“Gambling Addiction” illustrations

Experts refer to video slot machines as the “crack cocaine of gambling”, because of their powerfully addictive nature. Bankruptcy, broken relationships, and even suicide are all too often costs of the addiction. For this feature story in Rhode Island Monthly profiling one woman's battle to stay “clean”, art director Ellen Dessloch wanted an image with a human presence that was sad, but not dark. She liked the idea I came up of lemons as an organic symbol of the futility and loss associated with slot machines. Above are the finished full-page opener and spot illustrations. Below are the sketches submitted.



CLIENT: RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY
ART DIRECTOR: ELLEN DESSLOCH

“Irene Dos Santos” Book Jacket

The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos, by Margaret Mascarenhas, explores themes of love, truth, and belonging through the character of a free-spirited fifteen year-old girl who one day disappears into the Venezuelan jungle. The art director requested an image of the character in her white dress and red shoes walking into the lush, green jungle. Not much Photoshop in this one, one or two layered textures and some hand coloring. For the type treatment, I was inspired by Latin American cigar boxes.

Above is the finished artwork, and below are the original sketches presented.

CLIENT: GRAND CENTRAL PUBLISHING
ART DIRECTOR: BRIGID PEARSON

“Internal Auditor” Spot Portraits

I did the above spot photo collage portraits for the great folks at Yacinski Design. They will appear on The Institute of Internal Auditor’s website. That last generic one will accompany the blog section on the site. It is an homage (with apologies) to a hero of mine, illustrator Malcolm Tarlofsky.


CLIENT: YACINSKI DESIGN, INSTITUTE OF INTERNAL AUDITORS
ART DIRECTOR: JOE YACINSKI

“Snow Angel” Illustrations

Angels On Earth Magazine wanted an image of an angel in a snow globe for this year's upcoming holiday issue, plus an additional variation for a second illustration. As props go, snow globes are not too hard to find, shrinking the model was much tougher (and I appreciate her patience).

CLIENT: ANGELS ON EARTH MAGAZINE
ART DIRECTOR: JAMES CONRAD

Recent Work: “Someone Named Eva” Book Jacket

Inspired by actual events in World II, this middle-grade novel tells the story of an eleven year-old Czech girl, who, because of her Aryan features, is taken from her family by German soldiers for “Germanization”– to be re-educated, renamed, and adopted by a German Nazi family.

The art director asked for a fairly straight forward treatment, somehow using a close-up of the character, with perhaps a distressed texture somewhere to evoke the historical nature of the book. As luck would have it, I happened to have in my archives some photos I took a few years ago of a young girl which seemed to match the character perfectly. Below are two of the alternated ideas presented.




CLIENT: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
ART DIRECTOR: SHEILA SMALLWOOD

Recent Work: “Depression” Book Jacket Finish

Just finished this artwork for Climbing Out Of Depression by Sue Atkins. The sketches for this project were posted on June 3rd. Again, the publisher chose sketch A. It seems as though about 85 percent of the time sketch A gets the nod. I am really not sure if my best ideas usually come first, or maybe there just is something about that letter “A”? Anyone else out there have a similar experience?

The concept came to me fairly quickly. The tricky part was executing it convincingly. The final image was created with a combination of table-top photography, previously shot personal photos, and Photoshop.

CLIENT: TARCHER/PENGUIN
ART DIRECTOR: DAVID WALKER

Recent Work: “Cashay” Book Jacket Finish

This is the finished version for the middle-grade novel, the sketches for which were shown in my June 3rd post. As you can see, the publisher went with sketch A, the only change being the stock photo of the girl. I tried shooting a couple of different models, which is always my preference, but the publisher really liked this photo.

CLIENT: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
ART DIRECTOR: SHEILA SMALLWOOD