendezvous with Rama, Childhood's End or Against the Fall of Night if your interested in a bit of grand sci-fi.
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Here are a couple characters for the Anteism road trip I whuped up. And a couple others.
Recent illo for WSJ.com. There's something rather timid looking about that googly-eyed congress.
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The NY Press is doing a story about a city labor leader who's proposing that vehicles pay double the current rates to enter the city and mass transit made free. So for the cover illustration I created this image of the NYC subway under some Mumbai-esque crowding conditions. Click the image or here for a larger version.
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Last weekend I created this illustration for The Riverfront Times of St. Louis highlighting an article they did about The Clowder House, a local cat retirement home (for when the owner gets too old to care for the kitty). It was fun showing the details like the cat meds, the pajamas, the rubik's cube and the Wii. Click the image to see a larger version.
I've been keeping a small moleskin sketchbook in my pocket to augment my bigger, badder sketchbook. This group was sketched on the NYC subway in recent weeks.
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This is second in a series of pattern-like illustrations I've been working on. This one is based on New York City. The first in the series was based off a ghost story.
This was a quick Wall Street Journal Online illo for an economic forecast survey. Whether our intrepid donkey and doofus elephant are merely navigating some rapids or careening towards a deadly waterfall is the question I guess. I do like that the pachyderm has carelessly lost his paddle.
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It had been a while since my last figure drawing session and thus it was invigorating to draw and paint these images at the Society of Illustrator's Jazz & Sketch this past tuesday. One fellow in front of me was drawing on butcher paper with charcoal and white pencil and I couldn't believe how good he was... humbling.
The fellow on the right is an 89 year old illustrator who was also making some great sketches. I chatted with him briefly as we walked out and he told me how last winter he got a pair of the new fat ski's and how they were really fast. He also lamented that he was just a bit too old to start snowboarding.
I sketched my brother while we were lounging about our parent's home in Pittsburgh a couple days before Christmas. A few days later my girlfriend Kristina and I headed to Utah for a week of snowboarding. While Solitude and Brighton were great mountains we were really taken by the Snowbird resort which you can see a few views of below. Everything I'd heard about Utah being the home of the lightest snow on earth was true.
This past weekend I created this illustration for The Riverfront Times of St. Louis. The paper was highlighting an upcoming lecture by one of the scientists who discovered a diminutive, fossilized skeleton in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores which was dubbed 'The Hobbit'. As for the scientist I was going for the academic version of Indiana Jones. This was a particularly fun job as I'm a bit of a Lord of the Rings nerd. Click the image to see a larger version.
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The easiest subway sketching situation tends to be when commuters are either sleeping or reading. The downside is that your sketchbook fills up with renderings of people with their eyes closed or at best, downcast. Though I find more often then not people get off the train before you complete a sketch and I've got many disembodied ears, eyeglasses and hands floating around the sketchbook to prove it.
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Third in a series of fed-chairman Ben Bernanke drawings for the Wall Street Journal Online. Below is one of the quick sketches which precede the final illo.
"Merry Second-To-Last Christmas" is written on the inside of the card above. It's fun illustrating for the likes of The Onion. Both Christmas cards can be bought here.
I can imagine the kid crying and breaking crayons.
This is another illo created for the Stowe Guide, a magazine in Stowe Vermont. The humorous article deals with the phenomenon referred to as the 'Dude Patch' in which a group of snowboarders move about a mountain in a tightly packed posse. Click the image to view a larger version.
I recently worked on a project for the Wall Street Journal Online which tracked the rate at which the arctic ice cap has melted over the last quarter of a century. Click here to see the astonishing rate of decrease since 1979 - with the past six years or so of particular worry (you may have to turn your popup blocker off for the link to work... sorry). The magenta line is the median ice extent and is an average of where the ice would normally be on September 1st of each year (around 7.5 million sq miles). As you can see above this summer only reached 4.4 million sq miles. The graphic also covers how arctic tourism industry is booming as visitors want to catch of glimpse of the environment before its gone.
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About 10 years ago I did an illustration for the Vermont weekly 'Seven Days' about a couple getting caught in a blizzard while hiking up to the Stone Hut which sits atop Stowe. The hut was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936 and is a special place; perched as it is atop the famous Nose Dive trail. Recently the Stowe Guide contacted me about reusing the art though I recalled having sold the original (pre-computer days: no scan). But I had a few sketches and drawings stored away and thus did a Dr. Frankenstein and stitched, spackled and redrew the drawing above. The original story by David Healy is a great tale and can be read here.
I just finished creating these designs for the Village Voice media kit (the packet they give out to advertisers and clients and such). It was fun working up this subway tile theme, though I underestimated the amount of effort doing all these little tiles would take. I seriously dreamt in tiles for quite a few nights.
As part of the project I also created this logo which adorns the front of the media kit and various other promotions.
A drawing in the sketchbook made of the mountains of northwest Montana as seen through Google Earth.
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I completed this illo of Ben Bernanke earlier today for a Wall Street Journal economic forecast interactive. The spooky atmosphere may be influenced by the Algernon Blackwood book I've been reading as of late.
Growing up my family did lots of camping and the highlight of every trip was always the ghost story told by my father once the fire grew low. He was a master practitioner of the art. I made his always bone-chilling stories the theme of this pattern drawing I just completed. Click the image above for a larger version.
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This is an illustration for the Riverfront Times in St. Louis which highlights three upcoming events: a viewing of Troll 2 (rated worst movie ever by IMDB), a charity foodball game and a sumo and sake event. Click image for a larger version.
A drawing from the sketchbook. Further analysis can be found here.
Lately my thoughts and daydreams have been dominated by snowy hillsides and sliding down them on a snowboard. This has been a bit excruciating since we're here in dog days of summer. I took these photos above while riding at Montana's Big Mountain with my pal Paul Clark (aka Blixie). I hope it snows soon.
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Astro-Gato and Sharky McBeast are two of the six characters I drew for the rad folks at Anteism and their iMyGrate project. For this project Ryan Thompson and friends put out a call for character submissions and are now in the midst of a roadtrip from the Pacific to the Atlantic dispursing these characters along the way. They're going to track the character's destinations and are hoping some will migrate their ways back to their home base of Pender Island B.C. Good luck Astro-Gato and Sharky McBeast, I hope you make some friends along the way.
Some of the lakes and mountains of southern Chile sketched from Google Earth.
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I had a really fun time working up these Harry Potter illustrations for a The Wall Street Journal Online interactive. Click here to see the infographic, complete with floating scrolls (ala the Marauder Map) and animated owls. I haven't read the books but I really dig the films and was very enthused to illustrate within that universe. The entire time I worked on these the Harry Potter theme music was swirling through my head.
And really, I'd be remiss if I didn't address the best feline actor we have today and the true star of the entire Harry Potter series: Crookshanks the Cat. (As you can see from the illustration he is first in line to get his paws on 'The Deathly Hallows'). When I saw the new film 'Order of the Phoenix' and saw the work that Crookshanks had done, the type of cat actor he's become... well, I wept openly.
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A drawings that came out of the sketchbook and then was digitally reworked of various sculptures at MOMA and Rockefeller University, including 'The River' by Aristide Maillol and Herbert Ferber's 'Homage to Piranesi' among others. Click here or on the image to see a larger version.
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More sketching done on the New York subway - the ever fruitful place to draw people who are staring down or sleeping. Click here or on the image to see a larger version.
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Drawings in the sketchbook made over a few days riding various subway lines.
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My moon globe on a wooden pedestal and yet another back-of-the-head drawing.
Drawn in the sketchbook while there was still light.
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This past spring Salomon Snowboards had an artwork contest for some of their 2008 boards. While I didn't come away with the fame and prize money it was fun working up this illustration as an entry. I had a feeling it might be a bit too messy (and perhaps spooky) for their tastes but its a color palette and style I've dug working in lately.
The Queensboro Bridge is undergoing some rehabilitation lately and is partially wearing a Christo-like shroud. The sketch above I drew from York ave and the photo below nearby.
This is an illustration done in flash for a Wall Street Journal Online infographic highlighting the big business behind superhero movie franchises. It was really fun to work up some old friends in a comic book style, though I was lobbying for Hellboy to be in there rather than the ninja turtle. Alas I was overruled. Jon Keegan and Mei Lan Ho-Walker worked on the awesome animation and design aspects of the infographic. Check out the handywork here (Safari's popup-blocker might thwart this link).
I came across these eight guys playing some incredibly tight New Olreans jazz in Washington Sq park a few hours ago. The tuba especially was blowing out.
The artwork for this summer's Siren Music Festival put on by the Voice. I tried to capture the insanity and culturally brackish waters that is Coney Island while keeping the color palette limited to the reds and blues I've liked working with lately. Last summer I took a photo on the boardwalk of a man feeding seagulls frenchfries. He'd just hold them up in the air and the seagull would float down and gulp 'em right out of his fingers. That was partial inspiration for this illo and the moment is recreated right above the siren. Click here or on the image to see a larger version. The date is Sat. July 21st.
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A glacier in the Patagonia region of Argentina. Drawn and painted in the sketchbook.
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Illustration for economic survey which suggested the US Gov pursue alternative energies.
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Having monsterous webbed claws makes it difficult to operate spacecraft.
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One of my favorite themes of The Creature from the Black Lagoon is how the gill-man evolved through time in a lost corner of the Amazon. This savage fellow of the Devonian Age is also utterly girl-crazy and spends much of the film chasing after Julia Adams. So it only made sense to me that given a little time, the Creature would evolve to reach outer-space and continue his lustful pursuits to the far reaches of the galaxy. As a result I created the illustration above and mocked it up to appear as if it were an old sci-fi book cover. I think Michael Chabon should write this book and a subsequent screenplan which could be the sequel to the remake which may or may not come out in 2008.
A sketchbook drawing of the fireplace in my apartment (within which a TV sits). Color and textures were done in photoshop.
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A couple recent illustrations done for WSJ.com's economic forecast survey.
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I made these sketches during the Christmas Eve service at my Dad's church. He's delivered Christmas sermons there for twenty-two years and he'll be retiring in January.
I've done a lot of sketching in church.
I just finished this for Barron's Online for a package titled '007: The Year Ahead. You can almost imagine Richard Keil aka Jaws lurking in the background.
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Above is a watercolor-pencil drawing done in my sketchbook of the Brandberg Massif; a fascinating circular monolith located in eastern Namibia. This Middle-earth like place is known for its ancient rock paintings such as The White Lady, which according to wikipedia is located deep within the mountain. I discovered this place while skiming above Google Earth and have recently realized what a treasure trove of reference material is located within that program. Stay tuned for more from other Invisiblemen/Invisiblewomen.
Download the Google Earth bookmark here:
Down to the last few pages.
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I'd lightly drawn the figures in this drawing a few months back and just recently realized there was more work to be done. I like the idea that little is sacred and one should feel free to rework or cannabalize past efforts when the time comes.
Click here or the image above to view a larger version.
Citizens reading or sleeping; thats what 75% of my sketchbook drawings are.
On another musical tip, the new Califone album is a damn fine piece of work. You can stream their new album "Roots & Crowns" here. Check the tunes like '3 Legged Animals' and 'The Orchids'... quality.
As Halloween nears we must all be vigilant against the horrible, fang-laden Chupacabra. Watch the Chup's 3rd cousin the Werewolf cavort in this video by TV on the Radio (and my favorite tune of the year so far).
Twelve recent pages from the sketchbook. Many of these drawings were culled from the subway as well as Tomkins Sq. Park. In non-illustrative news the new Bonnie 'Prince' Billy album "The Letting Go" is really something... it comes highly recommended out the the InvisibleMan West Village Bureau.
A birthday drawing for my girlfriend Kristina.
A collection of some of the recent economic forecast illustrations I've done for wsj.com - note the recurring housing theme.
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Sights from the #1 and F trains.
I've been trying out some watercolor-pencils in the sketchbook lately which has been pretty satisfying; especially when augmented with some Old Holland watercolor paint. The sketch above is of my brother Steve lounging in Maine.
Sketches from the Red Cottage of mid-coastal Maine, an ensorcelled world of hidden beavers, lonely loons, vain turtles and buoys; all lurking in the shadows of the Ragged Mountain.
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A few nights before Christmas in 2002 I had the great fortune to see Arthur Lee and his band Love perform at Brookyn's Warsaw. They tore headlong through 21 songs, including the entirety of Love's brilliant album Forever Changes. Arthur had recently been freed from a 6 year prison sentence due to an erroneous gun charge and the lost time seemed to have instilled a burning intensity within him. It seemed like he wanted to keep playing untill dawn. A couple years after that show he was diagnosed with leukaemia and it ended his life yesterday in Memphis. It was very sad hearing the news and I remembered seeing that battered legend blowing the place out on a cold Brooklyn night. Here's an ancient clip of Love performing on Dick Clarke's show.
RIP Arthur. Recent sketches above.
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My InvisibleBrother James and I recently did some camping/drawing/hiking/wave-riding in the Watch Hill area of Fire Island. Located on the western edge of the Otis Pike High Dune Wilderness it's an amazing and uncrowded spot within 2 hours of New York City.
The above rendering is for this week's Village Voice illustrating an upcoming screening of Jaws at Pier 54 on Manhattan's west side. For a shark enthusiast like myself, this sort of illo job is akin to your Alma Mater winning the NCAA basketball championship or perhaps bearing witness to a the elusive Yeti; something you hope for but don't necessarily expect.
Above are a couple pages from the sketchbook... some scenes drawn from Wash sq. park and my brother playing guitar. Below are some pics from saturday's Siren Music Festival which was great fun on a beautiful summer day. Dirty on Purpose were the musical highlight of the day for me however I caught great sets by Serena Maneesh, Art Brut, the Cribs and Tapes and Tapes. It was also pretty cool to see an illustration I made printed 25ft tall (upper left photo).
In a previous post I'd mentioned how I had a dream about a decrepit old shark, covered in plants and moss. I thought I'd turn that into an illustration while also applying more watercolor to the drawing before doing the photoshop compilation.
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The folks at The Art Bureau have been kind enough to show some of my work in their online gallery: www.theartbureau.org. I created the piece above for a black and white numeric calendar they're putting together, which by the way has a few available spots if any illustrators or designers out there are interested.
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As friends know I'm a bit of a shark enthusiast. The other evening I drew a variety of the shark-related objects I own - most of them of the rubber, squeaky-toy variety. That evening I dreamt of a decrepit old shark swimming about, covered in moss and plants (along the lines of a chia-pet). Anyway, I made a few color versions and ultimately created this image to use in this year's Siren Music Festival guide.
After a great, steep hike down into the aforementioned Grand Canyon of PA I sketched these mossy banks of the Pine Creek.
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Last weekend my three older brothers, Stephen, Phil, James and I gathered at a cabin near the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania (I know, you've never heard of the place). It's a beautiful, mountainous region where we fished, hiked and drew pictures. Before grilling up some tasty shish-ka-bobs we sat on the porch and each brother spent 4 minutes working on a drawing. After 4 minutes we'd pass around the art until everyone had worked on it. Its's always a fun and fascinating experience doing art lodges and you can see some of our results above.
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I submitted a tee shirt design called Mountain to Threadless.com to be voted on and hopefully printed. If I get enough high scores the shirt will be printed and sold from the site and I will win some stuff. Take a look at it and if you like it, sign up and give it a score: Mountain Shirt Design -- Thanks!
While feeling under the weather the last few days I made this Glowing Moose Head illustration combining pencil, sepia ink, and photoshop. It's inspired by a photo I took last summer in Maine.
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Last weekend Invisiblemen Jon Keegan, James Antonson and myself gathered at the Brooklyn headquaters for some silkscreening. We created a couple designs based off of the logo and got to work preparing the screens and designs for printing. Here's a link to a silkscreening process guide that Jon previously posted. We hope to be selling InvisibleMan t-shirts soon.
After toiling on t-shirts for hours we focused our attention on Brooklyn's greatest bar which due to the looming basketball stadium is not long for this earth: Freddy's Backroom.
Central Park dairy house, Wash Sq Park fountain and the boathouse in Prospect Park.
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About a month back my bro Jamie and I were sitting in the dining car of an Amtrak train on route to Pittsburgh. There was a handlebar-mustachioed Amtrak employee (right) doing some paperwork across the way and I took the opportunity to do a quick sketch and watercolor.
Right as I was finishing up, a second Amtrak employee asked me if I'd gotten permission to draw him. I told him no, I never asked people if I could sketch them. He said if I were in south Philly and someone caught me sketching them, a beat-down would ensue.
A few years back Stephen Antonson, Jon Keegan and I created this video. Then James Antonson and Patrick Macintosh supplied the music resulting in this piece.
Chance Griswold is an anagram for Clown Discharge which nicely illustrates the nature of the video:
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Talking about the 1, 4, 6 and F trains... Washington Square, respectively.
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This past Saturday was "Hands on New York Day" with the volunteer organization New York Cares. Along with the Manhattan Young Democrats and my girlfriend Kristina we had fun painting murals at the Bronx Leadership Academy. Someone had lightly sketched out the Moby Dick image and we came along and painted it in. New York Cares provides volunteer support to schools and parks in the five boroughs and is a worthy group to help out with.
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Yet more for the Flavorpill folks. The woods were drawn in Prospect Park and the horn player in Washington Sq. Park.
This is a portrait of George Orwell - and an example of taking a previous sketch and doing more with color.
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More work for Flavorpill. Tourists and trees.
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I've recently created some graphic works for Flavorpill. I took it as an opportunity to play around with different stlyes and take older projects and sketches and breathe new life into them. The city vs nature theme has crept in there as the image above can attest.
For this illo I wanted to give the feel of a graffiti wall of the sort you might find in Soho, with layers of paint, paste-ups and stickers. Also wanted to make it very cropable.
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The Village Voice is having a giveaway for this Gibson Les Paul guitar. Gracing the surface of this guitar is the 3 headed Siren girl who I've been illustrating for the Voice for the last 6 years. This drawing was actually from the first year of the Siren Music Festival. Feel free to enter to win the guitar here.
Here's the poster/ad art I've come with for this year's Siren Festival in Coney Island. Click here or on the image to see a larger version. I'd initially come up with a blue/red/purple color scheme but after I began the color temperature felt too cool for this setting, so I added lots of yellow. Because Dave Bias designs a variety of ads and posters for the Voice at different sizes I gave him the final art with the Siren and her magic swirl on separate layers. The big open space to the left of the Siren will facilitate the names of the bands playing the fest. And yes, that is John "Stumpy" Pepys (Ed Begley Jr.) from Spinal Tap playing the drums by the big wave.
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Some recent bits from the sketchbook; subway riders, post-snowboarding doodling and a rendering of InvisibleMan's founding father.
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Last week I created this illo for The Wall Street Journal Online of the new Fed chairman Ben Bernanke trying to impress upon reporters and economist's what kind of tough chairman he'll be.
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Making custom photoshop brushes has become habit forming.
Here's some sketches and color studies done in my awesome new sketchbook which Keegan constructed for me. The paper is not too thin, yet takes pencil, ink and watercolor really well.
Comments (1) - Link to this post | TrackBacks (0)Caught the Pixar show at Moma today with Keegan and it was pretty mind-blowing (more on that later). First thing I did when I got home was to refine my photoshop settings and create some custom photoshop brushes - which I'd forgotten was quite easy: [select object within 999x999 pixels and go to 'Define Brush Preset' under Edit]. Below was my test sheet.
I always try to use photo reference when working on an illo. If the situation calls for drawing a recognizable person I like to build a photoshop collage; maybe shoot seperate reference photos for the pose or incoporate parts of a sketch. The example above was an illo I did for wsj.com... a portrayal of the Worst President Ever.
A color study and sketch for the upcoming Siren Festival art.
Some of the greats which came to my attention last year - starting with 3 great albums:
Matisyahu: Live at Stubb's- This hasidic reggae/dancehall artist from Crown Heights is no novelty act. This live album showcases his powerful backing band and a rapid-fire yet soulful voice.
Oranger: New Comes and Goes- Strong 4th album from this Californian outfit ... Radio Wave has been one of my favorite songs of this past year.
Dungen: Ta Det Lugnt- Swedish Psych/Folk/Rock which sounds like it was pryed from an early seventies time capsule. Brother J and I caught them at the Bowery Ballroom and they were damn impressive.
Orson's Shadow- A play showing at the Barrow St. Theater in Greenwich Village. A great true story about the dueling egos of Orson Wells and Lawrence Olivier.
Good Night Good Luck- David Strathairn puts in an incredible performance in this important film.
Cloud Atlas- As Keegan and Kerry could attest - an engrossing, genre-jumping novel.
Superman The Movie- My favorite rediscovered movie of the past year.
On the left is a detail of a drawing I slapdashedly made while crossing Pennsylvania on a train this past week; just quickly sketching whatever I caught a glimpse of. To the right is a drawing/watercolor of a nice geezer who was sitting ahead of me. For anyone whose sketched much on trains, this over-the-shoulder pose should look familiar.
Click the picture for the full version of the ink drawing.
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It's always nice fleeing the city to break bird with the family; crossing the Pennsylvania landscape along the train tracks.
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I've been playing around with tree-hugger imagery such as this; emphasizing textures and silhousettes.
A couple nights ago I caught Jeff Tweedy perform in Tribeca with my brother/invisibleman/superpal Jamie. Percussionist and wilco drummer Glenn Kotche opened the show and joined Mr. Tweedy and Jim O'Rourke for a short encore set (those 3 form the band/sideproject Loose Fur). They played a tune about a crack-smoking, sidewalk-surfing messiah and it was an all around amazing show.
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A follow up here to Keegan's post... it was beers, bongos and bohemia on east 63rd st. Being the mecca for illustrators, its an inspiring place to hang out.
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Break out the black light for optimal viewing.
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Via kottke.org I came across a video in which a small group of Hornets attack and destroy a colony of honeybees. An amazing scene which stuck in my head and caused the drawing above. View the video here.
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A drawing from the last page of my moleskin sketchbook - influenced by a Johnny Cash song and a so-so Polanski film with Johnny Depp as a rare book dealer who's chummy with ~gulp~ Satan.
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Woman reading a magazine article entitled 'Celebrity Feuds'/Jazz musician in Washington Sq. Park
We ate two delicious chickens.
I've been working on a children's book for a while, a story about a family camping trip and a furry beast lurking in the woods. Recently I finished up the drawings and the manuscript and started thinking about how to create the mockup to show to publishers (I've made these mockups in the past with a previous story - think glue-sticks and kinkos trips). I was pondering how to go about presenting my new story when I stumbled across the booklets Apple will printout from within iPhoto:
This is the kind of drawing/painting one does after looking at Pieter Bruegel the Elder
drawings for a few days. I'm really hoping this is the week Rove gets frog-marched out of the White House... maybe he'll be forced to hop if the authorities supplement his departure with ankle-cuffs.
This image isn't as dynamic as the sketch in which the horses were galloping. Here they're doing more of a mosey. After seeing it scanned in I realize I still need to improve some of the line work and shadows.
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Here's a quick color study of a drawing I may work up of Bush and his cronies riding the Four Horses of the Apocalypse. There would be Rove in prison stipes, skeletor-Rumsfeld, a cardiac-arresting Cheney and the naked idiot-emperor.
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While in Maine this past week, my brothers Stephen, Jamie and I each did mutliple drawings/paintings of a piece of driftwood. The drawing above came from the sketchbook. The images below are from some of the photography/video sessions we managed between swimming, hiking, canoeing and exploring the woods w nephew Finn.
I've justed turned in this illo which will be promoting the Village Voice's 'Best of New York' issue which comes out in October. My main concern at the moment is whether the lower portion of the art is printing too dark - darker and more saturated than on my monitor anyway... I may have to tweak that. The architecture is mostly a blend of Chinatown, Soho, Lower east side, the East and West Village. Here's a few details:
It is both my personal and professional opinion that the snowboard may be mankind's greatest invention. My brother Phil owned a Snurfer back in the mid-eighties and we used to bomb the woods behind my parents house when there were 2 inches of snow on the ground. So as a tribute to the snurfer, the new INVISIBLE MAN redesign (thanks Jon) and my ongoing obsession with sharks and waves... I present the graphics I would put on a snowboard if someone were to hire me to do such a thing.
A few icons whupped up for the Gelf Magazine gang. Gelf contributor Keith Huang recently had a good write-up about the comedy troupe The Hollow Men.
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I've proposed these designs to the folks at the Voice for this year's SirenFest t-shirt art. I'm not sure if they'll end up going with these colors but it would be cool to see something along these lines. They'll be sold at the festival and on the Voice's site afterward.
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The subway is still one of my favorite spots to draw people. Though as Kerry O'Neil has mentioned - you often end up with images of people sleeping and reading. Also pictured is an acrylic fingerpainting from the moleskine sketchbook - which reminds me of similarly colored painting my brother Stephen did when he was 3.
Link to this postI made these drawing/paintings for my niece and nephew (Ella and Jack) who live in Pittsburgh. The poses are from characters in the siren drawing.
Also viewed some great work at the Greater New York 2005 show at PS1 this weekend.
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Playing around with some logos... the fat cats at Invisible Man HQ are always clamoring for brand identification.
In an unrelated note, the Diane Arbus show at the Met comes highly recommended from those aforementioned honchos.
Comments (1) - Link to this postI made this illo for my cousin Ethan's wedding invitation. The reflection in the water is drawn from a photo they'd sent me of them as snuggling 5 year olds. They live in Colorado and Libby is related to Mark Hamill -- you read that right - Luke Skywalker himself. It's high time an Antonson wed into intergalactic royalty.
Yes! I've beaten Jon Keegan to the post (I've garnered information that he's finished an illo and will also be posting). Anyway - here's the illo for this years Siren Music Festival. click the image for a larger view.
I was full of dread the whole time I worked on this... never felt like it was going to work out. Luckily the radio program 'This American Life' kept me going - truly an outstanding show... Check it:
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"Break out the rocket-belts while I go through Dr. Norman's notebooks!"
A phrase exclaimed by Dr. Quest in the Adventures of Jonny Quest episode #20 The Invisible Monster. It immediately brought to mind Wes Anderson's 'A Life Aquatic' when Alistair Hennessey says something like "Fetch me my elephant gun and fill it with buckshot!"
Continue reading "The Adventures of Jonny Quest"
sunny morning in the fountain
Link to this post | TrackBacks (0)This is an audio-visual representation of a sad yet all too common story: A robot that falls in love with the sea, only to have the high salt-content of the water render it a hopeless reverie. The shark-tooth punctures to it's exo-skeleton does not help the matter much either. Audio by James Antonson.
Another little movie here mixing more super-cool music by James Antonson and some photos I've taken. This one has sort of a Sci-Fi theme (I'd had a star-warsy scrawl at the end but it needed to be removed as the humor had waned). These are good warms up for the next looming (and frightening) Delroy Owens Poet Engineers project.
sci-fi
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The cable network Boomerang has recently been airing episodes of the show Challenenge of the Superfriends which originally aired in 1978-1979. I can still recall the anticipation I had on saturday morning as 7:30 approached and the best half hour of the week would ensue (and the feeling of despondency when all that goodness was over). The villians were so badass: Black Manta, Lex Luthor, Gorilla Grodd, Bizarro and the Priscilla Rich - The Cheetah! who I had an early crush on (see picture - hubba hubba). The plots of the episodes were completely far out as well. Seeing some of these episodes I realize now how influential they were to my young mind.
Check out Jamie's new site:
http://www.jamesantonson.com/
