Sketches...

Collage made from preliminary sketches for 'Lucha de Gato!'.   I started working out different parts of the Bad Vamp #5  illustration this week. 

Planning on spending some time this weekend experimenting with Photoshop filter tricks.

Showing Some Ink

An 'other stuff ' post. A friend recently sent me some samples of work by Mexican artist/tattooist Dr Lakra who reworks vintage magazine covers and photos from the 50's with tattoo designs and other graphic icons.

Waters Edge

 I did this illustration over the weekend for my portfolio. The figure (and inspiration for this piece) was reworked from artwork I had done a few years ago for a story about spray on tanning that ended up not being printed.

Pulp Fiction

One of my hobbies is collecting "Good Girl Art" paperbacks. Above are a couple of new additions to that collection that I snatched up on a recent book excursion to Charlottesville VA.

The term Good Girl Art (G.G.A. for short) is collector's lingo referring to the art rather than the seductive and often 'bad' girls illustrated on the covers of these pocket sized pulps, which were churned out by publishers during the 40's - late 60's.

Also attached is a video I made with some of my covers showing the variety of great illustrations and varied genres of these covers. Enjoy.
( I'd never tried iMovie before, but had fun learning the basics while creating this)

MIA

Portrait of  Sri Lankan born singer/rapper  MIA. 

There were lots of good pictures of her to use as reference, but I liked the 'dynamic' of the few I found where she was mugging for the camera. It was a little more challenging, but I like the way it turned out.

New Avenues

Here's a Amy Winehouse portrait I finished late last week.

"Cocktails and Laughter...

but What Comes After?" It looks like a tab of around 700 billion by the government to bail-out the crumbling and carelessly deregulated mortgage industry.

Watching the news last week reminded me of an earlier financial shakedown and one of my first 'big'covers which was for Business Week back in '87. I was still new to the biz and got a call on Friday, after the market had plunged, to do a cover for the following weeks issue. "A weekend deadline? No problem!" Because no one knew what was going to happen when the market opened on Monday they commissioned 2 versions, one with a bear and the other with a bull(that sketch had a bull that was trying to keep it's balance on the roof). I had the sketches approved Saturday, then had the finished art in their hands late Sunday night. The bear won out.

College Bound...

Finished up a few jobs this past week, above is a piece I did for the New York Times. The story was by a dad who was sending his 'socially inclined' twin sons (who'd never been apart before) off to 2 different colleges.