It was a perfect way to start the New Year—with a package from Norway with issues of a recent cover that I worked on for The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association. The cover project was about "the sardonic smile" as a medical term. Art Director, Emma Dalby is always wonderful to work with and I look forward to her simple and elegant cover designs.
I knew about the cynical/vengeful expression of a sardonic smile but I had no idea about it as a medical term. In medicine, it is defined as a smile-like facial expression induced by involuntary muscle spasms most often caused by toxins released by tetanus bacteria. However in folklore, the sardonic smile has a much more interesting past. It might have to do with the ingestion of the sardonion plant from Sardinia which cause muscle spasms, laughter and death.
I'm an avid NPR listener and was really happy to get a call from them to participate in their 2012 calendar. Every year they choose 12 artists to illustrate each month. My piece was based on one of my favorite RadioLab episodes called "New Nice" which was about a Russian geneticist who domesticated the fox. After several generations of selective breeding, he was successful in creating a gentler, human-friendly pet fox. I was really proud to work on this piece for an organization that I get so much inspiration from. The 2012 calendar is available for purchase from NPR.
Katie Burk, the designer for the NPR calendar, came up for the American Illustration Show and gave us a signed Carl Kasell (Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me) pillow. If you listen to NPR, you know the voice of Carl Kasell. What a neat gift. Thank you Katie!
Pug Drool/18"x24"/oil on paper
It's no secret I'm a dog person. And I've always been a fan of Bark magazine. This Pug painting was for an article called "Drawn to Dogs". It was a about a professional cat-sitter and self proclaimed cat-lover who fell in love with a pug while dog-walking him in NYC.
Mike/14"x20"/oil on paper
And this piece was for Reader's Digest Asia. It was a true story about a man named Mike who was kidnapped and buried alive for 5 days. Ants were biting his hands and eyelids while he was buried in small box in the ground. He lost 23 pounds but was eventually rescued by a inquisitive cop.
By now, many of you have received the ICON poster in the mail. It was a great pleasure and honor to get an email from John Hendrix, illustration maestro and president of the ICON board asking if I would like to work on the next ICON7 Illustration Conference poster taking place in Providence RI June 2012. He explained that it would be a two-sided poster and that I'd be collaborating in some way with the amazingly talented letterer/illustrator Jessica Hische. As some of you know, I have a great connection with Providence, RI—I graduated from RISD and now teach a class there once a week. This project was a great collision of a few of my passions—illustration and Providence.
John sent the above ideas to get the ball rolling. Jessica and I started to bat around a few ideas and we connected right away with our nerdy fascination of the Mira calligraphiae monumenta, an extraordinary 16th century manuscript that combined beautiful classic calligraphy and illustrations of plants, fruits, and small animals. We decided that we would each concentrate on our own side and then collaborate on the others side in some minor way. This gave us a nice jumping off point and I started sketching.
Sketches - I wanted to incorporate the idea of Providence as an historical sea-fearing coastal port and came up with a giant merwoman/serpent creature stabbing the 7 in the waters off of Providence. This led to the giant "7" beast. I also wanted to showcase the unique canals that wind through the city and placed the giant letters ICON throughout. This led to the Giant Moth idea above the Providence nightscape. The Kingfisher and the Bloom idea were a couple of wild cards. It came down to a decision between the Mermwoman/Serpent and the Moths. In the end, John felt that the visual metaphor of the Moths worked best.
Providence has a wonderful night cityscape uniquely lit with a few of its taller buildings. The tallest building, which is now the Bank of America building, is a beautiful art deco structure that has a beacon light on top (originally designed to be used as a dirigible landing). It was even rumored to be the model for the Daily Planet building in the original Superman comic book. The city also lights up its canals with giant fires during the WaterFire festival.
The moths were a great excuse to draw some sort animal/beast and my ode to the RISD Nature Lab. The nature lab is a sort of library at RISD. However instead of being filled with books it is filled with all types of live and taxidermied animals, plants, skeletons and natural historical references which you actually get to check out and take home like a library book. I spent many hours as a student in this wonderful place and remember checking out a moth to study and draw.
I actually was successful and caught a few common moths one night. Sadly they lose their luster and begin to deteriorate immediately when caught. These are actually a few that I bought from a shop in town. The brown one on the left is one of my favorites. The Black Witch Moth is the largest in North America at about 9 inches in width. Supposedly if you see one, you should run!
My attempt at some Spencerian type. Luckily Jessica took over from here and created the beautiful type for the night scene. I heard that Mark Todd, illustrator extraordinaire and a ICON board member, came up with the perfect title –Drawn Together.
A few painted moths for the other side.
Studio pic. I wanted to paint to scale of the poster which was a bit larger than I normally work.
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Our double sided poster for ICON! I love Jessica's beautifully mysterious letters and how some of the ornaments resembled specimen pins for the moths.
It was a truly amazing project to work on especially along side John and Jessica. Thanks to all on the ICON board for this neat opportunity and freedom. I'm really excited and looking forward to the conference this summer. Check out their website for more info.
It's always a thrill to get a call from Steven Charny to illustrate the Rolling Stone music review section. This one was for Coldplay's new album called Mylo Xyloto. Coldplay was being very secretive about their new album and all we had to go with was this mysterious album title and their first single release called Paradise. I'm really proud to be a part of this special issue. The cover has a great unrecognizable pic of Steve Jobs as a young hippie genius. The inside is covered with about 15 illustrated gems by Thomas Fuchs of famous musicians and their favorite songs. As well as a perfectly short and focused article about Occupy Wall Street with a common sense list of demands by Matt Taibbi called My Advice to the Protesters.
Sketches - Steven chose the 2nd sketch with Chris Martin at his signature "Charlie Brownesque" piano. The one problem was that a botanical theme was used in the previous issue and he requested some sort of "rainbows and stars" in place of the flowers.
Revised sketch / Final under-drawing
Huge thanks to Steven for including me in his Society of Illustrators presentation a few weeks ago. I also just got a confirmation email yesterday that Jann Wenner, the co-founder and publisher of Rolling Stone, has purchased and now owns the original painting.
