This is another illo for Publisher’s Weekly ‘Soapbox’ column (thanks for the steady work Clive!). The author, Mary Murphy writes about Jessica Seinfeld’s book, “Deceptively Delicious”. Seinfeld’s book gives tips for busy parents on how to sneak pureed veggies into kid-friendly dishes, without them detecting the spinach you’ve surreptitiously included in the brownies. Murphy writes about how the culinary deception wasn’t so successful with her kids.

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.

watercolor and graphic on paper

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.

The timing of this illustration was uncanny. This fun story story was about Blackberry etiquette, for Las Vegas Life magazine. I had just become a proud iPhone owner a few days before receiving the job, and I was very much under the influence of the glowing little computer in my pocket. Having never had any kind of Blackberry-like device, it took a little getting used to the idea that I was so connected all of a sudden. As chance would have it, I received the email for this job on my shiny new gadget, and was able to reply and accept the assignment immediately. This was all while stuck in traffic on the F.D.R. (though I suppose this is a violation not just of etiquette but several laws as well).
It’s fair to say I have been gushing about this thing for weeks now, but it’s worth noting that the iPhone isn’t just helpful in GETTING the jobs, but also in executing them. The camera makes quick reference shots very easy, and the screen is big enough to hold in your hand while you draw…much better than running over to the computer, importing the image, printing it out, etc. And having a hand-held Google image search in your hand is only a good thing for the busy illustrator! One of the first things I did was load up all of my illustrations form my website into the photo viewing app, and now I have a bright, crisp, flickable, pinchable, zoomable portfolio of my work with me wherever I go. Sweet!
Now if it only had a drawing program…
(Click on the image for a larger version)

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.

Illustration for a holiday card

Here’s a bunch of drawings that I had fun doing for a new client, Read Magazine (published by Reader’s Digest). The story, titled “Twist of Fate” by Steven Frank is about a teenage girl that ends up spending a weekend in the library’s rare books room reading a dusty old first edition of Dickens’ “Oliver Twist”, to avoid flunking a class. She snoozes off and finds herself magically transported into the story, and interacting with all of the characters. The only way home is to write herself out of the story, Dickens himself tells her. The sequence of the drawings is clockwise from the top left image.
Click on the image for a larger version.

“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.