I was hanging off the back of what would be an 84 mile death march bike ride with my new master's cycling team when I thought I'd snap a photo to post on Facebook. Before I could get the camera up on the phone, an email from the New York Observer's art director, Laura Draper asserted itself , asking if I could do a cover. "Sounds like fun" I shot back, snapped the photo, and proceeded to hold on for dear life. This is how business is done in the 2010's.
The story is pretty universal these days: How can examples of old media hang on to relevance in today's blossoming, expanding media and cultural landscape. It's a topic that's often discussed in my house and after hundreds of hours of debate, I still have no clue. Anyway, the idea here is to have NBC's Brian Williams trying his best to fit in with New York's hipster crowd.
A side note. Does anyone really like Pabst Blue Ribbon? I mean come on, all irony aside, that stuff brings the taste of high school excess back to me in a room spinning wave of nerves that make me think I need to start cleaning up before my father gets home.
Here's a relatively quick turn around piece I did on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. Lauren Draper from the New York Observer called asking for a spoof of National Lampoon's Vacation, with the candidates in the beat up station wagon. The GOP elephant on the roof is a nod to the story of how Mitt Romney would put the family dog in it's travel case and strap it to the top of the car when the family would head north to their New Hampshire lake house.
This has been a surprisingly fun, entertaining primary season. I hope Mitt doesn't wrap it up too quickly. Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment of " Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican" has devolved into a Tarantinoesque Mexican standoff, with capiotalism, shockingly, being one of the weapons aimed against Romey. What a soap opera.
I was happy to hear that Andrew Nilsen and I have snagged a bronze medal from the L.A. Society of Illustrators Illustration West for a cover I did for SF Weekly last spring. Thanks to SI LA and especially to Andrew.
When Texas Monthly art director TJ Tucker called last month to ask if I was available to illustrate the cover for their annual “Bumsteers” issue, I felt as though I had received an early Christmas gift. I’m a bit of an obsessive magazine fiend, and Texas Monthly has long been on my radar as one of the great regional magazines in the country from a design perspective. With a slew of all star art directors through recent years including D.J. Stout, Scott Dadich, and now T.J. Tucker, it was both intimidating and really exciting to get the gig. The Bumsteers edition is basically the Texas Monthly version of the Darwin awards – the “winners” being those who rode the horse over the cliff so to speak. T.J. presented an idea that I loved – basically hammering home Rick Perry’s signature moment in his campaign thus far, the “oops” debate.
The subject matter, venue and T.J.’s relaxed direction made this one of my favorite assignments of 2011. I was determined not to make this an “oops” moment.
As I mentioned, the essentials were agreed upon, but the major issue was getting the expression right. Should it be a goofy "What me worry" approach or more of a clueless, brain fart moment.
...we went with the brain fart. After I finish a piece I look back on the sketches and wonder how the hell anyone could have seen where I was going. These, for instance, are bits and pieces of other sketches put together in Photoshop the way we used to do with tracing paper. A stray nose, a mouth that may have not have worked elsewhere.
As I said, my sketches fill me with horror when I look back on them. I think of them more a mumbled suggestions than anything else. Once I start painting (I paint traditionally, but use digital tools), that's when I feel like I can really see where I'm going. Or not.
I love working on the details. I spend more time than I should looking at the sky, clouds. I was playing street hockey with my son and a plane was flying at around 35,000 feet and I noticed the way the contrails broke up. Of course, the little guy used the opportunity to score, but I got some good reference for the "Oops" skywriting.
This was a nice way to end 2011. Maybe not for Rick Perry though. Maybe he'll be too busy campaigning and prepping for debates to notice this boot in the rear.
