Escape

I am about to escape the studio.

I am taking the month of July off - I have an epic road trip coming up, driving across North America to Portland (and back) with stops in Salt Lake City and Yellowstone Park. First and foremost is ICON 8. Looking forward to connecting with some old pals in the biz and making some new friends! Then it's off to Yellowstone Park, camping with my family.

It's easy to get weighed down by assignments and paperwork. I have been lucky to have an incredible workspace and studio, in an old barn that I renovated. But after sixteen years, I am sorting through piles of books and old illustrations, filing boxes and recycling bins and getting ready to relocate. I will be moving right after I get home. I scouted out my new space and it looks promising. I will provide some pics once I get settled in. So, I am escaping from my current digs in more ways than one. As an artist change is a force that drives us, spurs creativity and opens up new opportunity. Plenty on the horizon to look forward to.

Here's the latest illustration for the New York Times. Gravity is the least understood of the universal forces, yet it controls us and threatens our well-being in so many ways. I have been working on this series and the writing is top-notch. Challenging and rewarding work. You can read the full article here: Still Exerting a Force on Science, by George Johnson.

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I might as well jump in and talk about an exciting project I recently completed. I was invited by art director Jim Burke to participate in this year's Frogfolio calendar project. The calendar takes the personal interpretations of various artist on one theme: the frog. Artists are given creative freedom to explore and define their vision of the subject, and over the years eight medals have been awarded by the Society of Illustrators. It was a real honour to have been invited. No pressure, right?

Earlier this spring I worked on a collage called Spring Peeper. Winter was so long this year and extreme, I love the sound of frogs in the swamp that come out after the thaw. You can hear them before things turn green, and it's always a chorus of hope for warmer weather, and an explosion of life and activity. I wanted to capture some of that energy in this image.

This year's calendar is available for purchase in September. Details to follow soon. A great lineup of artists including Bill Mayer, C.F. Payne, Victor Juhasz, Wesley Allsbrook, John Dykes, Melanie Reim and more!

I will be blogging photos from the road trip on the ICON instagram feed. See you in August! I am out of here.

Now, where was I?

Trying to keep it all together this spring, super busy with so many things going on. Here's a peak inside my head and an update on some recent work.

These are illustrations from a recent cover assignment and feature for ProSales. I worked with art director Sarah Bell at Hanley Wood. It's all about getting the right combination of elements together to build leaders. So I ran with the conveyer belt/factory/industrial aesthetic. Fun stuff (for me, anyways!).

Here's another cover assignment, for Golfworld - Timothy Carr, art director. Now that the Masters is on, I thought it would be a good idea to post this golf-related piece. Love to do covers, and in this case, it's technology meeting sport. I added a little extraterrestrial twist as well, because the golfing universe was altered forever by this strange-looking device.

While I am on the topic of strange-looking devices, here's a little 'selfie' to end things. I submitted this to Pictoplasma, and it will be part of the portrait show in Berlin in May. Mecanismos on the move. Love it!

Digital Sketchbook

Here's a few recent experimental pieces from my digital sketchbook.

I have an account over on Tumblr, I will be posting these and more on an ongoing basis.

Reconstructive:

Underwater:

Shiver:

Machines making Machines

 I like to dabble in collage, building my own imaginary machines. I collect a lot of old technical catalogues and manuals, and see anthropomorphic images in the diagrams and objects. I don't keep a sketchbook, but I have a lot of open illustrator files, where I create new combinations and characters.

There is something fascinating about the click and whirr of analog technology. Springs, flywheels, gears and levers. A ticking clockwork or adding machine. There is also a romance built into fiction along the lines of H. G. Wells. I don't have the attention span to assemble and repurpose old machines, but I do like the aesthetic, and have dabbled with it in my Mecanismos series. These images are always evolving and have taken on a life of their own.

It's fun to take a technical story and incorporate these robots into the illustration. Here's a recent assignment for the Christian Science Monitor, about human error and mistakes made by officials in sports. Should we replace humans with machines in order to get the call right? Is it foolproof? Will it improve the game? It's your call.

Recent assignment for Hemispheres magazine above, about designers repurposing our modern technology with a steampunk aesthetic. Juicy topic!  Thanks to art director Claire Eckstrom, she was great to work with.

'Your worship is your furnaces

Which, like old idols, lost obscenes,

Have molten bowels, your visions is

Machines for making more machines.'

     - Gordon Bottomley (1912)

Reinventing the Weed-whacker

Ever sit by the shore with a dog that just won't quit bringing you the ball? 

Maybe all that energy can be put to good use.

Here's a patent application for a hypothetical nonstop ball-chasing underwater weed-whacker, courtesy of Cottage Life Magazine. Art Director Vicki Hornsby.

Fun assignment!