American Trypanosoma

A series of illustrations from a side project that's been in the works.

Illustration Now! Portraits

Just got a copy of the new Taschen Illustration Now! Portraits book in the mail.  I have a couple pages in the book alongside an humbling collection of work by eighty illustrators and edited by Julius Wiedemann. The first section of the book is available to browse through on the Taschen site.  (Cover illustration by the always cool Raphael Vicenzi.)

Beach

Two-color illustration for a short fiction piece by Roberto Bolano in the "Aliens" issue of Granta Magazine.  Much thanks to Michael Salu (and Roberto Bolano) for such consistently rich source material.

Idris Elba

Working on a portrait of Idris Elba for this month's issue of British GQ reminded me how much fun just hitting the page with a brush and ink and some flat colors can be.  Below are the sketch ideas inspired mainly by his role on the BBC crime thriller "Luther" with a little super hero thrown in since his role in "Thor" was kicking around the back of my mind while working.

Also in case anyone's interested the original artwork for this piece, along with a few other paintings is now available for purchase at owenfreeman.bigcartel.com

Medical Mysteries

Over the past couple months I've been illustrating the Medical Mysteries column for the Washington Post Health page.  The articles are on real-life cases where symptoms and conditions lead to unexpected revelations with some false-leads along the way.  From an illustration standpoint it's been an interesting challenge to try to distill the long-term situations into a single dramatic reenactment that contain the condition, the suspects and the culprit, all without giving too much of the ending away.  The June mystery (out yesterday) is about a man who's was repeatedly admitted to the hospital after suffering serious symptoms of liver cirrhosis and diabetes; below are the rough thumbnail ideas and then the sketches which lead to the finish above.

The second illustration below was for the May Medical Mystery about a wedding photographer suffering from a debilitating skin condition and potential culprits from her daily life.  Art Directed by the always great Brad Walters.