Here are some recent entries from my Art of the Day series, in which I post something I’ve drawn that day – whether it’s a toss-off doodle, a finished piece, or a work in progress. This batch includes some of the tiny, 2.5×3.5″ watercolor paintings I occasionally bring to conventions – always a fun little design challenge.
Central, from the video game Invisible Inc.
My dear, departed bulldog used to glower at me after a scolding.
Baryshnikov.
I post art on Twitter almost every day; whether it’s a screenshot of a work in progress, a doodle made just for the purpose, or just something I spot in a pile on my drafting table. Here are a few of my favorites from recent weeks!
This year I had the honor of being included in the wee funny pages booklet that was part of Cards Against Humanity‘s Advent calendar package. A dozen cartoonists were asked to submit a standalone, one-page comic, possibly Christmas-themed. My editor was the lovely Rich Stevens.
Rich suggested I do something with the little skeletons from Danse Macabre 2.0! I liked the idea of combining wee rotting corpses with a warm holiday message. Here’s my contribution. (Click it to see it full-size.)
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of providing illustrations for a personal essay in Oregon Humanities Magazine, written by Dionisia Morales.
The article (“Picture Their Hearts”) discusses the author’s parents’ mixed-race marriage in 1950’s America, her experiences growing up biracial in a family that didn’t talk much on the subject of race and identity, and recounts adult conversations with her now elderly (but still reluctant) mother.
The story opens with descriptions of her parents’ honeymoon photo album.The challenges in this assignment involved making the images relatable without being too specific – the author didn’t want any of her actual family portraits to be referenced.
The art director thought that a comics-inflected set of illustrations would keep the material from feeling too clinical or academic (I also created several word balloons for pull quotes).
I ended up suggesting the presence of photos as much as possible while keeping faces not entirely in-view (with the exception of President Obama, whose public image I thought formed an interesting contrast to the “hidden” visual world of the family.)
I had a great time illustrating this really intimate and thought-provoking story. Many thanks to AD Jen Wick at Oregon Humanities!
Here’s one of the most fun illustration gigs I’ve ever gotten! Ryan North, the Mad Genius of Canada, recently produced To Be Or Not To Be, his choosable-path-adventure version of Hamlet (now with dinosaurs!). Every possible ending is illustrated in full-color by one of several dozens of cartoonists. I love Hamlet in every possible way, so the mere existence of this project was a delight to me. Getting to participate made it 500% better.
I’ll let you order the book and figure out the exact ending my illustration accompanies, but suffice to say I got to design Hamlet’s bedroom. (I am particularly fond of the “Yay Fencing” poster and the 20-sided die.)