Faces of the Fair

These gents were drawn for Seattle Met‘s great new issue celebrating the 50th anniversary of the World’s Fair in Seattle in 1962. They were somehow involved in the fair, whether they worked there, exhibited there or attended the fair.

I was encouraged by the art director to try a different direction with the portraits and I found some inspiration in illustrated portraits from the 1950s. Instead of illustrating the shoulders for these guys, I illustrated just their collars and ties and filled the backgrounds with a solid yellow.

If you’re in Seattle you should really check out this issue. There are four beautiful covers to choose from and some fantastic design and classic photos on the interior. You can check out a couple of the spreads on Seattle Met’s Flickr account.

Mario Batali, Paula Deen, Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, Rachael Ray, Brooke Johnson

These painted portraits were used on the Adweek website a little while back in a really fun way as part of an illustrated tour of the top chefs in the food world. Take a look at the feature here.

Pete Brown and Jeff Cooper for Outdoor Life

A couple of hunters/outdoors guys here for Outdoor Life magazine.

Staff Portraits for Toodalu

The portraits above were completed for Toodalu, a new site that offers rewards to members when they make purchases at partner locations. You can check out more portrait work on my Portrait page.

Ryan Gosling's character from the movie Drive

I painted this for my brother for a Christmas present. I’ve been a big Gosling fan for a few years, ever since Chantal told me she exchanged dreamy glances with him on the street in Toronto years ago after his appearance on the legendary family show, Road To Avonlea (Season 7).

I thought ‘Drive’ was a great movie and Gosling’s character would be an interesting one to illustrate. I planned on doing a ‘Drive’ piece anyway, but when my brother mentioned how much he liked the movie I decided it would make a great gift. I actually wanted to do a Gosling piece a few years ago, but my only concept then was to paint a portrait of him surrounded by fluffy baby geese.

One of the prominent locations in the movie is MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. I added it into the piece and now aside from its appearance in Drive, the only other thing I think about when I hear MacArthur Park is from this Fresh Prince of Belair episode.

Seattle in the Year 2100

Happy New Year! We’ll start 2012 with an illustration of a futuristic Seattle. I was asked by Seattle Met to create an image of what Seattle could look like in the year 2100 with an estimated population of over 15 million.

According to the article, University of Washington researchers believe that as the planet’s finite resources become more scarce more people will move to the Pacific Northwest by the millions due to the area’s fresh water resources.

It was a fun challenge to imagine what a city could look like in 80 years.  Thanks to Chris for the assignment, and to Pete, Jill, Chantal and Mark for turning their backs to me to pose for photo reference of the boat people.

Seattle Met : Seattle in the Year 2100

Merry Christmas!

I’ve met a lot of illustration goals this year, and I am happy to say that 2011 has been my best year as an illustrator. I was really fortunate to be able to check a lot of names from my illustration “bucket list” and I even worked with some amazing clients who should have been on the list. Every job has been exciting and interesting and it makes my job so much easier to work with great art directors and designers.

Thanks to everyone who has read my blog this year, followed me on Twitter or hired me for an illustration or two. It’s been great to meet you all! I hope to meet more of you in person at the ICON conference in June.

I have some fun things planned for 2012. A postcard-style illustration series similar to some previous work (they are a bit time consuming, so those may be slow coming) is in the works, and for anyone who remembers my run of basketball illustrations from a few years ago, I’m working on some more. I started a website to showcase the new work called A Spectacular Move. I’ll start posting the new illustrations in the New Year. You can look forward to a collection of NBA legend illustrations from Pippen to Ewing to Olajuwon.

I’m also working on a series of letterpress characters in the same vein as my Troublemakers series and possibly another process video.

And of course I’ll be posting new illustration work and whatever else comes my way.

Thanks for a fantastic 2011, I can’t wait to see what everyone does in 2012.

*The above illustration was completed for a recent issue of Swerve Magazine

This was an exciting job I did a couple months ago for Pentagram Design. I was asked to create a series of portraits for a magazine that Pentagram was helping to redesign called Dornsife Life, a magazine for USC Dornsife students and their community. The students above are Peer Mentors, specializing in areas of study to assist classmates. Some of their specialties and areas of interest are illustrated behind the portraits (such as the whale bones in the portrait above).

Peer Mentors for Dornsife Life : Design by Pentagram

In addition to the Peer Mentors, I also illustrated four more portraits of FYI program students. First-Year Investigation students take the program to get the best out of their education. This was a great assignment and it was exciting to work with such a talented and prestigious firm as Pentagram. Thanks to DJ, Stu and Emily!

You can see more of my portrait work on my website here.

Business Hall of Fame 2011

These five portraits were drawn for the Washingtonian‘s annual Business Hall of Fame feature. In the past they had commissioned oil paintings but this year decided to go with something different (and I’m glad they did!).

Here’s how the portrait of Gloria Bohan looks in the layout. I love how the blue of the portraits is carried throughout the feature.

Appliances, electronics and other fun stuff

These spots were drawn for a Seattle Met feature about stylish and practical things for a holiday gift guide. There are some strange looking items in here such as the blender, frother and zester (first three after the knives). They were a lot of fun to draw. I suggest drawing beds early in the day – drawing them late at night will just make you sleepy.

Speaking of holiday gift guides, if you’re looking for illustrated letterpress cards be sure to check out Papillon Press. We’ll hook you up.

Boston Globe Magazine cover illustration

Crane, gator and bike riding

Jet pack adventures (amazing!) and Universal Studios' Hogwarts meets Lego Land's Harry Potter.

You might remember my Boston Globe Magazine cover from September done in a similar postcard style (Fall Travel). I had another opportunity to create one of these fun postcard-style illustrations for this Sunday’s magazine for a feature about Florida travel.

I was asked to incorporate a number of things such as (from left to right) golfing, alligators, bike riding, a new baseball stadium where the Red Sox train, the amazing jet pack activity on water, a combination of Universal Studios Harry Potter and Lego Land, and finally some salsa dancing. The beach I illustrated is Siesta Key beach.

I have some friends and family in Massachusetts so hopefully they had this land on their doorstep on Sunday morning. Thanks to Josue for a fun assignment.

Photo of the cover (thanks to my brother, Aaron)

Pelican detail

This really fun job started off as a spot illustration and eventually worked its way up to being a full two-page spread in Sportsnet Magazine, Canada’s newest sports magazine.

The article is about booing Philadelphia sports fans with a concentration on the Philadelphia Flyers fans. Apparently they’re all a bunch of hooligans, have a reputation for booing Santa, and throwing things.

I initially sent in a few sketches with three or four characters in them. The art director replied that he wanted to take one of my initial sketches and go even bigger (always good news). Four characters turned into 14, including Rocky punching out Santa, a shirtless guy waving his jersey, and my brother angrily shouting and pointing towards the viewer. He also posed as the Phillies fan (he plays one in real life) on the far right, ashamed of his Philadelphia sports brethren who show no brotherly love. Watch for falling beer.

I have to admit, booing is pretty entertaining. I went to a few Knicks games at Madison Square Garden and the fans there had no problem booing the 12-year-old boy singing Sinatra at halftime or the girl who couldn’t hit a free throw. This issue of Sportsnet Magazine is on shelves now! Go pick one up or I’ll boo you.