Juggling

Man, when it rains it pours. I'm working on jobs for Bloomberg News, Sail magazine, Portland Monthly, Golf Digest, and one I won't name because I'm putting the sketch up here. This will accompany an article on how Howard Stern basically did what the Borat movie has done as far as using anti-semitism, racism, and misogyny for years. I decided to take the offensive approach a lttle further and do a satire on a Madonna and Child icon. Thanks god for art directors who aren't afraid of offending!

3 hour ride

I went for a decent 3 hour ride in the mist with 2 very fast guys this morning. The one in the red and black and green is my good buddy Mark McCormack. Mark is a former cyclocross and road professional national champion. He and his brother Frank are legends in New England and nationally. One day I'll do a post just on Mark. It'll be a long one.

The guy in the yellow is Brad Sheehan. Brad is a dangerous cat 2. By dangerous, I mean that if you ride shoulder to shoulder with him for too long, you'll end up in a world of pain. He's also a great designer. His team consistently has the best looking kits of the bunch. Another great guy.

One of the things I've really benefited from by training with Mark is the range of people I've met along the way. There are multi-millionaires, blue collar construction workers, musicians, artists, doctors. The thing about the bike is that it's a real equalizer. It has no idea how much money you make or what you do for a living. It does help you to see what kind of person you are, though. If you're the type to throw in the towel quickly, this crowd is not one should try to hang around with.

Led Zeppelin

This was to be my first (only?) cover for Rolling Stone magazine. I got the call on my birthday, and I thought it was a friend playing a joke on me. Anyone who knew me when I was a kid knows how much I loved Zeppelin, and the cover of Rolling Stone has always been the brass ring of my illustration career.

So, I got the call and was like, "Yeah, suuuure, I'll draw a little picture for you. But the guy on the other end sounded sincere, and the small part of me that hasn't been turned to blackened stone held out a little hope that it was the real thing. Turned out it was.

After about a dozen sketches, a final was approved and I went to work on the final...uh, final. The trouble with working digitally is that clients feel free to ask for changes more often than they did before Photoshop was so widely used. So, after I finished the "final" and sent it, more changes, etc. No big deal at all, though. This was a COVER for Rolling Stone.

After I sent the final final final, I jokingly said to the AD, "So what are the chances this thing will actually see a newsstand?" He paused and said, "Well, you never know, usually Jan (Wenner, the publisher) comes in and says "I love it", or "I hate it". Well guess which one it was for me. They went with a colorized black and white stock photo instead.

The thing is, after spending so much time sweating over this thing, I can't even see it any more. It's almost as though I have no idea whether it sucks, or if it's just okay or what.

Anyway, here it is.

Tom Waits

Tom Waits released a new triple album today. I love this guy. For the first part of his career he was kind of a lounge novelty act. Very sentimental and/or drunken rants. Funny, but not what you'd call art. He met the woman he married and she challenged him to creatively throw himself off a cliff and learn to fly, and the results have been amazing. I can't say how many times my wife has wandered into the studio and said "What the HELL are you listening to?". For me, it's been a real inspiration to see a guy who's fearlessly charted a path of his own. I don't think you could classify Wait's music under any other genre than "Tom Waits".

I hope to take my own singular artistic path. I feel like I'm still the funnyish lounge act, but I'm going to be an artist someday.

Muqtada Al-Sadr

Al-Sadr is an on again, off again, Good Guy/Bad Guy in Iraq. At any given moment, he could be about to fall, or about to take control of everything. He seems to embody our tenuous position there. This was done for an editorial on who would take over in Iraq if we pull out.

Personally, I'm very thankful to him for looking like this.

Robert Johnson

There are 2 known photos of Blues legend Robert Johnson. I've used both as reference for this piece. Johnson is a favorite subject of artists because he has such a great legend surrounding him, as well as being the first real "rock star". He'd show up late for gigs, get drunk, and leave early with someone's wife. They say he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for being able to play like the devil. I tried to get an iconic feel to this, kind of a stained glass treatment. Someday I'd like to learn how to make stained glass and try this one out.

Breakdown Lane

This is a comic strip I've been fooling around with for a few years. I'll post them on ocassion.

My Chemical Romance

This is Gerard Way from the band My Chemical Romance. I love that name. I also love how Way just pours himself into MCR's music. For a long time rockers seemed to be almost apologetic about being over the top and theatrical. I enjoy watching music videos with my kids, and when this band comes on, it scares the bejeezus out of them.
This was for a review of their latest album "The Black Parade".

Dylan

Here's a portrait a Bob Dylan I did for a record review. I like that Dylan's not afraid to alienate his audience by trying new things, even rework his songs completely. So in keeping with that, I tried to veer off my usual flightplan a bit and make this a little more "collage-y".

Vincent Desiderio

I've really been enjoying a new monograph on the painter Vincent Desiderio lately. A great example of beautiful paintings telling you terrible things. If you're into figurative/narrative work and you've never seen this guy's stuff, I think it's worth checking out. It gave me bad dreams, which is one of my benchmarks for really good work.

If I could do it all over again...

...maybe I'd be oneoftheseguys

Dan Zanes

Music

I did this yesterday for the Wall Street Journal. The art director is David Bamundo, who is a very talented illustrator and all around great guy. We were both in Philadelphia a few years ago for an Illustrator's conference and had our first real Philly cheese steak together. I think we had the same reaction - "Huh." I remember there where more than a few beers consumed that weekend. It's nice having someone like Dave in the position he's in at the Journal. It feels like our side has infiltrated the other side in a way.

Anyway, about the piece. Dan Zanes used to be in the Del Fuegos - the Next Big Thing out of the Boston Music scene back in the 80's I think he was in the Neighborhoods before that. At any rate, the Del Fuego's high water mark came when they scored the soundtrack to a beer commercial (Miller?), and it seemed to go downhill from there. My band "Thunderhouse" opened for them at a bar in Scituate around 1989. God, I'm old.

Zanes has found a new career as a children's music performer. I've heard some of the stuff, and I have to say, it's pretty darn good. Way better than your Raffi or Wiggles or Barney type of thing. Still, I wonder if he's ever done any shows with those cats. I'll bet backstage is a little different than what it was when he was a "grown up" rocker. At least now the backstage vomiting and pants wetting is performed by actual babies and toddlers instead of guys who just act like that.

Self Portrait

American Classic

The election had me thinking about my favorite White House story. During the Carter administration Willie Nelson was a guest at the White House for a party, and he took a break from the crowd to get some fresh air up on the roof...and smoke a joint!

Clinton Final!

Oh yeah, the final!

Wrapping up Clinton

I've softened the edges using the same transparent brush described below, andused the "bristle" brush shown below for hair details and skin texture.

I put some violet in the shadows of the face to cool things off, and added some very light blue to the hilights to make them hotter.

Also, I added a tie dye peace tie to break up the somber feel of the piece.

For the background, I created a scattered sponge-like brush with color dynamics. I brought the color of the background down over the jacket to unify the piece a bit and give it all a sense of continuity.

By the way, I experimented with using only 4 layers on this which is unusual for me. For something even as simple as this, I'd usually have over 15 layers.

That's about it for this piece, thanks for coming along for the ride!

Election Day

Here's a little election day music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3jBXEF3eAo&mode=related&search=

From here, it's really just a matter of plugging away at the skin texture and eyes with the same 2 brushes I showed below. I have the brushes set at about 25% opacity. I also used the dodge and burn tools for hilights and shadows.
Next, I'll work more on the clothing.

Here's the custom brush I made for the hair, and the pallette I'm using for most of the painting.

Here's the first stage of the Clinton portrait I'm working on.

I got a decent sketch together, then scanned it full size. Then in Photoshop I adjusted the levels so that I had a neutral gray background. I made another layer and started painting using a semi tranparent brush with the opacity knocked back to about 40%.

I'm going to be putting up a sort of step by step. But first, here are the tools I use. I have an Apple G4, 2x1.42 processor with 2 gigs of RAM and a 120 gig hard drive. The monitor is the Apple 23" cinema display and the most imortant part is the Wacom 21"Cintiq monitor that allows you to use a stylus directly on the screen instead of a tablet. This has brought the whole digital thing right back to drawing on paper, or painting on canvas. If you're an artist working digitally, I can;t say enough about the Cintiq.

This whole John Kerry joke thing has really pissed me off. If I was still doing editorial cartoons, this issue could keep me going for a week.

Here's today's sketchbook page.