Valentimes

For my honey!

Sabriel Sketches

I'm in the middle of several illustrations, but I managed to sneak some sketches of Touchstone and Sabriel in preparation for my Picture Book Report project!
Sabriel of course is copyright Garth Nix.

So, Sabriel is supposed to be 18, with pale skin and black hair "fashionably bobbed". In most Sabriel illustrations, including the lovely cover, her hair is long, which always confused me a bit. She comes from a 1920's-ish world (and goes into a medievalish one), so I tried to reflect some of that in her hairstyle. She's strong and competent all-around (but with youthful naivete), so I always pictured her relatively pretty but not super-feminine.
Sabriel was pretty easy to get off the bat, but Touchstone was much harder...he ends up being her traveling companion from the Old Kingdom, and seems to be in his twenties. He is fairly serious and careworn and I had a tough time trying to make him look rough around the edges and not too pretty, but still a handsome young man. (Sam Worthington ended up being one of my references) I'm kind of proud of his hair. It's tough to make "short tightly curled hair" look good and not look like this...

...so I think I did okay. :) (sorry Justin, you look much better now!)

DUBPOST: Sabriel Book Plate & Runner's World!

Hey Everyone!
My Bookplate/Bio/Explanation is up on at the Picturebookreport.com! I was the last one, so you can check out everyone else's awesome bookplates & info there too! The first illustrations start rolling in next week, so check back!
addendum: For those of you who have read Sabriel, that fiery guy in the back is the Mordicant, with a lemon tree from the Inn of 3 Lemons & Mogget with a view of the aquaduct from the ocean.

And for something totally different....here's my illustration in the Jan/Feb Runner's world! It was for an article talking about the benefits the author has found about using a treadmill (watching her daughter, avoiding bad weather).
It went through some different revisions, but I'm happy with the result. Enjoy!

Sketches, alternate color:

And the layout!

Picture Book Report & BONUS PRIZE!

Hey everybody!
FIRST I've got some big news! I'm psyched to be a part of the Picture Book Report!
Please take a look!

We're a group of illustrators, each choosing a book of our choice, which we will create illustrations for throughout the year. That's 12 illustrations per illustrator (once a month), with 15 talented illustrators participating! How can you go wrong??!
Posting with me will be Meg Hunt, Will Bryant, Daniel Krall, Andrea Kalfas, Sam Bosma, Israel Sanchez, Jeremy Sorese, John Martz, Julia Somni Heglund, Laura Park, Lizzy Stewart, Phil McAndrew, Patrick Murphy, and S.Britt.

The bookplates and info for Meg Hunt, Will Bryant, and Sam Bosma are currently up on the site. Meg will be periodically updating the site this week with the everyone else's bios and bookplates (including mine), so check back! The first final illustrations start rolling in next week! It's gonna be great.
Here's a teeny tiny sneek peek of part of my bookplate for Sabriel, my book of choice:


Visit again at the end of the week to see the full thing!

And now for the bonus prize: THE TRIUMPH OF OPTIMISM!
Pretty epic title, right? It was the header of an article for Los Angeles Confidential I had the pleasure of illustrating. The article was all about seeing the good in bad things--a mindset I am constantly striving to emulate. So, yay! Here we go sketches:

And the final, trying out a slightly different technique:

The Cleve

A while back I got a job from Cleveland Magazine for a holiday section on philanthropy in Cleveland...I had done a philanthropy illustration before for Air Tran, but this time it was supposed to be Cleveland-specific. I had a good time looking up Cleveland landmarks (Terminal Tower is rather ominously named) and watching the 30 Rock "Cleveland" episode ("If the whole world moved to their favorite vacation spots, then the whole world would live in Hawaii, Italy, and Cleveland").

Here's the 2 second-stage sketches we settled on:

And the final spots:

And the final layout of the first page!

"Buyer's Remorse"

Hey everyone, I hope you had a good new year! This is a little after the holidays, but I think everyone has had the experience of trying to find a good present for their significant other...This article for Michigan Avenue Magazine (Chicago shout out y'all!) is about the difficulties and pitfalls of shopping for your wife, from a man's point of view.

My AD, Amy Petriello, had the idea of a caveman/hunter looking bewildered in the women's section, so I came up with a couple sketches....


And the final layout!


I've got a big backlog of stuff to share, so more this week I think!

Master Plan!

So this assignment was for Air Tran GO!, Air Tran’s inflight magazine. They are one of my oldest clients, and they’ve been great about letting me get creative and take some chances with my work. This piece is one of my new favorites, because I got to just go crazy with it and they even let me design the title! Great fun.

These were the sketches:


And here is my original image!


For those who know me, you know I love art deco...for this I was trying to channel that "stylized industrial" feel. My style sort of changes depending on what type of assignment I get, and I felt the one I chose worked really well here. Here's hoping for more good fits in the future!

thanks to my Designer Elsie Aldahondo and AD Shane Luitjens!