The New York Times: Is This the End?

Last week I illustrated my first Sunday Review cover for the New York Times. The opinion piece by James Atlas touched upon aspects of changing coastlines and vanishing civilizations throughout history and up through present day. Erich Nagler, Art Director for the Sunday Review, proposed an underwater Antlantis-type view of New York City, which I started in the sketches below, ultimately adding in a bit more sea life and light to the adjusted Statue of Liberty scene.

It was a pleasure to get to share the paper with so many great illustrations in the Sunday paper, and an additional surprise to see it cited by Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News the following day.

 

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The New Yorker: Flight

I got a call from The New Yorker to illustrate this week's review of Robert Zemeckis's new film "Flight" starring Denzel Washington. Even though I only had access to a few interviews and trailers, I enjoyed the challenge of keeping things simple and a bit more iconic in the sketches.
Much thanks to AD Chris Curry.

Glasses

Found some time between a couple of longer-term projects yesterday to paint up a daily sketchbook drawing from earlier in the week. Lots of fun, look forward to doing it more.

Washington Post: Glucagonoma

Medical Mystery series illustration in today's Washington Post. This story followed a man whose skin condition symptoms misled doctors for nearly a decade. The sketches below were based on one point in the article when a seminar of 20 medical specialists were brought in to consult on the situation. This apparently included a lot of "head scratching." Art Director Brad Walters.

The New Yorker: Thank You for the Light

Illustration for an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story in this week's New Yorker.

Nike: Jordan Trunner Dominate

Last fall I started working with Nike to illustrate a series of comic-book-type cityscapes designed to be staging backdrops for large-format displays for the just released Jordan 'Dominate Training' campaign, featuring photos of Chris Paul.

The sketches emphasized familiar, but not-quite-recognizable, cityscapes and alleyways, balancing dark corners and highlights to show early morning light. The left top and bottom sketches were selected, with some adjustments, and the addition of a basketball court.


Here are a couple of the details from the finished line drawings (developed at 1200 dpi for the sake of enlargement) and below are the layouts from the Nike design team and some shots of the finished displays. Much thanks to David Frank and the whole team at Nike for the great collaboration.

The New Yorker: Doctor Who

Getting assignments to work on something you're a fan of is always fun, but getting to work on something that you become a fan of while working is especially cool. I got a call from The New Yorker to illustrate a Doctor Who piece by Emily Nussbaum for the Sci-Fi issue and immediately regretted having put off watching the series. However, there's a lot to be said for being immersed in an entirely new subject while sketching and, in the case of the Doctor Who series, the only real visual struggle was editing down the wealth of great locations and monsters. Below are some of the unused rough sketches and the four sketches I cleaned up to submit. Thanks again to Chris Curry for the consistently fun assignments, and to the BBC for an exceptionally smart show.

Washington Post: GSD

May Medical Mystery illustration for today's Washington Post. Art Director Brad Walters.

Grantland: Hagler v. Leonard

 The new issue of Grantland, McSweeney's sports quarterly is on stands now with a huge amount of really nice artwork and essays. I had the good fortune to get to work with Juliet Litman on an illustration for a piece by Eric Raskin recounting the hotly debated oral history of the 1987 Hagler vs. Leonard fight. The crux of the piece being how subjective the calls were depending on perspectives and tastes of the judges, and how far from clean-cut the final decision was. Below are a few of the steps of the process, beginning with thumbnails done while reading the article, followed by sketches on the idea of conflicting viewpoints, and then the ink drawing layers.

Brush + Ink: May

Some new excerpts from the daily drawing exercise.