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

Moving: Life Among The Boxes

I have not posted much recently because I have been in the process of moving from Boston to Sarasota, Florida, where my wife has a new job. I am now safely ensconced in the Sunshine State, and slowly digging myself out from under all of the boxes. I love the palm trees, ocean, and weird new plants and long-legged birds. Okay, it is a bit humid.

Recent Work: Hand-Drawn Style Personal Piece

Even though I refer to this style as “hand-drawn”, it really is mixed media digital collage. The backgrounds and figures are created by hand, but separately, then merged in Photoshop, along with texture overlays. It seems to give me more latitude, and drawing the figure separately feels less precious to me. I have been working in Photoshop for so many years that it has become a natural composition tool for me.

Recent Work: “Depression” Sketches

Originally published some years ago, Penguin wanted an updated cover for the upcoming paperback reprint of Climbing Out Of Depression, a popular self-help book. They liked a self-help cover I designed and illustrated for them about a year ago, A Blessing In Disguise, and wanted a similar look (with fortunately much less type). Here are the sketches presented.

Recent Work:“Cashay” Book Jacket Sketches

The impoverished housing projects of Chicago provide the backdrop for this middle-grade novel about about a teenage girl struggling to overcome the violent death of her younger sister and her mother’s spiraling drug addiction. I tried experimenting with layers of urban textures I photographed to set the tone. I like these sketches, but I am currently working on revised versions which focus on the girl’s face.

CLIENT: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
ART DIRECTOR: SHEILA SMALLWOOD