Too Many Whistle Blowers

I totally forgot to blog about this piece. I did work for Levi, the art director of Nexus magazine, which is associated with the University of Toronto law program.

The focus of the article was that because of incentives given to people who blew the whistle on their companies, lawyer have gotten up to their necks in new clients blowing the whistle on their company. So Lawyers now have to find new ways to sift through the poor information to really seek out who is really trying to do the right thing and who is trying to get some extra coin by giving lame information that could lead to shaming and company or just be a huge cost to the lawyers when they lose their suit. HEAVY STUFF!

Allison Weiss + Rachel Cantu go on tour

Allison Weiss hit me up to do a tour poster that also translated into a awesome website so you can check out Allison or Rachel anywhere on tour.

I did the illustration, Allison did the print/web design for this project.

My favorite part about working on this piece was playing around with loosely translating stuff with painterly brush strokes so that the car would be more of a focal point. I also had to paint the “canyon” like forms a few times to get it just right and not look to loosely painted or bad form.

The Charters are coming…

I got a chance to finally work with Elizabeth at the Nashville Scene. She gave me a tricky article about whether or not charter schools were going to be good for the city of Nashville or not. She proposed the idea of a teacher writing out “The Charters Are Coming” over and over like she’s in detention and the students are monitoring her.

Like always, I try to thrown in my best alternatives ideas to see what works…

Some of my ideas included a student heading into school with different schools on each of the corners and across the street, stressing there are to many popping up. The second one about how diverse the range of schools are by uniform, as they get on a city bus. The third being the sketch for the final and forth showing to many classes going on at once.

It’s not to often that I am handed a solution that I really like the outcome. Also, I am starting to see a trend in these last two months of hand lettering seeping into my editorial work which is something that I’ve been wanting to see go hand and hand for a while.

Benefits of Good Sportsmanship

I got the chance to work with the lovely people at Southern Poverty Law to do a piece for their magazine called “Teaching Tolerance”. The article they had me work on was about Sportsmanship in football. Specifically how rivalry is totally fine but when it leads to poor sportsmanship, it can be really hurtful. In the full page image that was published, I wanted to show how poor sportsmanship can create such a divide that it can really hurt the players on the field.

Some other idea’s that I thought would of been cool to show was how poor sportsmanship can travel amongst the team like a wild fire, and showing a player going from color to black and white.

I was also asked to do a follow up illustration that’s pretty simple.

As a side bar note, it was really interesting to take on this article on a personal level. During my middle school and high school years I played football and really loved the game. However, I stopped playing football ultimately because I got tired of the trash talk, and poor sportsmanship that is sadly part of the game. So it’s kinda interesting to put my own commentary into an illustration for an article that is entirely reflective on my younger self.

Confidence….Paradigm Gallery

I was kindly asked to take part in a group show with a stellar line of folks a few weeks ago. If you don’t have anything to do this friday in Philadelphia, please swing by Paradigm Gallery to check out the show.

I was able to take a few quick photos of the piece before getting it out the door, but here’s a preview of what the painting looks like.

Seattle Met: Womens Health Annual

Happy New Year Everyone! I got a wonderful phone call a week before Thanksgiving to work on a series of nine pieces for a special insert in the Seattle Met/Portland Monthly. I worked with André Mora at the Seattle Met on this huge project, and he is probably the most laid back, easy going, art director I had the pleasure of working with. 

Typically I like to show my process in these post’s but because there would be a massive amounts of sketches to show, I figured I would just post the images. Here are my fav’s…

“Understanding your hearts health”

“Active Living”

“Choosing the right doctor to deal with your needs”

“Modern advancements in Breast reconstruction”

“How pregnancy helped a women deal with her M.S. symptoms”

Thanks for checking this out!

ALSO on a side note: Huge thanks to my dear friend, Jenn Whitney, for giving me a huge intro on how to build my new website using wordpress and did some trouble shooting for me too. I am really happy with it. Enjoy.

Later 2011, Hello 2012!

“RELAX, the world isn’t going to end in 2012” – Honolulu Magazine

I have to say it, THIS YEAR HAS BEEN INCREDIBLE!

Most of it has to do with so many of the amazing illustrators I have befriended in real life and over twitter, Without you guys support, and friendship, I wouldn’t know where I’d be. Huge thanks to the many art directors/musicians I have worked with who have hired me to make a ton of really fun artwork. Sometimes once, sometimes twice, and sometimes every month. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you so much. Lastly, I have to thank my wonderful roommates for keeping me social, and kinda inspired.

Goals for 2012 – Work Hard + make time to live.

1. Stop worrying so much… The world is not going to end, the milk is probably still good, pretty sure I can do a 4 hour deadline, is my hair getting to long, did I already wear this shirt, Am I forgetting something…. D:

2. Staying in touch. I have worked with a lot of wonderful people, and hung out with a ton of creative people this year. I am totally flattered to work/hung out with so many rad people. I want to know how I can better stay connected with you guys without in 2012?

3. Truly understand how “I” define my work. It’s always interesting to hear other peoples responses of what they see/feel/think about my work. Often times, my work is described as “fine art illustration”, “Vintage colors”, “painterly textured, sorta narrative”. I always thought of myself as a conceptual/poetic illustrator who creates his images on the computer. I think how “I” define myself is important to explore because I run a business, and how I define myself helps guide others on how they can use me. I also don’t want to get to caught up in definition either because it can totally suck you dry.

4. Working on larger projects… Series of book covers? T-shirt line? Vinyl cut murals for a pop-up shop(s)? Corporate Annual Reports? Skateboard Decks? Multi-layered AD campaign involving printed posters, interactivity for the web/tablet, and other printed ephemera?

5. I want to make books…. I’ve got asked to make two childrens books this year that both got killed in the early stages. Lets make this happen guys. Childrens book, Adult picture book, Lets make a nice collection of images together.

6. Live. A few close friends of mine tell me to often that I need to leave my apartment more. This is true. So I plan on taking a few days to a week off every month starting in January. Illustration/handlettering is wonderful, but I’d like to think I have deeper interests than just that.

So That’s That! Thank you again guys for getting me stoked everyday to create things for myself and for you. I am really lucky to be able do this every day. HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS!

Heres a piece I did for this weeks Seattle newspaper, The…

Heres a piece I did for this weeks Seattle newspaper, The Stranger, about a writer talking about his youth living in Zimbabwe. He mentions going to a Bruce Springsteen concert with two upset blond Swedish women, and how awkward it was to listen to The Boss open up with ‘Born in the USA’ to a crowd of Africans. YIKES! You can read the article here – http://www.thestranger.com/…….

Thanks Aaron!