5 Little Things

I got a call from Marianne asking if I was working over the Holidays.Well, I had really been planning a little time with the family but Marianne is so sweet and it looked like a pretty simple little project, so sure why not. Five spots in a simple style should go pretty fast....Ideas always come pretty easy, I just sat down and did the thumbnails and sent them off for her to get back to me on what worked for her. Then I had a second thought , what if i could use some unifying theme and tie them all together. So I did a second set of thumbnails with a circus theme .I could do the "Housing Crisis" as a clown getting out of a car or carrying a ladder and saw. Uncle Sam as a clown, China a a fat man, saw the world in half...or shoot it out of a cannon....this could work.. I loved the monkey in the top hat....I really liked this direction but Marianne decided on the ones she liked. I drew them out scanned them in and colored them. Then set them aside and off to Christmas and our annual hiking trip to Mount LeConte . Housing: Is it finally bottoming out? - Europe: Can its leaders over come political sclerosis to avoid the worst? - China: Can Chinese leaders engineer a soft landing for their economy and amp up domestic consumption? - Politics: Will the U.S. political system behave itself, avoiding government shutdowns, threatened defaults, or divisive recount battles? - X-factor: Can we be lucky enough to avoid the random, destructive things that held back growth in 2011--no more Japan earthquakes, no spikes in oil prices due to Middle East turmoil, etc.? But wait there's more.....When I got back I had thought of a diferent way to finish the spots in more of a kind of folk art , I don;t know maybe more contemporary way and I thought it would be easy enough to put them together and at least she'd have two options. Why do I want to do this? I don;t know, It's more work for me, A good chance she won;t like the newer direction.... Oh who cares it will only take a few hours to do, and the main reason is I like it.....So here's what they look like... I am never afraid of taking a chance on trying something new.... - Housing: Is it finally bottoming out? - Europe: Can its leaders overcome political sclerosis to avoid the worst? - China: Can Chinese leaders engineer a soft landing for their economy and amp up domestic consumption? - Politics: Will the U.S. political system behave itself, avoiding government shutdowns, threatened defaults, or divisive recount battles? - X-factor: Can we be lucky enough to avoid the random, destructive things that held back growth in 2011--no more Japan earthquakes, no spikes in oil prices due to Middle East turmoil, etc.? In the end she liked the the second direction a lot but decided to use the more traditional looking illustrations and drop the watercolor paper backgrounds and use them on stark white...I think her design worked better with this direction. but I still think these little gouache drawings have some potential somewhere....I am never afraid to try something a little different...

New Stamp Drawings

I have a long time friend and great designer, Rick Anwyl, and it was such a pleasure to work with him on this project. He has been familiar with my stamp drawings since I started doing them and always wanted to find a way to use them. This certainly seemed a perfect match of intelligent application and clever design. These little drawings' ultimate use was for a recruitment brochure for an old Boston financial advisor, Cabot and Moore. Each spot was to represent an atribute and spark a memorable piece that would set them apart from the norm. A big step for such an old prestigious firm. A step that takes a lot of trust with clients and design firm. We started off doing samples of styles and settled on two diferent directions, One, the stamp drawing, and the second a playful use of the 40's New Yorker style I had been playing around with. But from the very beginning I think Rick wanted to use the stamps. Noone else has figured out how to make them work in a campaign or brochure or any application since Piauí picked up one of my sketchbook drawings and used it a year or so ago. It was a smart direction but we ran into snags trying to work out how to get the client on board. I did a few tests of stamp drawings and one of the little spots of the 1940's New Yorker style...Seemed like they were not quite getting there conceptually, so we went back to the conceptual stage and did some little thumbnails and picked a direction... did a few more little tests to show the client. Rick put together a dummy of the booklet and ran both styles past them. I did bunches of thumbnails... As you can imagine, I sorted the ones that were working out and sent them to Rick for his comments. He and whoever else was sitting in made their choices and I did a little thumbail version of the stamp drawings so I could try to keep from doing multiple versions of each concept and try also to keep some freshness to the final drawings. Ricky gave me carte blanche with these, to do anything I thought I wanted to try but ultimately I tried to keep itsimple and not do anything that would interfere with the play of the stoic little stamps and the clever little line drawings and how they work together. I almost redrew these little drawings... They were a little too tight for me but it was questionable if the looser drawings would be better or not. They seemed to work pretty nice the way they were.

Cliches Always Work

Another fun little project with SooJin, I got a layout and a short note..."let me know if you can fit this in" ..."Year in Preview—Risk Parity (story unavailable) Image: Balanced approach to investing. Hedging risk. Compensating Risk." Clichés always work with these things, and with just a litle twist the thumbnails are flying.I hammered these out in short time but it was so much fun I just couldn't stop at three or four. So twenty five works. Sent them off for SooJin to review...Got another short note that said, "12 please." so blew up the sketch and sent it off and we're off and running.Pretty tight on the deadline so no time to waste. Well maybe a nice walk while I wait for her to respond. I tried a lot of ideas , did some with the little guy balancing or juggling something dangerous. mainly because of the headline " Balanced approach to investing...hedging risk..." Still like the little guy balancing the knife on his nose. Reminds me of a game we used to play as kids. "Mumbly Peg" Sharp things always atracted me, but Lee says this scares her a bit so better to keep them in the sketchbooks and drawings. I like # 2 ,# 4,and number 23 too ,but these will have to sit it out for now. Number 12 is the winner. I wanted the water to be dark and murky and the little guy a bit unsettled, so I made the composition tilted to the right almost like the sea was in a storm. I did the little guy and mines in airbrush, everything else digital.I finally got around to looking up mines on google to see what they looked like( wish I had done that sooner) and noticed that in one photo they had chains anchoring them.Of course they were anchored just had not thought of that. so I scanned in a watch chain and distorted it and attached it to the mines from the bottom. I used the tops of the mines and flopped them for the part underwater. darkened, blurred , and they almost look like they fit... Clichés always work.

Bebo Part Deux. And Trois

The other day I was sketching in my sketchbook and I started drawing these little senarios for my little friend Bebo. In the same sexploitation and bad French (and now Norweigan) translations. This is a shameless jaunt through the rock and drug world, complete with a pair of Icelandic traveling companions Hotla and Helga, this story probably needs a rewrite but it was a lot of fun exploring. I am thinking it could still use a few more "fish" Clichés...all in all it was a blast to work on and I was pretty happy with the drawings ...writing well ,appologies in advance...Graphically I thought they turned out interesting enough to share....they were certainly a blast to play with. Couldn't resist throwing a few lines from one of my favorite parodies. If you Havn't seen "Fear of a Black Hat", put it on your Que. One of the funniest music parodies since "Spinal Tap." And yes just can't stop there is now a Bebo Trois...A rather stange trip back to the drug haze of Psychedelic Lutefisk, and a randy romp with Icelandic twins Helga and Hotla...Where the knulle this was going I have no idea but it was certainly a blast. I was trying to see if i could expand the pallet a bit. have the whole mess just pore out on the page and then suck it all back. I think it could definately use a little editing and maybe a rewrite. but graphically I was pretty happy with where this one went. Stay tuned for more developing stories..What's up next ? I don't know., I never have any idea where these little silly things are headed, just sort of hang on for the ride...