I recently completed this batch of fun illustrations for Orange Coast Magazine out in Orange County, California. These were for the magazine’s summer beach guide, and the series of articles offered lots of tips for how to achieve “Beach Bliss”, such as:

• proper surfing etiquette
• how to score a fire pit
• how to ensure parking karma
• how to change at your car
• how to deal with dirty beach bathrooms

The lifeguard drawing ran with an open letter from a lifeguard to parents about some of the things to keep in mind when bringing your kids to the beach. Art direction by Mindy Benham.

This illustration ran in The New York Times on Sunday, February 21, 2010. The article (written by Steven McElroy ) describes various strategies that theater directors are employing to try and curb the persistent problem of audience members’ cellphones ringing during performances.

With the explosion in popularity of social networking such as Facebook and Twitter, it’s important to make sure your portfolio site and it’s individual pages can easily be shared and discovered by your obsessed fans.
Nate Williams of Illustration Mundo has been an avid supporter of embracing these social networking sites, and has added fields on the user pages for Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz and Flickr accounts to be listed.
People are sharing so much great content with their friends and colleagues, you will be missing out on a huge opportunity if you don’t make sure you have a way of getting your art out there.

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This article for Time Out Chicago by Jason A. Heidemann was part of a package looking back at the history of Chicago’s Second City legendary comedy ensemble as it celebrates it’s 50th anniversary this year. While many of the group’s alumni have gone on to become legends of comedy, just as many went on to live less famous lives (This is a slightly different version than the one that ran in the magazine). Art direction by Mike Novak.
Click on the above image for a larger view.
You can see more of my work for Time Out Chicago here.

This illustration ran in The New York Times on October 25th on the cover of the Metro section (New York edition). The essay by Alana Joblin Ain describes her experience being suspended from shopping at the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn, NY after falling behind on her required work requirement. The Co-op has a reputation for high quality local organic foods, at great prices. However the author of this essay highlights some of the difficulties in keeping up your end of the membership bargain, and the shameful consequences that follow.
Read on to see the accompanying spots and how it looked in print…

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Here’s a sample image from my Muggmaker poster generator which I’m currently developing.
I’m randomly generating thousands of high-resolution Muggs, which are first passed through a Photoshop action to silhouette them against an alpha channel. Then an PHP script generates a high-resolution file of the Muggs composed in an overlapping crowd, according to the size of the print you want.
I plan on offering unique prints for sale that have your Mugg hidden in the crowd somewhere. No two prints will be alike!
I think I will also have to make some repeating patterns of a crowd like this to make some custom fabric at Spoonflower.

Here’s two more time-lapse sketches I created on my iPhone using the fabulous Brushes app. One more after the jump…

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Here’s an illo for The New York Times that I busted out last week for their Sunday regional section. Since I recently became a huge fan of “Top Chef”, I was excited to illustrate Jodi Rudoren’s fun essay on how there ought to be a “Home Cooks” edition of the popular cooking show. Quickfire and elimination challenges that would make the TV contestants wither go on every day in a house full of hungry family members. Note the Dad playing the part of the poor-man’s Tom Colicchio at the dinner table. Art direction by the always-pleasant Richard Weigand.
You can see more of my work for The New York Times here.

Here’s an illustration for The New York Times Sunday regional editions. As another new year begins, a grandmother reflects upon her past New Year’s Eves and how they changed as her family grew. Art direction by the gracious Richard Weigand. Happy New Years everyone!

I’m teaching my first illustration class at Pratt Institute’s Associate Degree Program this fall, and I’m having a fun time trying to get my students excited about the illustration biz.
One of the things I knew I wanted to do right away, was to arrange some video chat interviews with illustrators in their studios. Our own Stuart Kolakovic was my first willing guinea pig, and agreed to be interviewed over Skype.
I was able to record the audio of the interview on my iPhone, but I do apologize for the crummy quality. I cleaned it up some, so it’s decent enough to hear everything. Please ignore my honking guffaws, which are way too loud. I pledge to use higher production quality next time.
Thanks for helping me out Stu!