Adam McCauley

Make More Art in 2009

2008-12-31T21:21:05+00:00

The Entropy of the Medium

2008-12-10T05:22:22+00:00

As artists, we all spend much of our lives developing our medium. The proper term, from what I know, is our (fr.) "metiere". For those here smart enough to stick to the basics- pen and paper, pencil, acrylic/oil paint - I commend you. Like when you learn an instrument you pick something small and easily transportable, yet full of potential for your vocabulary - like a ukulele. Not a drum kit, or a grand piano, or a harp.

Well, I picked drums.

As for the visuals, I've spent many years developing and combining media to come to my method of creating my own "final art". About sixteen years ago I came to the perfect blend of media; scratch board, liquid acrylic paint on w/c paper, and the xerox machine. It's done well for me, and although I've been protective of my process due to some imitators, it's not rocket science to figure out how I produce my work.

This said, entropy has been chipping away at my technique from the moment I crossed it's t's and dotted it's i's. As the laws of physics state, entropy is the ruling force in the universe.

The first signs came about eight years ago, when the liquid acrylic paint I'd grown accustomed to using - made by Rotring- all of the sudden; overnight, actually; became hard to find. A few inquiries educated me to the fact of it's discontinuation. I started snatching it up whenever I was fortunate to find it in art supply stores. When that dried up, I began buying the one alternative brand that was available - FW - absolutely inferior. Finally I was searching Ebay. I lucked out and purchased a lifetime supply from a guy on the internets who had an odd yet thoroughly complete leftover lot.

Next came the scratch board. Becoming an ever more arcane medium, it seems that only one or two companies are making it anymore, and it's going down in quality even as it goes up in price. Yes, I could make my own - but who the hell has the time?? This ain't the era of Michelangelo grinding his own pigments, it's the era of texting your grocery list to your wife while you're stuck on the freeway! When I'm lucky enough to find an available batch, I buy it, but I'm no fool; the days are numbered as to it's availability.

More recently, it's the X-acto blade I've grown accustomed to use. No.19, the best for me to scratch away on scratch board with. Usually I have a drawer full of these on hand. Recently I found my supply was empty, so I went to the store to pick up more. "We're all out" they told me, "and it's been discontinued". After spending the remaining afternoon driving to every store in town with no success, I found a place online and bought their remaining stock. 50 blades left now.

Earlier this year, the final nail arrived in the old coffin: my beloved Xerox 5314 copier had been showing signs of cancer. I'd been pretending it was just specks on the glass that would wipe off. They didn't. In fact the copies were beginning to look awful and causing me some serious stress, not to mention a lot of extra work to deal with. There were two things in the manual that said should fix the problem: change the toner and change the copy cartridge.

I tracked down a new copy cartridge on Ebay ($150) and put it in. No luck. Shitty copies, jobs due. I replaced the toner. Same shitty copies. Many calls to Xerox, searches on the internet: I'm screwed. Copiers are now 100% digital and no one works on these machines anymore. Anywhere.

Just when I started feeling like I'm a dying breed, I found World of Fax. These guys, in upstate New York, are amazing. Not only do they maintain a complete inventory of parts for hundreds of random and semi-arcane copy machines and fax machines, but they help you figure out your problem and fix it. All via fax (of course) and over the phone.

They pin pointed the two parts that needed replacement, which I promptly ordered, and guided me over the phone as I operated on my machine. Furthermore, they guided me through the precarious act of cleaning the three prism mirrors deep in the bowels of the machine in order to sharpen the copy quality. The result? Back to business. Sort of. There are still less than ideal problems with the copy quality.

Ironically, it seems the art supply business is forcing out commercial artists. Either you're a student and you work with sub-par materials, or you're a crafts person and spend hours making surfaces that used to be manufactured. You become an acrylic or oil painter, or, you go 100% digital.

I want to look on the bright side. Perhaps the only way to look at this is that it's a sign from the universe to not be dependent on your media. I'm 100% behind that. Unfortunately, the way this business works, one of the main ways an art director needs to reference the artist is by the media - or more often than not, the "look" of the media, meaning a digital representation of it.

In my ideal world, art directors would first think of an artist by his mind: how he/she might think about approaching an assignment. Of course, I understand this is ridiculous given the constraints of deadlines, editors/marketing people breathing down their necks, etc.

I'd like to think the answer must be in straight up great drawing, thinking - and picture making. Perhaps all of this technical "Mercury Retrograde" melt down stuff is a message for me from the great Kahuna.

Back to the ball point.

Explorations While on the Clock

2008-12-09T21:04:49+00:00

I've been terrible about updating all of my website galleries in general, and Drawger has been no exception, but I have finally updated my Exploration While on the Clock gallery at least. These pieces are sort of hard to sell or classify, as I'm asking my client to trust me and let me explore while they're paying me!

This piece was recently done for Plansponsor, but I didn't see Harry, David or Edel's pieces in it because I think it was for some supplement or something. It had a beautiful Yuko Shimizu cover and some other lovely stuff in it.

Gold from SI / Book

2008-11-17T19:26:34+00:00

I know I just posted this image, but I just got a wonderful call that these stamps won the gold in the book category.

Congrats to everyone Marc, John, Leo, Edel, Chris - it's going to be a Drawger medal ceremony this year! See you all there in February.

AI 08

2008-11-13T17:24:15+00:00

Following Edel's lead, these are the entries that I had accepted in this year's American Illustration book.

These stamps are from a still secret book project that will be published next fall.

This piece was done for our great supporter, SooJin Buzzelli. As we all know, SooJin lets us have fun and experiment on the clock. Thanks SooJin!!

I posted these earlier in the year when they were first published. Drawn as part of a series for the excellent Matt Petty at San Francisco Chronicle, a travel quiz.

Have fun at the party everyone!

Obama / Biden 08

2008-11-03T22:55:11+00:00

More Halloween Cats

2008-11-01T05:52:11+00:00

Here's the original cat image.

Every year I always think I'm going to finally get it together for Halloween. Sure enough this year it arrived and I was late on deadline and was drawing frantically even as the neighborhood was abuzz with sounds of children coming out for trick or treat.

Thankfully Cynthia had been getting the house ready. She egged me to do a large cut out for our front picture window, so I decided to try out redoing an older image I had done for Martha Stewart Living back in 2006.

I printed it out, blew it up using a grid onto black paper and slapped it up on the window. Cynthia took these pictures....this one is from our living room looking out toward the street through the blinds.

At night we made sure to back light it.

This is what Martha originally intended: pumpkin masks. We did this once, and it worked quite well.

Drawger extraordinaire Cathie Bleck got the cover of that issue.

Here's the original cat image.

Anyway, happy Halloween everyone!

An addendum: Here are the other three "pumpkin masks" from this same issue...

Joe, the Sequel

2008-10-29T01:49:44+00:00

Joe the Hummer

Larry, Curley and Mo the Plumbers

Joe the Plumbed

(and, on a different note, regarding today's big rally) Dead Cat Bounce, the Sequel

Social Security Retirement Guide

2008-10-28T05:34:15+00:00

The pending election will help determine, among a dizzyingly large host of other paramount issues for the U.S., what will happen to the future of Social Security and Medicare.

Late this summer I worked on a very fun project, an illustrated brochure done for the Center for Retirement at Boston College. One of my all time favorite people to work with, Ronn Campisi, brilliantly art directed and designed the lovely little book. A big thanks to both Ronn and The Boston College for deciding on using illustration for such a project.

The brochure is actually an excellent, clearly written little packet of key information centering on the best approach for an individual to claim their Social Security benefits. Titled "The Social Security Retirement Guide", the nature of the content was essentially fact driven. To give it some graphic punch and levity, I tried to find a way to represent pathways, money and information all with one symbol - and do so in a way that made for flexibility and simplicity. I chose the ubiquitous circle.

After the artwork was completed it was presented to a focus group, never a reassuring sign from my experience! Somehow the illustrations made it through relatively unscathed, except for a few minor changes. One of these changes was that the original cover image, which had just one character - a man- needed to include a woman as well.

Here's the original cover.

Here's the final cover.

Some of the illustrations needed to be very general, like this contents page image. I riffed on the idea of "where to begin". This attempted to show not only possible directions one can take by claiming in different ways, but also to show the steps one takes along the way. As in all of these images, the ubiquitous circle simultaneously stands for units of money, units of time, directional paths or instructional steps - and sometimes all of these at once.

This image responds to the idea that some folks decide to retire early. The problem of doing this means your SS earnings will be substantially lower, creating a lower standard of living for you and forcing you to live on less.

Statistically, most wives will outlive their husbands. If a husband retires at 66 instead of 62, as a survivor his wife receives more than a fifth more SS income.

Should you delay or claim right away?

Should you gamble and claim early?

The choice is yours; a key to a sound retirement is deciding the right age to begin claiming.

One of the spots, about special rules applying to workers not always covered by SS. The ubiquitous circle can further double as a pie chart.

This image is illustrating a list of other publications and resources to help with your decisions.

The back cover.

We can all only hope that in light of the current government bailouts of the financial industry that the U.S. will have the resources to actual pay us our due in our retirement. I read just this morning an Op Ed piece about the fact that Social Security and Medicare may well be the next huge financial tsunami for the country. We shall see; in the meantime I'll keep a copy of this brochure for future reference in hopes these choices will still be ours to make.

Joe

2008-10-16T06:54:00+00:00

Joe.

Joe the plumber.

Joe blow.

Joe 6-pack.

Alexander McCall Smith

2008-10-15T01:22:31+00:00

This is the most recently completed cover of a series I've worked on for the UK author Alexander McCall Smith. A lovely group of mystery books and an even lovelier art department to work with (Little Brown UK).

A. Richard Allen sent me a nice note about these books recently, as he'd seen them there in the UK recently. Thanks for the kind words, Richard.

Here are some of the earlier covers.

The challenge in these designs has been to bring detail and mystery to very simple spaces. Add to that an attempt at capturing specific qualities of very specific locations within Britain and Scotland, all while attempting to capture some of the mystery of the narrative.

I always enjoy the challenge of creating an iconic look for a series. With these, I settled on the font and horizontal bands on the first book as it looked good for the elements that existed in that particular book. The challenge continues in applying the "branded design" in the subsequent books, making them work compositionally and as a series.

On most of these I've been asked to do some back cover artwork as well. This is an image for the most recent book.

And here, a skyline of Edinborough...

Meltdown

2008-09-17T00:13:20+00:00

Meltdown

Screwed

Drill, junkie, drill

Bridge to Nowhere

This morning I went to the gym, I've been amping up my exercise to deal with the stress of this, our, my crazy world. I thought up these images as I peddled away.

I do this conceptual work for a living day in and day out. I think I'm starting to understand that I need to stop for a minute sometimes and make some images that are about me and my take, for better or worse. Cynicism is nipping hard at my ankles right now, and I just felt I had to make some of the images in my mind real and live.

Inspired by Zina and Harry and Steve and Stephen and Edel and Tim and Marc and Rob and Brian and Barry and all of you. It's a good time to make some images about the state of the world, regardless of whether they're published or not. Drawger is a good place to post such images.

These weren't commissioned by anyone. I played hooky today and did them. I had to.

Me 3

2008-09-11T05:25:17+00:00

I feel like I've broken through to a new dimension because I have figured out how to post a video here! Luddites unite.

This is a song from a freshly minted cd of children's songs that I drummed on, written by my pal Jason Kleinberg. The band is called Me 3. The album is called "The Thin King". This song is called COWS.

Jason sums up the sound of the CD quite succinctly:

"like Jonathan Richman on the Yellow Submarine with a toy keyboard. If you’re a kid, have kids, want to have kids, used to be a kid, used to be an adult, if you’re hip or a nerd, extremely normal or normally extreme, than you will enjoy this album."

To hear more: Me3music.com

A review of the cd: ZooGobble.com

The artwork for the cd was done by Justin White, yes he's Eric's brother and he's a bad ass.

If you have any desire to see me drumming in a chicken suit, now's your chance! This Sunday morning in Noe Valley San Francisco. Noe Courts [24th st. and douglass] at 11:15 am.

Thank you for your time and now back to the grim and very adult business at hand - the 2008 election.

Olympic Hopefuls

2008-07-31T04:16:24+00:00

Vicky Nightingale at Reader's Digest asked me to make a comic for their back page in reference to the Summer Olympics. It being Reader's Digest, I couldn't go the political route, just the goofy one...which sometimes is all I ask.

For some reason, I had to fight for Archiery, which I (perhaps foolishly) thought was one of the better ones.

Any excuse to draw Jughead.

Arkansas & Louisiana

2008-07-01T16:42:43+00:00

A couple of months ago I got a call from Mike Bain, who I've worked with on and off over the years. He's now at Oprah at Home, and wanted to know if I'd be up for an assignment based on my sketchbook work.

The story was a reflective piece about a woman who's main residence is in Iowa, but spends her summers on the Louisiana coast. O at Home wanted artwork that showed a sort of diary-like reflection of her feelings about the contrasts in her two residences.

Her Iowa home reflections centered on the cold winters and modern architecture, a more internal feel, but with the surrounding Ozark mountains. Having grown up in Missouri, I channeled a bit of my own childhood experience getting through some crazy cold winters and river trips in the Ozarks.

Her Louisiana home reflections focused more on the beach and family. The few references provided included this large red plastic toy truck, so I used it as well as I could. This was the first sketch, which they thought was too focused on the kids and not enough on the landscape.

This was approved; I thought it was a better image as well - a bit more open to interpretation and less nostalgic.

I love to sketch whenever I travel, and always enjoy an assignment where I can simply draw. Unlike my travel work though, these required assembling scenes from provided reference as well as instilling mood into personal scenes of people who I knew little about. Fortunately for me the writer, novelist Ellen Gilchrist, did a great job and made the job a bit easier for me. That said - and not that I needed it - I have a new found respect for illustrators who have to assemble believable scenes out of limited reference.

These are simple, straight up drawings. I use a ball point pen, a sketchbook, and some Windsor Newton watercolors - and hope it all works out. No pencil first, that's cheating.

Here's the final printed spread. Mike did an amazing job of placing the images onto "sketchbooks" using his wizardry.

Zoos and Radio Shows

2008-06-24T21:21:20+00:00

A few months back I did these two images for The Oakland Zoo. This is the third year I've done this gig and it's always great fun working with the amazing and talented Becca and Alex at Zipfly.

The event the illos are for is a fundraiser for the zoo, which has incredible grounds and houses only orphaned animals. The zoo opens it's doors in the evening and for a $250 ticket you get to roam around eating and drinking to your Bacchanalian content, sampling local wineries, restaurants, breweries, etc. and listening to various musical acts that play away in between the pens. I did a post on this last year.

Each year the zoo asks me to use illustrate two of their animals. This year it was Macaws (above) and giraffes.

They use the images on advertising materials, mailers, banners, award plaques and what not. They also do a limited edition of 200 signed posters that I guess people buy for additional fundraising.

Along with the gig comes free tickets to the event, so this past Saturday evening we invited along our pals Julie and Lisa and headed to the zoo. There's been quite a heat wave here in the Bay Area so it was a very warm night.

We bumbled around and ate and drank and looked at the animals. I remember this giraffe family from last year's trip, except I think this is a little new member.

The girls looked fabulous, even as they sipped wine and ogled the expansive tiger pen.

A cool feature at this zoo is you can take a sky tram over it all and see the beasts from above. The Oakland hills are gorgeous and an ideal spot for a safari like atmosphere. I just hope some knuckle head doesn't fall of into the lion area one of these days.

After a couple of hours Wig and I had to run, so we said our goodbyes and drove off to play a gig.

From 1992-1995 I drummed with a band called the Buckets. They're having a reunion show in July at The Cafe DuNord in SF, and were doing a promo live gig on KALX 90.7 Berkeley. So, we drove to the UC Campus and met the guys in the studio and got to work.

Earl Butter is the songwriter, and he's an amazing one at that. I hadn't played with them in eons, but the songs are so great I hadn't forgotten much. They've had a slew of amazing people play with them over the years. Here's their obligatory MySpace page.

Kim Deal's The Breeders even covered a Buckets song, "Driving on Nine", which was actually written by Earl's old pal Dom from Ed's Redeeming Qualities. Here's the Breeders video of the tune...I'd embed it here but I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it.

Anyway, we packed into the tiny performance space and rocked out. Between the high nineties temperature outside and the tiny packed room it was like playing in a sauna. By the end of the set my jeans were soaking wet.

Even though she wasn't an original member of the band, Wig got recruited to play fiddle in lieu of Wanda Taters, who's now living in the Catskills. Wig sounded fabulous, but was taking the pictures so there aren't any shots of her in action.

Here's a link to a few of that night's performances. Sound quality isn't the best, blame the institutional sound board!

Emma June
Empty Cage
Song of the True Divided Highway
Postmarked Virginia

Anyone in the Bay Area who wants to come out for the reunion show, here's the info:
The Buckets
July, 17 2008 at Cafe Du Nord
2170 Market St., San Francisco, California 94114
Cost : $10.00

Spaz Duke Kahanamoku Nandi

2008-06-01T18:06:20+00:00

On the morning of this last Memorial Day, after a long night at the pet hospital, our beloved cat Spazzo had to be put to sleep. His urethra was blocked, a common problem with male cats, and he didn't make it.

We brought him back as a kitten, along with our other cat Gertrude, from Maui, where we'd lived for a year in 1999. We lived in a jungle section of the island and they were both little wild jungle cats.

They had quite a transition moving to the big city. Surprisingly, both adapted quickly and actually seemed happier in the city.

Spaz was always an outdoor cat, and with a robust "spray", we couldn't keep him inside for long. Here in the Mission, he reveled in catching rats and birds, which he always completely ate - except for the random bit. He became a legendary ratter in our neighborhood, and although he was a big, fearsome hunter he was also fuzzy and cute and very personable.

Most commercial cat food is actually really bad for cats. The cheap stuff is full of ash, which is a primary factor in the urethra blockage of male cats. In our case, as hard as we tried to feed Spazzo the best food we could find, he turned his nose up at it and went down the block, where a crazy lady feeds the neighborhood cats with cheap kitty junk food.

Our next door neighbors have a huge back yard with a big compost pile. Spazzo loved hanging out there all day, catching rats and lying in the sun. It was here that our neighbors found him, paralyzed from his condition, and we rushed him to the hospital.

Spazzo lent himself to the visual.

I sketched him, painted him.

I asked Mark Ulriksen to make a painting of us from our Maui time; not only did he capture the spirit of Spazzo dead-on, he made an absolute masterpiece we'll always cherish.

Spazzo liked it too.

He was also an artist. This was a composition he left for us on the back porch.

RIP Spazzo, may you run freely through the rat-filled jungle on the other side.

Dustbin of History

2008-05-25T16:50:36+00:00

It being an election year and all, I thought you folks might appreciate this item.

I found this at some second hand store more than fifteen years ago, an office trash can entitled "Presidents of the United States of America".

We use it daily.

It lists all of our great leaders, up until Lyndon B. Johnson

. It has a lovely wood veneer look, and features lovely vignettes of each President, with an especially prominent LBJ.

One is left to wonder - was this a promotional item? A gift item? An homage? A statement?

Hey Stephen, is this the Laugh-In can you're referring to? Found this on eBay!

Recent Editorial Work - Boston Style

2008-05-02T16:57:37+00:00

Some recently completed editorial work in my "Boston Style". I really enjoy working this way, it's generally more conceptual.

These were done for Mount Holyoke Quarterly. The original assignment was for one full page, but they liked both sketches so commissioned a second one as well. The article was about the recent trend of "downshifting" one's career in order to enjoy life more. Notice the signatures - my first ever, in preparation for Orphan Works.

These were done for Ronn Campisi, for a magazine done by Intel. Another nice break, they originally commissioned three illustrations but bought all five submitted sketches.

Another for Ronn, a cover for Vantage magazine. The subject being data leakage.

These were done for ESPN Magazine. As sometimes happens, they didn't choose my preferred piece, but here are the sketches. The article was about the fan's favorite players, as voted in by readers.

This was a feature for Runner's World, about training for the Olympics being done in Boston. They wanted elements of both Boston and Beijing.

These were for the always excellent Mary Beth Cadwell at Storage magazine, for a section. I'm glad I got to draw a spork!

This was done for a feature for a lumber industry magazine! About CFOs of lumberyards.

Sorry about the meat and potatoes post, I'm kind of exhausted!

Attention! Do Buy These Books-

2008-04-18T15:12:39+00:00

At least for your youngsters. I recently got these in the mail., from the very cool Roaring Brook Press which just got gobbled up by Harcourt. They did a really nice job with paper choice and unusual trim size.

I'd illustrated a cover of one of Betty Hick's earlier books, and really enjoyed her writing. So when she asked me to illustrate her clever new series about a group of neighborhood friends, I said of course!

Each book in the series has it's own sports theme as it relates to one of the particular characters. The first one out, Basketball Bats, was actually the second one I completed. Next up is this one.

Then this one, the interiors of which I'm working on currently.

After that, it's on to baseball...

Tax Day

2008-04-16T03:13:37+00:00

Hmmm, it looks like the military is edging out pretty much everything - combined!

This has been updated...

Inside the Walls

2008-04-08T17:05:43+00:00

As they are gutting the ground floor of our house, the guys have been giving us the items they're finding within the plaster walls. Our house was first built in 1927. Here is some of the ephemera...

The timing is perfect for us, as we may be able to use some of this stuff in one of the book projects we're working on.

Before they close up the walls we plan on leaving our own special things within...

These are from a tire catalog...from 1927!!! The year the house was built.

Business cards for a couple of insurance agents...

Longboards

2008-03-01T19:20:22+00:00

Alright Mr. Dunlavey, you started a trend here.

These aren't snowboards, they're longboards - as in skateboards.

They were done for a studio in New Zealand last year, and were to be screen-printed onto two different sized boards. They had to incorporate an oval hole near the top, where the kid grabs onto the board as he whips about.

I'm not sure if they were ever produced!

Tunage

2008-02-23T22:22:31+00:00

I haven't been posting much around here lately. Pretty much all I've been working on illustration-wise is legally un-postable for a while, so I thought I'd do an old-school Drawger style post, about music stuff. Back when this place started, people posted their musical escapades a bit more, so I thought I'd put up a few fun music project things that I've done recently. I've peppered this post with some random sketchbook pages as an attempt to make it relevant to the "biz".

I recorded drums for three different album-groups of songs this last year, two of which I literally learned and recorded in one day - a challenge which I love, although it always leaves me wishing I'd done some things differently. Sort of like doing a newspaper gig I suppose. The third recording is with my wife's band and has a good bit more work to be done.

One of the former was an album of songs for kids, written by my enormously talented pal Jason Kleinberg. Jason had created a complete concept record for children, and enlisted me and our pal Bernie Jungle to flesh out the rhythm tracks at the lovely Tiny Telephone studios here in San Francisco. Jason is currently touring solo through Japan. Here are a couple of the songs from this session, Come On and Tulip. The YouTube video above is by Jason (not me on drums) - I love this one! He's a dang good drawer, too.

The second recording was done for my pal Guy Capecelatro III. I met Guy years ago while touring the East Coast with my then band Little My. Guy is the one who hooked me up with Nahcotta gallery, as he is at the heart of the Portsmouth NH art and music scene. Anyway, he was out on the West Coast last summer, and being an insanely prolific songwriter was in the midst of making yet another record. He enlisted me and the aforementioned Bernie Jungle and Jason Kleinberg (playing some killer viola), as well as the master pedal steel/bassist Scottie Houston. Another concept album, something about a steel worker who falls in love with a nurse and runs away with her or something: here are two of the tracks, Party and Nurse. Recorded by the great Wally Sound at Wally Sound studios in Oakland.

Finally, Mr. Bernie Jungle. I did the drums for this record with Bernie in one very long and fun day. I hope he puts this out, as he has made some really fine tunes. Bernie is a great friend and sweetheart of a person and shreds on guitar and bass. I played with him for years in Warm Wires. This epic tune, Belly, utilizes our pal Peter Altenberg on Sarangi. On this one, Pop, I also laid down the bass and keyboard incidentals later at home. These aren't final mixed, so you may have to adjust your volume levels a bit. These were recorded by the great Scott Greiner.

Anyway, that's my random music / random sketchbook pages post. I hope those of you who took the time to listen found something to enjoy, and if not oh well sorry!

An addendum: to add to further randomness, JD King thoughtfully, if not cryptically, sent me this in the mail. Thanks JD!

A further addendum:
I almost forgot this song I sat in on for my friend, the master violinist and songwriter Carrie Bradley. Carrie's energy is magnetic and addictive, her performances riveting. She wrote this beautiful tune Lucky Stars, enlisting Bernie as well, and we recorded it with Scott Greiner in an afternoon. Carrie is well know for her work for The Breeders and Ed's Redeeming Qualities, as well her own rock band 100 Watt Smile. The photo above was taken by our pal, master designer and artist Yuri Ono, of the wedding band: me(I got to play melodica) and my wife Wig (violin) and Bernie (pink hat and geetar) and our pal Jason Porter (double bass). We're playing "On the Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady, in the ferns at Carrie's wedding last summer in Upstate New York.

What is it?

2008-02-01T01:14:08+00:00

What is it?

It's kind of cool looking.

Is it a photograph? Or perhaps a Photoshop design?

I know, it's a scientific diagram. Or maybe a board game?

It's brown, and shiny, like drops of fresh wet poo.

Actually, this is the cover of this year's Workbook, an image chosen to represent this past year's illustration industry. Man oh man.

Thankfully, once one gets beyond this stunningly odd cover, they can find a whole host of great illustrators inside, and many hard working source-book supporting Drawgers.

Sterling Hundley and Brian Stauffer's gorgeous page divider's beg the question: why aren't they on the cover? Or Zina? Or Harry Campbell, whose spread pretty much leaps off of the paper it's printed on?

The Workbook has always been THE class act in an often dubious world of source books, but this cover has really made me stop and wonder what in the frikken world they were thinking?

Panera Bread

2008-01-09T18:38:50+00:00

This time last year I did these three drawings for Mullen in Massachusetts, and they were going to be market-tested to be used in the Panera Bread restaurant chain.

A nice Christmas gift, I was notified that they're now up in Panera Bread restaurants. As they don't have them here in SF, I haven't seen how they look. Apparently they're used as banners, table top thingies, etc.

Is there anyone in Boston or Seattle or Detroit or other Panera places out there who stops in for a cuppa Joe at Panera from time to time? Snap me a shot, I'd appreciate it!!

Here's the first pic, fresh from the camera of Robert Saunders! Many thanks Rob!!

It's funny, as soon as I saw this I remembered that the actual illo had a table as well, and a background so the steam could be white...

Lions and Tigers and Bears

2007-12-17T16:38:28+00:00

...and Astronauts and Nuns!

These were recently done for the excellent Matt Petty at the SF Chronicle, as a cover and spots for their Travel section's annual "Geo Quiz".

The cover concept was based on the question: Which country has lions, tigers and bears living in the wild? Hint: it's in Asia, hence the attempt at an Asian feel to these illos.

I was attempting at making images that made the viewer question a bit, so I liked the non-sequiter angle of having these beasts as an image that was talking about travel. I also wanted to avoid the Oz cliche.

With the spots, I wanted to do a similar graphic treatment but refer more to the specifics of a few of the given questions. Any guesses at what they might be about?

E8

2007-12-17T04:51:00+00:00

I may be an illustrator, but sometimes what I really wish that I was was a mathematician. I wish I could dive into the language of math and understand things like this, the latest sub-realm of string theory, E8.

I don't know how they've done it, but this is apparently the visualization of the mathematical equation of what the 8th dimension looks like. Or something like that. I currently have this as my desktop pattern, because it's so beautiful and I'm hoping that maybe it will make my brain grow by having it around on a daily basis.

This is another diagram of this phenomenon, called a Coxeter plane root system. If you want to try and learn about this stuff, check out this Website.

Otherwise, I hope you can just enjoy how beautiful nature ends up being, even when it's pure math.

New Paintings

2007-12-06T23:20:46+00:00

Rob D's cool latest sketchbook stuff reminded me a bit of the bulbous forms I've been using in a series of miniature paintings I've been working on for an upcoming group show in Portsmouth, NH.

Here's a gallery of the finished pieces, I'll probably do a few more but at a slightly larger scale. I named the paintings using a cool random name generator I found on-line.

Giant Squid Surf Board

2007-11-20T23:25:15+00:00

About a year ago, I got an email from a fellow who saw an illustration I had done for the Datebook cover section of the SF Chronicle. The illo he'd seen had been about Austin's SXSW convention, and Art Director Matt Petty had wanted a suitcase covered in Band stickers; each sticker is a different band. I snuck my band Bermuda Triangle Service in there, as well as some favorites like Goldfrapp and The Meat Purveyors.

Anyway, besides being extremely friendly, this fellow Greg was a surfer and wanted to know if he could use a part of the illustration on his surf board that he was getting made for him. As I enjoy the wave riding ways myself, I was honored. I sent him a file to use, and then forgot about it. Giant Squid is a rock band, but I think Greg just liked the giant squid.

Last week, Greg sent me this photo. I hope to see him out in the waves, once this nasty oil spill out here clears out a bit more.

Bruce Licher : Independent Press

2007-11-16T19:55:36+00:00

My wife Cynthia brought these out this morning, a collection she's kept of the insanely beautiful letterpress work of Bruce Licher at Independent Press. Cynthia worked for years as art director and poster designer at Art Rock, and Bruce had sent her many of his samples.

These are each little masterpieces of letterpress work. Bruce was also in Savage Republic, a punk band who I'd first heard about from Michael Bartalos years ago. I think this style of work was extremely influential at the time; it sure was on my work. Many of these are post cards printed on dirt cheap press board.

This is pure love in ink and paper. Apparently now the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is interested in Cynthia's collection!

This is an amazing little fold out booklet that contains hand printed mock stamps from the Savage Republic. We have framed on our wall a gorgeous page of letterpress stamps that Bruce produced for Camper Van Beethoven's "Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart".

Anyway, thought you all might enjoy these gems.

Drawger Axes

2007-11-12T17:38:57+00:00

Elwood's post about his beautiful wayward Epiphone has prompted me to put up a new show below: Drawger Axes. With so many here playing music while not at the drawing table, I thought it may be a good idea for proud parents to show their babies.

Here's my newest drum kit. It's a limited edition Gretsch 120th Anniversary Champagne Sparkle Be-bop kit. It sounds so good, it looks so good, it feels so good. It records beautifully and is so small that it's a joy to shlep it to gigs. I love it.

Anyway, please post your favorite instruments in the Drawger Axes Show when you have the chance, so we can all ogle...

Drawger Poll

2007-11-09T18:13:21+00:00

I did these first two pieces for SooJin Buzelli recently, for just one illo. She liked both sketches and sort of left it up to me to choose one. I decided to do them both and let her pick!

Which one do you think she chose? I'll let your imaginations figure out the subject matter, believe it or not they were for the same article.

When I drew the duck, it reminded me of Zimm's Duck! show he put up at MoCCA a few years back, featuring quite a few future Drawgers. Here was my contribution, Duck Diggler.

Just Say No!

2007-10-16T18:55:44+00:00

A piggyback to Brodner's, I did this piece way back in my art school days - when Raygun was in the House. Steve's drawing reminded me of it, even though this is quite hideous in comparison...

Dirty Words

2007-10-12T04:02:07+00:00

Ward Schumaker had sent out an email about this image he recently made for The New Republic, and how even though they'd absolutely loved the illustration they had to pull it at the last minute.

The conundrum was that it's an article about the censorship of certain "dirty words" and in the end his illustration was ultimately censored.

Women's Wear Daily reported on it, and now in this week's SF Weekly there's a whole article interviewing Ward about it - and printing the image in full glory. Finally, here's the original New Republic article. I asked Ward if I could post it here, so here it is: a beautiful calligraphic response.

Ward's comments:

"I’m used to getting over it quickly when my even my best work is killed, but this one made me angry---at first. Now I’m more interested in what makes my drawing of the words seem more inflammatory than the same words set in type. Does that suggest something inherent in the power of images?

I don’t know the answer.

Personally, I thought my image was pretty and funny. Not vulgar, at least not when coupled with the article.

I appreciate that one of the senior editors at The New Republic asked for a ‘frame-able’ print out of my piece (he sent me his latest book in exchange); and that the author wrote that killing my piece was ‘ironic’---but at the same time, though he’d asked for permission to mount it on his site, he didn’t do so. "

Rejects

2007-10-03T14:57:22+00:00

Some sketches still tacked to my board.

Rejected all, left out to dry. Sniff sniffle.

For some, I've lost track of who they were originally for and for what idea they were intended, perhaps someday I will complete them.

Maybe I can do up three and send out a mailer, "Rejected Ideas".

Cat Art

2007-09-18T17:15:16+00:00

Our cat Spazzo left this experimental art piece on our back porch.

Robots and Reading

2007-09-16T18:06:59+00:00

This was a project from earlier in the summer. For the whole month of July all I drew were robots. Child robots. Grown up robots. Robots in parks, in libraries, running around. Who doesn't like drawing robots? Didn't draw any robots riding bikes though.

It was essentially an entire advertorial, cover, inside spread and spots, that arrived with the Sunday LA Times as a separate insert. A resource guide for parents, encouraging children to read.

The idea was to avoid race issues, so robots were the answer. The type on the cover had to be bi-lingual. Janice Gilson, the art director, was great to work with. I snuck in my chicken character from my first kids book on the cover of this book.

None of these were as cool as Mike Moran's robot though!!

The Price of Oil

2007-09-14T02:51:38+00:00

Earlier this week, I did this assignment for the NY Times.
They needed a letters spot, responding to an onslaught of letters regarding the impending Petraeus testimony. "Spotlight on Iraq" was the theme.

The editor read one of my sketches as a double entendre - a spotlight, at the same time of the General being "down in the trenches". These were the other sketches...

As an aside, I'll hope you'll take the time to listen to this song by Billy Bragg, "The Price of Oil". I have a feeling it may become a theme for our times. I first heard it at the SF Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Later on, I've heard it on one of my favorite radio stations, Pirate Cat Radio. It's a beautiful and passionate song, and has a spirit that I think resonates with a lot of us here in the States.

Anyway, there it is and that is all for now!

Believe!

2007-09-13T00:35:15+00:00

Lest any of you out there think I'm a whacko...

This has been stuck on my "to finish" bulletin board for a year. Maybe it was the 9/11 anniversary, I dunno, but I felt an overwhelming urge to put aside my deadlines and book projects to finish it up.

Perhaps now they'll be coming after me...

Pakistan

2007-08-15T17:13:26+00:00

I'm a big fan of Harry Shearer, and his weekly radio program Le Show this week made what I thought was an incredibly sobering point.

In justifying the 1993 invasion of Iraq, President Bush used the following three reasons:

1. It had Weapons of mass destruction
2. It had attacked it's neighbors
3. It had given safe haven to Terrorists

There's plenty of doubt that Iraq fit the first and third qualifications pre-attack. But there was, and still is, no doubt that Pakistan fits all three.

Apparently now the US intelligence is having extreme anxiety over the prospects of "loose nukes" in Pakistan. President General Musharraf's beleaguered grip on the loyalties of his commanders and senior officials could shift at any moment.

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

2007-06-29T18:01:55+00:00

I found David Heatley's article on handwritten type an inspired topic that could use more articles here on the Drawger.

I was lucky to find a copy of this book for $10 in a junk shop in Searsport ME about ten years ago, "Hill's Manual of Social and Business Forms" by Thomas Edie Hill. Apologies for the not-so-good scans; it's a rare mint copy and I didn't want to bend it too much for the scanner.

I guess back in the day (in this case 1879), fine handwriting was a norm for the cultured class. This book is an amazing instructor of how to not only write beautifully, but the proper posture one must write with. It goes on with proper business letter form compositions, party invitationals, etc.

Talk about crazy hand crafted typography! This is one of the pages on how to make a typical alphabet.

The pages get crazier and more and more fanciful.

The proper way to hold ones hand whilst lettering.

The improper ways. This is exactly how I normally write!

Anyway, this stuff is quite humbling.

Oh, and by the way...this is the correct way to hold your fork and knife at the table.

Walk in the Wild

2007-06-26T17:19:59+00:00

I'm not normally much of one for going to the zoo, but this past Saturday night we went to a really cool event at the Oakland Zoo called "Walk in the Wild". I've illustrated the advertising material for this event for the second year now, and along with the gig comes free tickets.

This is the billboard out on 580. Last year we couldn't make it, but we'd heard from my clients Becca and Alex from Zipfly that it was a really great time. This year we made sure to keep the calendar clear, and man was it a cool, fun and delicious experience.

The idea is that the gates are closed for the evening for a tickets holder's party in the grounds among the animals. Local restaurants, breweries and wineries set up booths all throughout the zoo, and attendees meander around, seeing the animals while tasting gourmet food and sampling wines and beers. We were amazed to see tons of people here; it's a really popular event. There was even a steel pan band playing "In a Gadda Da Vita".

When Zipfly first commissioned me for this, they explained they were thinking of imagery that somehow showed chefs or vintners in and among the beasts, in their natural setting. I never imagined how this approach would literally be what is happening at the event. I tried to get some photos with my cell-phone of guys decanting Pinot Noir while chimpanzees watched from behind, but it was hard to frame. I guess that's why they hire illustration. Wig got this, which captures it a bit better - except the flamingos are a bit tough to see at this resolution!

The two commissioned images were used on a variety of materials. For this one, Becca suggested that the river otters might make for an interesting scene. I'm always down to draw an otter, and seeing how there's a dance party at the end of the evening, I thought it might be good to have some dancing action too.

I've never drawn warthogs before. They're hard to draw! This one was made also into a limited edition, signed poster.

It was great to see the zoo making huge areas for some of the creatures. The tigers had a big forested area that you look down on from above. I find nothing more depressing than watching a large cat pacing back and forth inside a tiny concrete cell. These guys seemed pretty happy.

The Meerkats had a large multi-tunneled mound that they darted in and out of.

Apparently, most of the Oakland Zoo's animals are rescued from other zoos. We were really impressed by them, I'd encourage everyone to go there, as it's also set in the beautiful Oakland hills above the city.

Art from Below

2007-06-20T15:49:22+00:00

We've been spending the last three years planning a retro-fit and remodel of the street-level floor of our house. You know, San Francisco and earthquakes mean one must do whatever is possible to protect the foundation, sheer wall, etc. In our case, it means gutting the small store-front space, bolting the foundation, tons of sheer wall, renovating the space, new garage doors, painting the house, etc.

In preparing for the work, recently my wife Cynthia has been spending her spare time emptying out the current space. Closets full of all sorts of crazy things - odd musical instruments (pump organs, mandolins, back-up melodicas), rarely used clothing, old typewriters, out-of-date manuals, ancient cassette tapes, etc.

And artwork. These are some pieces of art that somehow have been in storage instead of on our walls, sadly. Cynthia's been bringing them upstairs to my studio rooms every few days, and it's been a joy to see some of them again, like old friends.

A vintage animation cell, by whom and for which animation I do not know. Anyone out there have an idea?

An etching by art director Mike Bain. A chicken, booze, drugs, naked people and gambling. What a great image!

A couple of cards from an early set by the creative genius super-force known as Richard McGuire.

A note from my friend and genius artist Nathaniel Parsons. We're lucky to have a bunch of Nat's pieces, as he produces more than anyone else I know, and he' generously leaves us with art every time he visits.

A painting by my father Gardiner. Dad did this in Oakland California in high school. He was into surrealism at the time I think!

A painting by my brother Kevin . He did this in 1976, can you tell he was into D & D?

A little retablo painting I bought in San Miguel de Allende in the mid 90s.

It's like it's own little group show.

Carnival

2007-05-29T16:56:54+00:00

Since Drawgers are posting their Memorial Day shots, I thought I'd post what my neighborhood's parade was... Carnival! We live in the Inner Mission of San Francisco, which is a mostly Latin area. Something about the cold SF summer weather has caused the city to switch it's Carnival celebration to Memorial Day weekend, even though this year it was foggy and cold. Carnival is a huge deal here, with a big parade featuring low-riders, Caribbean bands, Native American displays, scantily clad women and men dancing, awesome drumming and music, the works. People sell home made pupusas, roasted cobs of corn out their front door. In general, it's mayhem and fun - and great street theater. We live right along the parade's path, so every year we're awoken by the blasting horns and street noise. This year, I awoke, went into my studio and snapped this picture out of the window.

The parade had already begun. What's funny too is the tv crew for Telemundo sets up on the block before us, so we get to see what'll be showing up in front of our house before it arrives.

Back when we first moved here, we'd always go out and experience the party. This year I just did a quick tour out to snap some pictures and see the sites. I need to get a proper digital camera, it's tough capturing the world on a cell phone camera...

American Cancer Society : Relay For Life

2007-05-26T18:13:57+00:00

Last year I was one of a group of artists hired to create a new T-shirt design for the American Cancer Society's annual event "Relay for Life". I got all the way to the last round and was beaten by the great master Michael Bartalos!

Well, they called me again this year to re-submit the idea that made it all the way the previous year. Somehow, this year it won. I have no idea who I competed with this year, was it a Drawger?

The job had some personal sentiment to me, as I've lost both my mother Nancy and my older brother Kevin to cancer. Here are the sketches and process and whatnot, for those interested...

I should preface this by explaining that this is a monstrous organization. Many tiers of people vote on the designs, which have to not only appeal to the masses but also incorporate their logo and corporate color. In this case, a particular PMS purple and it's subsequent tints. For whatever reason, I am not a big fan of purple, so it was a bit tough for me to work with that.

So here were my three submitted sketches from last year. Art director Tom Deal sent me a huge packet with reference from the event, where cancer victims, survivors and their families walk a sort of "vigil relay" on a track all day and night. The event happens all over the country, and these candles are always placed along the track. The sun design and the balloons design went on to the next round, but it was the balloon design that made it right up to the end.

I was surprised to get called again this year, but happy to give it another shot. They wanted to resubmit the previous year's sketch, with a few alterations. They also wanted me to provide four different comps with specific color situations - 1c purple on white, 1c white on purple, etc. I found this tougher than I originally thought.

Here are the four variations. New art director Bobbie Johnson was super to work with, as she had a really monstrous task of pre-production preparations. You see, ACS wanted each of the final sketch designs to be made into actual silk screen products in order to make the final decision. So, Bobbie had to create all of these screens using sketches!

She sent me the t-shirts, made with my lo-rez sketches which she had rasterized using the new Illustrator CS3 process. They ended up moving the logo into the image, replacing the big foot in the foreground.

I look forward to seeing the final t-shirts when they come out in 2008. It was an honor to be part of the project, and I hope the t-shirts make folks happy and the events are a great success!

Coincidentally, the band I play in with my wife will be playing in a benefit for the American Cancer Society here in San Francisco at The Make-out Room on June 3. We're going to raffle off a couple of the "sketch" shirts I think! Here's our cd cover, illustrated by the genius Christian Northeast and produced by the great Karl Derfler, who did Tom Wait's latest.

Graham Smith

2007-05-24T21:25:14+00:00

Drawgers, meet (the art of) Graham Smith.

I've had the privilege of having Graham as a great friend ever since my first days at Parsons back in 1984.

Recently, Graham blew me and Mark Matcho's minds when out of the blue he sent us some of his recent drawings, for upcoming source book ads. He's been working mainly as a (fabulous) designer for all these years, and he's ready now to break out with the thing he loves to do - draw.

As you can see, Graham is a bad-ass. I have a feeling we'll be seeing his work a lot in the world soon.

The cool thing is, he still draws the same way he did back at art school. Now if only I can figure out a way to get him here on Drawger himself to show us his latest.

What do you say, Zimm?

Travel Stickers Gig Two

2007-05-03T16:03:00+00:00

Daniel Smith at The Wall St. Journal asked me to do these travel stickers, for a quiz feature. When he first assigned it the only direction was to pick a few of the countries and make some cool stickers. So, I submitted these sketches.

I figured I'd run into problems having to do with stereotypes, etc, but went for it regardless. He liked them but after their meeting they needed my imagery to be more specific to the content of the quiz, which was exciting subjects like iron ore and cement.

I ended up painting them twice to give him a variety of color choices.

Not sure which of these ended up running.

A happy coincidence to do all of these as well as Arrive Magazine's at once, I could really immerse myself.

Travel Stickers Gig One

2007-05-03T15:58:45+00:00

For some reason, I received two simultaneous jobs where I was asked to create a set of travel sticker ideas for editorial projects. One was for The Wall Street Journal, the other was this job here, for Amtrak's magazine Arrive.

The feature was about summertime travel in the Northwest United States. For the opener, I had a lot of fun drawing a camper covered in stickers. In all my years drawing for a living, I think this may have been my first camper.

A fun twist in this assignment was the non sequitur quality of the imagery as it relates to the location. This one was about a King Tut display in PA.

Massachusetts, the drive-in state. These east coast States have too many damn letters in them!

Vermont, a state where Joseph Daniel Fiedler likely enjoys himself.

Virginia, the My Little Pony State.

I had a lot of fun creating the hand lettering, something that's enjoyable but always a lot of extra work. Fortunately, it was made a breeze by working with the easy-going Tamara Kopper.

The Ken Smith Chronicles

2007-04-24T16:07:54+00:00

Like Tim and John and Hanoch and Roberto and the many other illustrators who worked for the great Ken Smith, it was always a pleasure and an honor.

I used to do Calvin Trillin and Notebook spots for Ken. Perhaps the most memorable one was about two months after we'd moved home from Maui. We'd left our old beater car there, so I bought my first new car, a Honda Civic. It was awesome. We didn't have a garage then, so it was parked out in front of our warehouse on the street, in Oakland CA.

It was Friday afternoon, Ken called with a job. I accepted it. He began explaining it to me when all of the sudden I noticed a loud screeching outside, followed by a horrific BANG.

"Hey Ken, can you hang on a second?"
"Sure."

I looked out my front door, and saw that a police car had just slammed head on into my lovely one month old parked Honda. It had been chasing a stolen car hi speed through the neighborhood, and misjudged the turn.

"Ken, can I call you back?"
"Sure."

Here's me and my neighbors surveying the damage. Notice the cop car in the foreground.

They caught the guy a few blocks away. I was a bit stressed out now, but somehow managed to do the drawing on time for Monday morning. I think this is the one I did, about corn politics I believe.

Here are a few others that I dug up from the files.

The first time I met Edel was when Cynthia and I came to the Time offices to have lunch with Ken. Remember Edel? You seemed deep in the middle of some art director thoughts at the time.

Piggyback IX - the Sequel

2007-04-11T23:30:37+00:00

All right, I know this is getting a bit tired, but this is today's illo, and it's twinkly stars. No UFOs, and it was drawn during daylight hours, for the most excellent Ronn Campisi.

Not quite as busy of an image as the last post.