Here are some totally rad illustrations that were commissioned earlier this fall. I had a lot of fun doing them, but unfortunately the publisher went in another direction.  That doesn’t mean you can’t see the art, though!

I got a huge kick out of this one. Girl and her little sister are traveling, notice a hottie in the backseat, girl tries to get booger out of her nose, little sis freaks out.
If only all my assignments were this awesomely juvenile.

And no tween artist can go far without depicting the famous Mr. Justin Beiber himself- or at least a look-alike who hadn’t cut his hair and made the mistake of wearing Beiber sunglasses to Target.

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On a side note, I recently read an interesting study about motivation and the value of finished work in Dan Ariely’s The Upside of Irrationality. Essentially you’re hugely motivated if you see your work put to good use, but if your work is disregarded your motivation plummets- even if you’re being paid fairly for your time.

I was bummed out to find the art had been cancelled- my poor booger-picking tween will never go national, but I managed to scrape myself off the studio floor after a day or two.

I tried to find inspiration through the ordeal, and have been working on some non-digital-tween-editorial experiments. The results so far have been spotty at best and have left me bleeding at worst (non-digital studio art is DANGEROUS!), but I’m having a good time. Or at least I will when my finger heals back up.

This week’s awesome assignment also came by the way of Brandon Reese over at Guide Magazine.

I love drawing bubble-gum-friendship-kittens-and-love illustrations, but drama is the real deal. Especially when SNAKES are involved!!! This poor little dead guy is a water moccasin snake, I got to look up the correct markings and everything. It’s basically like I’m working for National Geographic

There were a fair amount of snakes where I grew up as a kid, but they were all harmless garden snakes (according to my dad anyway when I came to him screaming bloody murder that there was a snake in the yard). Apparently these kids aren’t so lucky, this one is proper and poisonous.

I liked both sketches, but I felt the second one was too close-up and didn’t direct the eye to the snake as well. Thankfully Brandon picked the better of the two!

A lot of people are curious how I work, and a few have mistaken me for a watercolor painter (if you saw my actual watercolor paintings, you’d know how much this flatters me!!!)

Check it: sketch in a sketchbook, I can’t draw nice lines on the computer. After that, I do the linework with a brush and ink on my trusty lightbox, and scan it in.

I scribble in some color, clean it up a bit, walk away, come back, fix whatever I missed, and it’s all set

Thanks again to Guide magazine for another fun and dramatic assignment!!

In other awesome news, illobook has a couple new members, the amazingly talented Brandon Reese and mega hip cat JD King. Go check out their blogs and say hello!!

I was contacted earlier this year for an unusually dramatic job at Guide Magazine. “Trouble at the Dock” is a story about a girl who almost gets swept away by a river and almost drowns in a fishing accident- a far cry from my usual tween spa night illustrations.

I love drawing stuff underwater, so I wanted to go from an interesting viewpoint if possible. I had to google around for some underwater reference, and I also re-watched some underwater videos taken on vacation- I really wanted to capture the effect of light streaming underwater.

Here are the three sketches I sent in for consideration- I had a whole mess of compositions thumbnailed out, but these were the strongest. It always seems like I’m sending the same drawing three times at the time, but when I look back later they look totally different. Must be some kind of optical illusion.

The final illustration had lots of layers- regular blue water, lots of texture, bubbles, and several layers of rays of light coming down. I don’t know a thing about fishing, so it was interesting to research the type of fish she was going after (pike) and the lures used for it. I love having the chance to be authentic about these things.

Here’s the art all laid out in the magazine with the typography and everything. Love it! Nothing makes me happier seeing a beautiful layout with an illustration that came out great with wonderful design. Thanks again to Brandon Reese at Guide Magazine for the assignment!