I’m working on a series of illustrations this week for US News & World Report. Here’s one of them in progress as seen from a Keegan’s-eye-view. I’m always amazed at the sensation of working on a high-resolution image at 100% on my 23″ Cinema Display. Based on this 300dpi piece of artwork, the size on my screen is the equivalent of working on a detail of a drawing that is 5 1/2″ feet tall! I cannot wait until we have drafting table-sized displays, that we can lean on…and draw directly upon…and spill our coffee upon…
Click to see a detail at 100%.

I drew President Jackson upside-down. Click above for a larger view.

New York Magazine has published a holiday shopping map of Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue carefully compiled and playfully penned by MY invisibile woman, Corrie Pikul. The map is accompanied with wonderful illustrations by Steve Murray. Although his website does not reveal much (or even confirm that it’s the same guy) it appears that this Steve Murray contributes to a illustration and design blog very similar to our own. Check out the shopping then check out the sites. If you do end up buying gifts in the stores mentioned, please say you saw the piece in NY Magazine. Then maybe they’ll give Corrie some free stuff!

* it is so hard to photograph books… but here’s my somewhat distorted solution 🙂
* this is my 30th “official” sketchbook since starting count in 1995. the cover uses imagery inspired by my “5 senses” prints. for this image i just played around with the images on silkscreens and i only “registered” where i wanted to.
* the binding is a coptic binding / single needle link stitch.
* for the inside pages, i used a variety of graph papers as well as some english and japanese alphabet practice paper.

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.

Above is a cityscape I am currently working on. Like my landscapes, all work has been done on site using my travel easel. Weather permitting I hope to enjoy (at least) one more session outdoors before having to head into the studio. Once inside I’ll rely on digital photographs in order to put final touches on the painting. I’ll keep you posted on it’s progress and post a final pic once I am through.

It’s always nice fleeing the city to break bird with the family; crossing the Pennsylvania landscape along the train tracks.

One of the things on my to do list the past few weeks (umm…years?) has been to make some of my own sketchbooks with all of the nice paper I had imported from London’s Faulkiner Fine Papers. They used to sell the BEST sketchbooks, the “Rivoli”, when I studied in London back in the early 90’s. At some point, the fellow who made them went out of business, and they haven’t been seen since.
My efforts to recreate the glory of these sketchbooks have been mocked for years…But now that I have been schooled in the foundations of flatback case bookbinding (Thanks Nancy Loeber & CBA!), and I am in possession of a large stock of Rives’ “Artist” paper (the successor to the famed Rivoli paper used in Falkiner’s sketchbooks), the moment is soon approaching.
I am making a batch of these sketchbooks, as kind of a “beta” release to see how they hold up in the field. I’m reasonably sure that I screwed all of these up to a certain degree by gauging the paper grain’s direction wrong. Any errors in these sketchbooks will be corrected in future versions!
These books currently consist of a series of signatures of paper stitched togerther (Herringbone stitch), with the endpapers and book-cloth hinges sewn on. The next crucial step is a meeting with the mighty and unforgiving guillotine at CBA, where they will all be chopped into neat, flush proto-books. Then I need to build their cases with binder’s board and cover them with bookcloth. Then these neatly chopped text blocks will then be glued into their cases, ready for finishing.
I was quite delighted to see so many posts late on a Saturday night, that I had to post a shot of these books in their naked, pre-case state. When importing the photos, I thought it wise to make an alternating “poor-man’s-3D” view of the books, as I am fairly drunk after returning from a neighbor’s fun party. Enjoy.