Chris Whetzel's Artwork & Illustration Blog

Pirates. 'nuff said.

2011-10-03T17:58:00.000-04:00

August was great month because that was when Boo Davis at Seattle Weekly contacted me for a huge Village Voice Media project. Working with LAWeekly's Darrick Rainey, she was putting together a universal feature to be used in several of Village Voice's papers.

The subject was about a band of lawyers basically blackmailing those who illegally download movies; the sample cited often is Person-X downloads a movie he/she may not be proud of watching (something adult-oriented), and these lawyers track them down and mail them a letter saying "Pay us X-dollars or we will take you to court and make you Asian schoolgirl fetish public knowledge." Although frowned upon by many courts, it it really a sad situation as people typically just pay the money to stay out of court where the case would most likely be dropped as was the case in many examples in the article.

In the sketch phase, I tried to hit all the various angles of the story to give the art directors lots of options.

In the end, they decided to work the piracy angle, and I was quite excited to take their selections to final. One suggestion was to add the "digital element' to the images by having the images feature pixellation. So I made the skull look like it falling apart (to some, being shot) and the waves of the ship image feature cresting/droplets of pixels. The spots use pixels as waves crashing against the ship and as the gun's spark:

Spot images in context. Thanks to the awesome Andrew Nilsen for supplying these! He used them almost exactly as I had initially pictured them in layouts while sketching.

As you may notice, the gun changed quite a bit from sketch to final; this happened while I was working and I realized "Hey doofus, this should be a flintlock in order to complete the theme in all the images. So basically, I worked up and submitted two finals of the gun: one modern 9mm (not shown) and one flintlock pistol. Yes, I did more work than I needed to on a pretty tight deadline, but don't you think it looks much better as a set?

So that's a great project that was a blast to work on, and it resulted in images I am really happy to have in the portfolio. Thanks again to Boo and Darrick for the assignment, and thanks to the following papers for running the article and art: Seattle Weekly, LA Weekly, SF Weekly, Riverfront Times, Miami New Times, and New Times Broward.

To read the article, visit any of the above papers websites. Thanks for reading!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Breakthrough Contest Winners Announced

2011-09-30T12:01:00.002-04:00

I thought there may be interest in this:

The Breakthrough Contest Has Broken Cover!

For the past year, Richard Solomon and staff worked on creating the first ever Breakthrough Contest. The idea took shape while brainstorming last winter. All artists appreciate how hard it is to break through and succeed as a professional illustrator in today’s market; this is why we named the contest “Breakthrough”. We wanted to reach young artists and as such the rules stated that the entrant must be under 35 years old with less than 5 years professional experience from anywhere in the world.

The goal was to create a contest that would produce long term benefits for the winner since every young artist’s greatest concern is to have a successful career. Unlike other competitions which simply offer a cash prize or a scholarship, we have gone a step further. The winner would be brought to New York City, have their portfolio shown to top art/creative directors, be given the constructive criticism and advice by the industry’s top pros to succeed as a professional illustrator, and receive a cash prize.

In March of 2011, we opened the contest to submissions. Soon thereafter, we began to receive a diverse collection of portfolios from artists all over the world. We were soon flooded with an amazing number of very talented young contestants. At the end of 3 months, we closed the contest to submissions and began judging. Our panel consisted of 20 art/creative directors and top illustrators who scored the submissions online based on skill, professionalism, and potential commercial viability.

We can now proudly announce the winner: Michal Dziekan, a 26 year old illustrator from Warsaw, Poland; a true diamond in the rough. Since 2009 Michal has been working as a freelance illustrator on book covers, editorial/advertising illustration, t-shirt/character designs, and animation. You can see more of his work on his website michaldziekan.com. We look forward to bringing Michal to NYC in late October, introduce him to many art/design directors, and award him his prize.

Mooooove over, old logo (sort of).

2011-07-20T14:42:00.002-04:00

I was very lucky to be selected for a Borden's logo update back in March. A design firm in Dallas was heading up the revamp for this big client; apparently, Broden's is in the top ten largest companies in America. Borden's has been around since its inception in 1857(!), and their logo has gone through several states over the years. The client decided they wanted to update the logo to "something the same yet contemporary." With the reference provided, I worked up a sketch with requested daisy in the background:

I tried to fix some anatomical discrepancies that I noticed in the most recent reference as a starting point. Nathan the AD liked the sketch, and he asked we go "less calf" and more "adult in the face. The number of daisies in the necklace had to be altered as well:

With approval on the sketches, we went to final with the request for several hair options:

After a proper hairstyle was selected, the AD asked for some exploration of the face:

And then Nathan took the options to the client who decided to keep their current logo. I was bummed, but that's advertising :) And so here was my personal favorite of the treatments for all your viewing glory:

Thanks for readin'!

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

Pew! Pew! Pew!

2011-05-23T17:51:00.000-04:00

Recently, I was commissioned by Semper Fi magazine to create an image for an article outlining a new approach in the fight against terror: the cyber soldier. Apparently, hacking is a major national security threat, and the military is training soldiers as well as incorporating tech-savvy civilians into a cyber-defense task force.

Here are the sketches. #1 is my take on a soldier at a CPU juxtaposed with his "cyber-self." #2 is a Matrix-type approach of a soldier being made of "code." #3 is a soldier in "cyber-gear" that is schematic/blueprint looking and glowing (Tron shown as example of glowing).

It was decided that #1 was the best visual, and I went to finish. I altered the figure at the desk as it was feeling a bit stiff. In dealing with color, I decided I like a cool feel to represent cyberspace; I also cooled down the camo of the uniform to reflect this. I would have loved to have worked more "tech"-style stuff into the image like the other two sketches, but it made sense to keep it a more realistic figure so that readers (soldiers and veterans) could easily relate and see themselves as this figure.

Bonus! After completing the art, the AD wanted to use the image for the cover as well!

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

They're Creepy and Their Crawly...

2011-05-10T15:36:00.002-04:00

Hello! Here's a quick post of a recent image for Cincinnati Magazine. Work's keeping me busy, so I apologize for the email cut and paste :)

From Megan the AD:

"I have an illustration job that I think you would be perfect for- an article about a new indoor football team - the Northern Kentucky River Monsters. The football team has a pretty distinct look to their jerseys and helmets. I think it would be nice to to an illustration that references the classic helmet in hand photos (see attached) and plays up the imagery associated with river monsters. I love the way you treated New Times Florida Warlords illustration and think that this one could be handled in a similar fashion."

After a phone discussion in which Megan and I nailed down a visual (time was short on this assignment), I worked up a layout, then a tight sketch:

Magan Ok'd the sketch, and I worked up a final in which I experimented a great deal with some new digital brushes. Fun stuff! I always enjoy the projects that let me try out new approaches!

Final image in context:

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

In the Trough

2011-05-02T13:47:00.002-04:00

Doodles in a toned sketchbook. Obviously, I have yet to figure out working on toned paper, but here is the progress while I'm "in the trough."

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

Pretty Boys of Nascar

2011-04-25T15:59:00.000-04:00

Its Nascar month here at chris-whetzel.com! After recently completing the previously posted Dale Earnhardt portrait, I was thrilled when Karen at Sports Illustrated requested another portrait-approach for their Sports Illustrated Presents: Nascar 2010-2011 issue. This one was to be a bit trickier though as the article made predictions about future Hall of Fame inductees along with an estimated date of induction. Karen asked that I stick to particular racers; she wanted to focus on the "young guns" featured in the article: Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, and Denny Hamlin. The art direction from Karen and Craig requested I keep it pretty straightforward with easily recognizable headshots.

Sketches:

#1: Straightforward portrait of the trio
#2: Wearing cool shades is quite common in Nascar so I tried reflecting their years of induction
#3: Along with sunglasses, sponsor-hats are also predominant among racers in the sports; luckily all three liked to wear glasses and hats :)

The Ads like sketch #2 with the following email quote: "The drivers look very heroic and we thought to make them into a bronze plaque with the words 'Hall of Fame' behind them. We want them with out goggles and without years."

That was fine with me. My only issue was drawing Kyle Busch from that viewpoint proved difficult: I just couldn't get it to look like him! So I finally just p'shopped him from another sketch since I liked that drawing more anyway. Karen was fine with it, and the revision was approved to be rendered as "bronze" with a new border and the words below:

Final image:

Thanks for reading!

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

Like Toy Soldierrrrrrrsss...

2011-03-20T23:31:00.004-04:00

Howdy folks!

The Washington Post is a paper that I've unfortunately had to turn down for work on a few occasions due to a full schedule. It was always a bummer, and I always felt guilty doing so since I the topics were always of interest to me. So I was very happy when Kristin the AD called with a project just as I was wrapping up a few projects! The assignment was perfect for me as it was a great opportunity to draw some soldiers which I was hoping to do after recently watching the documentary Restrepo. I have mad respect for soldiers, and I always take great pride in creating artwork depicting these everyday heroes.

The subject of the article is about how the U.S. can remain a superpower while retaining a smaller wallet. With Congress looking to make drastic budget cuts, the article analyzes how military cuts would be beneficial to our economy as well as how the military could continue to operate at a high performance without unnecessary excess.

Sketches:

Kristin liked idea #1 with a sight revision of adding in an arm pulling the belt tight. And while not literally a heroic soldier, I like how that message comes through despite the limitation being imposed on the figure. So it was a win-win decision for both of us:

Final art:

Creating this piece was a great experience as I was able to work with an iconic hero-figure as well as to with colors outside my typical palettes; I also really tried to takes the concepts for this assignment to another level; this is a personal challenge I take on when I feel my work is getting stale or I feel I'm getting lazy :) It usually results in a piece that I really enjoy!

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

MyBusiness: Republican Majority

2011-03-10T23:20:00.003-05:00

Way back in November, I was happy to get a commission from MyBusiness Magazine. It is a publication for small business owners that always provide interesting topics for an assignment. This particular commission dealt with the hot subject of the month: the likely prospect of the Republicans gaining majority in the House of Representatives.

In the sketches, I was asked to work up ideas that could go either way with tweaking; basically, the art had to work for a Democrat or Republican victory. So I worked on ideas that could work with a swap of the donkey/elephant as well as ideas that focused on using blue/red to show parties:

I was sort of bummed out that the higher-ups decided to use the chess image for the cover, and the art director shared my sentiments;however, there wasn't anything we could do at that point. So with the chess and capitol building sketches chosen, I worked up final art with the assumption that the Republicans would be victorious, and I had alternative Democrat-based images just in case I needed them.

Final Layouts:

Now some folks might ask if I supported the Republican or Democratic side of the election. I will just say that I try to keep my personal viewpoints on the back burner in situations like this. I think it is more professional to be objective with assignments like this unless the article has a certain slant to it.

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

Figure Drawing

2011-03-03T16:01:00.002-05:00

Well, this isn't really a "sketchbook" post, but I wanted to keep all the non-commercial work labelled together. This post comes after a weekend conversation with Peter Wonsowski in which he asked if I were doing any personal projects. My response was that my personal work right now was just trying to draw as much as I can. It sounded weird to say out loud so I figured I should elaborate via internet.

Sometimes its just nice to draw without an idea or abstract concept that I need to be sure comes through the image. To me, that is what I enjoy most about drawing: the act. The field of illustration can be very rigid with assignments seeming to run together in an endless wave of formulaic process. So I feel I have to break that with a routine of drawing in a sketchbook or figure session.

Recently, I have also decided to start tackling mediums I have very little or no experience with in a non-commercial setting; this adds to "getting out of the comfort zone" of commercial work. So I have been taking time at the end of my nights to do some observational drawing in charcoal; it is a medium that I never really explored other than a required day here or there in art classes; I despised it as I was all about pen and ink at the time. Oddly, now that my work is so bold and clean, I have been wanting to work in more subtle means for no other reason than to experiment and have fun.

I set up an old pc that was gathering dust bunnies in the closet, loaded it up with nude photos from the internet and art model cds, and I have been doing an odd approach to figure drawing. Now obviously, this is no where near as good as a live model, but the sessions in Philly are hard to attend with my schedule so I gotta make do:

I set up for 20 minute "poses," and will sometimes work with a clothed figure in a 40 minute session. Now I must say, there are A LOT of failures that you will never see. Reasons being, I am not used to drawing larger than like 8x10 on a table(these are 11x17 on an easel), the lack of experience with the medium is distracting (I'm "out" of the drawing because I'm wondering why something doesn't get dark enough or why a stick feels waxy on the paper), and I just plain have a worry that it will suck (I'm uncomfortable in a new medium and setup).But, I keep trying. These are the ones I don't totally hate, but even ome of these are a bit uncomfortable for me to share due to bad proportions:

I have also started attending what Tim has titled "Casual Figure Drawing" once a week with some friends; we basically pose for each other in a very relaxed atmosphere (Tim's living room). Luckily, we found a night that we could all attend. In the image below, the top three are from these sessions, and the bottom books are from an online source and sessions at the now defunct Bell #3 figure drawing. Again, there are SO many pages of failures, but these are what I consider the top 5 out of like 200:

And so that's my "personal" work lately. I just want to be able to work well in a plethora of mediums; its a life goal. Yesterday, I finally found a 3-hour weekly model session I can attend, and it may even lead to more opportunities to explore other media if I have the time. I realize that it may come across as weird that a professional artist would spend time doing "academic" exercises, but who cares? I just want to always be getting better. Maybe turning 30 on Tuesday has something to do with it, but I have done a yearly assessment of "are my skills improving" since I was like 15.

Seeing improvement but never being satisfied with the result is kinda the ideal place for me.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Rambling and A Recent Barron's Illo

2011-02-10T00:01:00.003-05:00

Howdy! Wow, I am re-opening this blog! Hooray!

I decided to start using this blog as a place to not only post recent art but also as a place to just wax intellect and perhaps mount a soapbox every now and then about whatever crosses my mind. I'll try to limit such outbursts to art and illustration, but i make no promises :)

So I guess we can do the art first. Here is a piece I recently did for John at Barron's; the premise of the article was how the U.S. economy may be following in Greece's recent financial footsteps; Greece is dealing with a massive amount of dept in the wake of the world's recent economic turmoil.

Sketches:

I was glad that John went with the Trojan horse-concept as his choice for a final:

My apologies for the lack of recent posts; it has been pretty busy around here. In addition to assignments, I have started up an impromptu weekly figure drawing session where each artist takes a turn or two posing; its saving us money and its a fun time. Also, I'm working alongside my brother on a project I hope to devote more time to in the future; I think self-initiated projects are the best! Uh, no offense to art and design directors! ...awkward silence...

Uh yeah, so I've also decided to take on some additional reading on creativity and artistic viewpoint in an effort to expand my horizons, so to speak. I hope to share any discoveries and thoughts in future posts; similar to the sketchbook posts, perhaps I'll try to start a regular series of posts devoted to recent reading. In various discussions, I have come to realize that I can confidently say that I have learned SO much more about art and illustration AFTER graduating from college. Now, I'm not saying that college did not teach me anything; I am saying:

1. My desire to learn actually grew after school. Upon graduation, I was drawing for myself more often (and continue to do so); more recently, I have developed this hunger to read any book, blog, or article about making art in the hope of improving myself and the work. Perhaps its just me growing up or maybe I'm at the point where I just want to expand as an artist and not pump out the same art for the next 50 years. Or maybe I'm just confused about what I should do next because I've found myself doing what was always the ultimate goal with my life: supporting myself by making art. I think everyone hits a point in their life where they realize no one has ever prepared them for what is next; you've progressed beyond what you've been taught and the knowledge you amassed isn't answering new question you are asking yourself.

So oddly enough, I'm actually re-reading books assigned in college because:

2. College can be a bit crazy. I'm not talking about binge-drinking frat parties but rather a very demanding workload mixed with artistic confusion and trying to figure out a future for yourself. With so much going on, it was a bit hard for me to retain much of the knowledge I was meant to acquire; the focus was on learning the material in order to write that paper or to ace that midterm. Focusing on those goals resulted in my not taking readings to heart and thus eventually forgetting to apply them to my thought processes.

So in essence, I guess you could say I'm re-learning or self-educating myself. After only a couple of weeks of doing so, I'm already seeing a positive change in my thoughts and work.

Stay tuned for more observations about trying to grow as an artist. Hopefully, this blog will serve as a reminder to myself to not get into a rut :)

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Blog Posting Notice and A Sad Ol' Man

2010-05-12T02:12:00.004-04:00

Hello, all. Here is a new post of artwork. Also, please take note that this will be the last post for this blog. For some time, I have been running this blog as well as a second blog that feeds to chris-whetzel.com. Initially, this was more of an self-motivation blog to keep myself on track. But now, seeing as they are basically the same, I will not be posting to this blog from here on. Please update any feeds or following by switching over to: http://whetzelnews.blogspot.com/.
Now I know the other blog isn't pretty, but it feeds directly to my website where it does not need a header and such. No frills; simple simon. Sorry!

And now for some art. As I mentioned a few posts back, an assignment from Forward Magazine involved a cover and an interior assignment. For your enjoyment, here is the second installment of sketches and artwork from that commission. As a brief refresher, the artwork was for an article addressing concerns that the United States is still in economic trouble despite the stimulus package and the bank bailouts.

Sketches:

Heh, I really liked this sketch! I think it was the lighting; seems like it would have been fun to take to final. However, I think it was a bit too much for the art director; also, my girlfriend said it was a little over the top. Well, you should have seen it before I photoshopped out the blood. I have yet to illustrate a piece with a snake! This has to happen at some point.

And the same could be said for this sketch. I was really happy with my body language on this one as well as the hanky in his pocket. Was a bit too violent? But it's metaphorical violence! No? Ok...

This is the sketch that the art director chose, and I can understand why. In the previous post about this article, I cited how the art director thought I had a way of delivering concepts in a dramatic but palpable manner. This sketch is subtle and still dramatic, an approach I think is often best. As such, I try to offer a sketch of this type in every assignment.

Initially, the sketch was just Sam, and I added the reaching hands at the end as I felt it just needed something to represent the middle class victims (you and me) of the economic storm. I also like the play of scale between such small figures and a giant Uncle Sam that cannot help them.

Just to be clear, I was happy to illustrate any of the above sketches; I think all illustrators have their favorites when submitting concepts, and I am always happy to take any of my ideas to finish!

Final Artwork:

I slightly adjusted the cover art :) The masthead was overlapping Uncle Sam's head, and I reversed it for sake of the portfolio. Thanks for reading!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Figures, no backgrounds.

2010-04-30T14:54:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the brevity today; it seems every time I plan to blog, I have multiple projects going. I did not blog last week because...I forgot. So this week you get two pieces of art that most likely will never be on the website :)

The first piece was done for USAA's customer magazine. USAA sponsors the Army/NAvy football game, and they wanted an opening image to celebrate 10 years of sponsorship. The AD requested a combination of the two uniforms on one victorious player.

Newly Nike-designed uniforms. Not much reference to work from as they had just unveiled the uniforms a few weeks before the assignment:

Sketch in provided layout:

The AD requested a sketch revision with the arm lowered so that the figure could be larger:

Final art in layout:
Looking at the layout, I can't help but mention how much it changed from what I was provided to work with; I think my initial sketch could have worked in this layout nicely.

Here is an alternate design I submitted using the official colors of the Army/Navy game while still incorporating elements form both uniforms (number and lettering of Navy, camo of Army):
And completely unrelated, here is a 30-something homemaker I drew up for a deign studio to be used on a pinball game promoting the use of anti-depressants (there is no joke here, folks):
Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Experimenting.

2010-04-14T12:54:00.002-04:00

A few posts back I mentioned the Haiti Poster Project. I took this opportunity to do an experimental piece. Its pretty far removed from my illustration work in terms of medium, but I think its closer to my sketchbook which is quite interesting.

*UPDATE: As a member of the Visual Literacy Program, I submitted this image to a contest, and the very gracious administration has offered to float the printing costs of the posters! Thanks so much, guys!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Drowning is a universal fear.

2010-04-14T12:44:00.010-04:00

Here is some new artwork from a great client, Forward Magazine.

From the art director's lips (or rather, the email): "This story is simply about the great debt our nation is in. I think we want to depict the “gruesome” aspect of this topic, and really drive home the point that our debt is ruinous. Your style struck a chord with me because you’ve done several pieces that are sort of dramatic in manner, but can deliver the message in a palpable way. I’ve attached a cover template so you can also get an idea of where things fall in placement. I’d like to get 3-5 different sketches, and then we’ll choose one for cover, one for inside."

In order to milk this assignment for two blog posts, I will post some of the sketches and the interior illustration today; then I will post the rest of the sketches and the cover art later :)

I had a pretty confident idea that a certain sketch (not shown) would be chosen for the cover, so I explored a wide variety of subject matter for the other concepts. The first 3 of the 6 sketches:

Lady Liberty drowning in red ink (quote from article) explored in two sketches:

And a bank picked clean:

In the end, the art director went with the torch as the interior image:

Read the article here.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Some Finger Push-ups.

2010-04-05T22:39:00.005-04:00

Hello. So I didn't feel like doing a long-winded case study today so here are some bits from the first half of the latest sketchbook:

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Connecticut seems like a cool place to hang.

2010-03-30T15:22:00.003-04:00

Hi guys! I won't be chatting much as I have a busy day. So here is a quick rundown of a recent commission from Connecticut Magazine. The article was their annual "Rating the small towns," in which the towns of Connecticut are judged on crime, culture, education, etc. Cover sketches:

The article also had a spot illustration. Note how these spots tie-in with the cover themes, and yet the art director also has a choice of mixing up themes if need be. Sketches:

The art director decided that she like the first cover sketch and the gauge-theme spot illo, but she wanted to place the cover sketch's #1 on something rather than it be a giant object itself. She asked for a hot-air balloon, and I did a quick revision. The art director tried it out with the text, and she liked it. After approval, I provided the refined drawing on the right to give her a better idea of the final art:

Final artwork:

I mocked up this cover based on the text the art director tested on the sketch; I think its pretty close to the actual cover. I'll find out when the issue arrives!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Greenery

2010-03-22T13:43:00.010-04:00

Hello all! I apologize for not posting last week's tidbit on Friday, but it was a busy deadline day so blogging had to be pushed back. Also, I am going to be switching up the posts (basically reversing them) as I feel some people just want to skip my chatter and get to the art.

So here we go.

In mid-January, Ode Magazine contacted me seeking an illustration for an article about valuing green spaces. The article was mostly about how we are not assigning value to open spaces; we clearcut and destroy beautiful scenery for strip malls and housing.

The sketches:The final artwork:

And what else is going on? Well, its warm outside. So needless to say I cut back my work hours over the weekend to enjoy the sun. But now its back to it. I am retooling the website, and will most likely be uploading it in April or May.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Attention, Hollywood!

2010-03-12T12:08:00.006-05:00

Hello! Welcome to another of my illustration case files!

I was very lucky to get a repeat commission from The CRISIS magazine in January. Wayne was looking for a bold image for the cover of their Hollywood issue. The main push of the issue is how there are not many African Americans in the film industry, and he wanted to work with a portrait of a film-industry African American calling others to action. The sketches:The first sketch was a spoof of the popular Rodchenko poster that was imitated for many album covers including Franz Ferdinand. Next was a Moses-type figure with film reels. Basically, with this image I was communicating that film is a way for African Americans to deliver a message by having a figure "delivering" the film to us, the viewer. Sketch 3 is pretty straightforward, and it depicts an African American man with dreadlocks that morph into rolls of film. The last sketch is of a figure calling for action through a microphone; this sketch operates on two levels by not only calling to action but also alluding to a film director using a megaphone on set.
Wayne decided to go with the last sketch, and he requested that I incorporate the word "Action!" into the image. I tried doing so in several ways including overlaying it and using a speech balloon to isolate what I thought would be the main article. However, it turned out that it was not an article headline, but simply text to accompany the image so he chose the overlay. Final art:
Among several color mocks, we originally decided to go with a red background and lots of bleed as he had a large amount of text to work with, but then we decided to use the figure against white. Above is the submitted final art and the final cover after the revision. I'm happy to say that we managed to stay very close to my original composition; I felt bleeding the megaphone off the right side was an invitation to the reader to open the cover. Thanks to Wayne for a great assignment!

-Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Imagineered.

2010-03-05T11:22:00.007-05:00

Hi! Sorry I forgot to blog last week! I need to start putting my blog on the work schedule :)

Jake at California Lawyer contacted me at the end of 2009 with a pretty moody cover subject: the plotting behind California's Proposition #8. The gist of the story is that "for months the people backing the case had been operating in stealth mode because they wanted the federal complaint to be the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the successful 2008 initiative that had declared, 'Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California.' "

The art direction of the article was to focus on the secretive planning aspect as if this is a movie scene when the bank heist plan is being planned. The sketches:

I looked at a lot of old movie stills to get that moody, deceptive atmosphere. The second sketch was originally not seen through a door, and that was added after Jake's great suggestion. It really helped the image. The finished artwork with text I mocked over the image:

I never received a tearsheet or saw the cover, so I faked this text to place the illustration in context; this is one of those images that looks weird without type due to the large black shape on the right. I made a few adjustments to facilitate the text such as removing the window frame, making the background into the shadow of the lamp on the yellow wall.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Parachuting Vicariously Through Illustration

2010-02-19T15:45:00.007-05:00

Hi and hello!

Hooray for Friday; the new day for blogposts in my schedule! So what are the current happenings? This week featured a very nice break from a heavy workload, but I am now back at nose-to-the-grindstone (before and after this post, of course). Regardless, I got some time in on some really rewarding experiment results, and I am eager to start working those outcomes into some artwork. I am planning out a summer (and beyond) project that will be artwork in a different vein from the illustration work; I am becoming very interested in working in a more narrative manner as opposed to my usual abstract-concept approach. Basically, with this summer project I hope to explore storytelling rather than conceptual communication. As Aliyah would say, it will be artwork of "content" rather than "concept." I guess this has spawned from the return of my reading interests.

But that will all be coming down the line eventually.

And now for some art. Here is a new editorial recently completed for Carli at Macworld. the subject of the article was about unexpected uses for the Esc key. Apparently, that key can be a lifesaver! Apparently, its more than just...escape.

Sketches:
Sketch #1 was to show how powerful the key can be; its exploding off of the keyboard. Sketch #2 was a play on the multi-function aspect of the key. Sketch #3 was a exploration of the key's helpfulness; I portrayed it as air-dropped relief. Carli chose the third sketch, and I went to finish.

Completed Artwork:
I wanted to keep this artwork very warm and bright. I stayed away from a blue sky as I was simply using blue skies in several pieces during that time. This illo also ran in the same issue as the IMAP mailbox image from a few post back. That image was mostly blue as well so I wanted to make the two image look completely different since they would be in the same issue.

As I said before, it was a pleasure working with Carli and I even got a compliment from another AD at Macworld on the images. Good stuff!

Until next week!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Education Week-Gathering Tutor Info

2010-02-10T15:00:00.005-05:00

Hello, hello! My apologies for the brief hiatus in posts, but I have been very busy lately! The good news is there will be lots of art to share in March and April!

I was recently contacted by Vanessa at Education Week for another back page commentary. These are always enjoyable assignments as she gives me a lot of freedom with concepts as well as image format and composition. The assignment concerning gathering data on tutor performance was very similar to a previous commission, and so I had to find new creative ways to show "investigating education." The sketches:

The first sketch features a Sam Spade-like detective doing some recon.

Sketch #2 continued the spying theme with our detective using some binoculars to gather info from a distance.

The third sketch was a step in another direction with a literal grading of an educator. Vanessa said this sketch "made her laugh out loud," but I think it was too humorous for the article.

Vanessa went with the first sketch, and I worked up a final that I am very pleased with. I rarely work on white, and I rarely work with green! Thanks to Vanessa for a fun assignment; it always makes me feel good to do work for a good cause.

Speaking of which, I urge fellow artists to contribute to The Haiti Poster Project, a charity in which selected posters will be sold to benefit those dealing with hardships due the earthquake and aftershocks.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Recent Sketches

2010-01-19T16:46:00.004-05:00

Nonslick Interview!

2010-01-19T14:26:00.001-05:00

A special thanks to Pete Ryan for the interview at Nonslick! Check out the blog for interviews with lots of art directors and illustrators!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

2010: The Future! (?)

2010-01-14T11:22:00.009-05:00

Hello!

So far, January has been a very exciting month! After the holidays, a plethora of great books are arriving from amazon.com, and I have been flying through graphic novels and trades such as Invincible, the Goon, Joe Mad's Ultimates 3, and Jim Lee's Superman run (hey, I am a fan of the last two. I don't care what other think). I also picked up two volumes of Drawn to Life, a series of books showcasing the teaching materials of Disney animator Walt Stanchfield. Its a real "back to roots" type of approach from what I've skimmed so far. I also ordered James Gurney's Imaginative Realism with is full of great information for any artist. And I just finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell; its a very interesting read and really inspiring. I recently read Gladwell's Blink, and I also recommend it if you are interested in how you make unconscious decisions. I think both of Gladwell's book have helped me with my previous post about how I am reading up on why we draw, how the brain works for artists, etc.

Wow, when do I have time to work with so many books?!? Well, honestly, I'm sleeping less to fit everything in!

Also, as a holiday treat, I purchased the new imac to replace this slowly eroding G4. Its so cool. Sadly, I have not had time to set everything up on it so I am still working on the ol' battle-axe until I turn in some projects on Monday. So once final art is approved I will allow this sleek new technology to seduce me.

What else is going on? Well, I just started an illustrator collective called Illostop. We are a group of young illustrators with similar interests and goals. Check out our blog featuring art and sketches here. We are also on facebook and twitter if you would like to be updated regularly on new work.

Speaking of blogs, I also want to share fellow illustrator Pete Ryan's blog, nonslick. Pete is a smart conceptual illustrator, and nonslick is a blog where he interviews art ditectors and illustrators. Its definitely a worthwhile place to spend your time!

And now for some art. Here is a new editorial recently completed for Carli at Macworld. The article's focus was using IMAP to link all of your email accounts/locations so that you can access any of your email from anywhere. Whoa, technology. I can't wait for the future beyond 2010. the final art:

And here are the sketches:
The article spoke about how one would be able to access desktop email remotely via iphone.

I like the idea of mailboxes as a tin-can radio; the metaphor of advanced email technology communicating with antiquated methods really appealed to me.

This sketch focused on the consolidation aspect of the article, and I felt was the strongest choice as it not only showed grouping but alluded to ease of use (wouldn't a mailman love it if he only had to check one mailbox a day?

Working with Carli was GREAT. She challenged me with very abstract subject matter, and I really enjoyed the mental challenge of solving the problem. Thanks Carli!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

You Ain't Nothin' But A Houn' Dog.

2010-01-08T12:45:00.005-05:00

Happy belated New Year! What a way to start 2010!

I must say I'm very happy to be back in the studio; I missed it so much. The holidays are great, but not very productive for this guy due to lots of travel. But I got back just in time for an awesome assignment!

Ryan at Las Vegas Weekly contacted me with the new year to do a iconic portrait of THE KING! The reason being that today is the birthday of Elvis. There was no particular concept to the cover, but Ryan wanted me to try out a contemplative hands-to-mouth concept. After I worked up these roughs, Ryan and I agreed that the hands would not work well with his original layout so we decided to just work with a classy head shot:
I tightened up the rough into a clean sketch that I was pretty happy with:
And worked in a "golden light" for that holy/religious feel:
Sadly, the golden aura had to go as they had just recently run a similarly colored image. So Ryan suggested black (which wouldn't work without the logo), and I think it looks very mysterious: perfect for Elvis!
Want to read the article? Click here. Thanks to Ryan for a really fun and educational assignment, and hail to the King, baby!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Open Space Print Process

2009-12-07T11:50:00.011-05:00

Hello again! As promised, I remembered to document the stencil process of prints for the upcoming Open Space Limited Run show. I managed to do three editions, and I am retiring these stencils as I have made ten prints each with them and they are starting to fall apart.

The following is the process as performed by me; you will find I am a bit unorthodox as I am all about keeping my prints nice and neat. Also please keep in mind that this method is used for flat printing and not for stenciling on vertical surfaces:

First, you need to cut your images/layers. I am using stencils from last year due to time constraints so I will not be showing this part of the process. I'm sure you can find lots of tutorials online.

For this process, I focused on one image; above is the Buscemi stencil laid out. I actually keep all of my layers attached to a piece of board so that they are lined up with each other; this way, I just need to flop the layer onto the paper and the registration is lined up.

I printed both outdoors and at SUNY New Paltz. I prefer working at SUNY as its indoors and they have a hood that whisks those pesky paint fumes away. However, I have to wait until the students leave, so I decided to get a jumpstart by working outside during the day. I use one of those "science project" pieced of folded cardboard as both a surface to spray on and to transport materials.

In addition to keeping my layers lined up, I used built-up corners of tape to ensure that my paper is always placed in the same spot.

Its widely advocated to use spray adhesive to hold down a layers to avoid underspray (paint getting under the layer). However, I despise spray adhesive with every ounce of my being, and I only use it when permanently mounting an image to board; I just find it a pain to have sticky fingers or when there is a possibility of everything sticking to each other, and its easy to accidentally destroy a layer or print. So I weigh my layers down. With pennies. And nuts. Sometimes I use fishing sinkers.

The first layer weighed down and ready to be painted. A piece of cardboard protects the unused layer.

Bright orange!

The first layer dry and ready to be covered.

Layer two ready to go. Please note that the previous layer is covered to protect it from the paint.

A heavy layer of black. Its important to me to cover the overlap of black and orange well. Otherwise, the figure has a weird brownish aura.

Layer two complete. This layer took a long time to dry so I had to wait to do a final layer of white. I did not photograph it as I finished up at another location and did not have my camera.

Sometimes it is possible to "float" areas of white on a layer by connecting them to the border with wire; however, I find that doing so makes for stencils that are problematic to store. So I just cut an extra layer and this way I am able to store all my stencils flat. Again, this is not the "purist" approach, but its how I solved the problem.

The final prints. Please note the whites on the Buscemi.

And that's it. I delivered the prints this morning, and the show opens on the 12th. Sadly, I will not be able to attend the opening as I have prior commitments, but I definitely want to stop in at some point as its a huge show with all of the walls covered salon-style. Its a great place to pick up a cheap gift for art lovers as well.

With the holiday frenzy approaching, I will be giving the blog a break until the new year as I will be traveling extensively form now until 2010. So I get to say "see you next year!"

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Open Space Beacon's Limited Run III

2009-12-03T16:12:00.008-05:00

Howdy folks! I just wanted to take a moment to plug Open Space's annual print show. Dan and Kalene run a great gallery, and their shows are always a joy to check out.

I will have (hopefully) three stencil editions in the show as well as a few prints that the gallery has also been offering through their online store.

Prints I featured last year:

Sadly, I don't have any images of the prints as I will be stenciling like a madman over the weekend for a Monday delivery. Look for print images and process photos next week!

Last year's Limited Run (December blog post)

Open Space's Website and Show Announcement (with links to featured artists)

Open Space's Store (you could... you know...buy my work...)

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Unions: the negative effect

2009-11-17T14:03:00.013-05:00

Hello! So I just realized I completely missed my blog post for last week. Sorry! I'll try to make it up at some point by posting some embarrassing reference or something along those lines.

This blog post features artwork I did for Kerri at MYBusiness magazine. I have been very fortunate to work with Kerri on many occasions, and it is always a pleasure. In this instance, Kerri was looking for some eye-catching artwork for their cover. It had not been decided which article was going to grace the cover, so we worked on ideas for the two possibilities. One feature was about Unions/Big Labor and the other is about the military heroes of Small Business. Here are the sketches:

The first sketch for the "small business soldier" was a very simple man-in-suit with stars on his lapels and a striped tie, looking heroic and patriotic. Although I enjoy the sketch as a drawing, I feel this was too subtle.

The second sketch has a better feel. Kerri wanted a superhero-type image similar to the Blue-collar football image I had done a few months back. I feel that a patriotic superhero costume has been perfected, so I alluded the the amazing Captain America.

The second article dealt with the effect of labor unions on small business owners. In today's tough economy, some already suffering businesses are on thin ice because of union-enforced regulations that may or may not relate to their business and employees. For the first, sketch I went with a laborer's gloved hand squeezing a small businessman.

My second sketch played off a "boxing in" phrase used in the article in reference to government and labor unions trying to make small businesses fit a generic mold of what all businesses should be and how they should perform, waht they should provide, etc.

Both Kerri and I were surprised when the higher-ups decided to run the Unions/Big Labor article as the cover; Kerri was almost certain when initially contacting me that they were going to run the Soldier article, and I thought the best sketch was the superhero concept. It was decided to go with the squeezing sketch while dropping the suit (yes!) and adding a female. With this type of work, it is always a consideration to portray multiple nationalities and both sexes. I got into the revision and even added a third figure for a better balance and composition.

I submitted two versions, and Kerri chose the limited color palette. I always enjoy Kerri's type layouts over my images. With this illustration, I tried to plan for her use of white text and as such limited my own use of lighter values. All in all, I think we collaborated on a striking cover that grab's attention (no pun intended).

The article is a pretty interesting read, especially when taking into account union effects on businesses with only a few employees that have to meet these "large business union" demands.
Read the article here.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Question Everything!

2009-11-05T14:13:00.007-05:00

Hello, all! Hope all is well. I've been juggling a few plates lately while trying some new things. I'm still trying to get the hang of a wacom tablet, and lately I've also been attending SUNY New Paltz's figure drawing every week; it's a great free-model Monday night. Perhaps I'll post some drawings from the sessions eventually, but for now you'll have to settle for another illustration installment!

I was recently contacted by Jesse at Philadelphia Magazine with a very interesting assignment: a portrait of Philip Berg. Now you may ask: "who is Philip Berg?" That was my initial response when I first read Jesse's email. It turns out that Philip Berg is the man behind many conspiracy theories including the government's responsibility for 9/11 and the Obama/birth certificate fiasco. Apparently, Berg became obsessed with conspiracies and was once a well-respected lawyer.

Jesse wanted a portrait that would showcase Berg's involvement in the conspiracy movement, but he dd not want Berg to be "too crazy looking." He sent me a few reference photos (neither of us could find much) and I got started:

I decided to nail the likeness down first and try some different backgrounds. I agreed with Jesse about staying away from a "crazy look" as we agreed that the article would let people decide for themselves. My goal with Berg was to show him as he sees himself: as a hero informing people of the facts. I went for a iconic and confident look; he is very proud of himself and what he is doing.

In terms of the backgrounds, the first sketch features polaroids of 9/11 and theories about Obama and the White House; the photos feature handwritten theories. I was going for an "evidence wall" type of feel.

For the second sketch, I went in a different direction and used a technique from a personal drawing I did a year or two ago. I like the visual effect of a figure surrounded by question marks. It works in two ways as they can represent both Berg's questioning everything as well as our questions about Berg: "What happened to this man? Has he lost his mind? etc."

Jesse decided to go with the first sketch, and I was fine with either choice. I worked up two different color versions. One featured a green background and the other was the red background chosen. I tried a few new things on this piece in therms of rendering the figure, and I like some of the subtle things going on.

Jesse seemed very happy with the piece, and I look forward to working with him again. Honestly, working with Philadelphia was a bit of a dream job as I spent my college years and then some in Philly, and I get a kick out of thinking folks I know actually get to see my work in print. And there are still some other Philly publications I would love to work with (hint hint).

On a side note, this assignment sort of sucked me into the whole conspiracy world. I was watching videos of 9/11, reading sketchy blogs, etc. Some of the arguments can be pretty persuasive! Interested in reading about Mr. Berg? Read the article here.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Coming to a town near you?

2009-10-28T13:25:00.009-04:00

Hello, hello. As promised last week, I come bearing art. Its been getting busy around here since the last post, and it has made me almost forget about Halloween! I have to start my costume, and that means brevity in this month's post. Sorry!

Earlier this month, I was very lucky to be contacted by Tom at Riverfront Times. Not only was I glad to receive a job after a break, but it was a cover! Nice! Then Tom dropped the bomb that the article would be national among Village Voice Media publications, and that was awesome!

Tom had an idea of what he wanted so I sent him two quick layouts to choose from (I used a frame from another assignment's sketches as an indicator):

After layout approval, I worked up a tight sketch. While doing so, Tom ran the layout by the other art directors and wrote me with the feedback that it seemed very "farmer" with the pitchforks and such. I made it more urban by replacing them with pikes wrapped in barb wire. I thought it might be too much, but I guess not:

And I submitted two versions of final art. Initially, I was working the piece to emulate images on my website that Tom had mentioned. However, I really wanted to explore this as a two-color image, and Tom responded to that as the direction to move in:

After some discussion, we settled on this final version:
The difficult part of this assignment was creating a suitable composition that would work with all of the papers' mastheads. Tom allowed me some leeway and said that overlapping the logos is fine and actually encouraged in some cases. Good news for me! Here is a sample of what most of the other mastheads look like:
The artwork is being featured as an interior image in Minneapolis City Pages as well as the cover of Riverfront Times, Village Voice, Houston Press, SF Weekly, Miami New Times, New Times Broward Palm Beach, and Dallas Observer. Needless to say, I am SUPER-PSYCHED to have this artwork coming out this week! It's one of those days where you can't stop smiling and whistling, and people look at your weird.

Many thanks to Tom, Ivylise, Miche, Alex and Alex, Monica, Justin, and Nick for such a great opportunity as well as the great exposure. I hope to work with each of them again in the future!
(You may read the article here)

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Work is Play.

2009-10-22T14:20:00.005-04:00

Hello again. I'm sorry that I don't have any art to share this week. Instead, I wanted to share some work-related stuff that I have going on. To quote Milton Glaser, "Art is Work." But I also think Art is Play. We all started because it was fun, right? Doodles and mark-making were fun. So to keep it as such, I am trying new and old things outside of my usual methods.

I just got a Wacom in hopes of experimenting with Photoshop. It was a gift from my lady friend, and its pretty fun. I went with a tiny one as my desk space is pretty cramped already, and I didn't want to spend too much money in case I didn't like working in this manner. I hope to post some results eventually.
The Bamboo is pretty cool as it can also basically replace your mouse. Not only can you use it with a pen, but you can also use your fingers as if it were a mousepad (think scrolling and clicking on you smartphone or itouch).

I have also been experimenting a bit with "analog" work. Aside from the sketchbook, I want to try some media on different papers. Here is a result of inks on a watercolor block; no preliminary drawing here, just putting pen to paper and seeing what happens:

I also keep forgetting that I finally got a toned-paper sketchbook! Its in my bag, but I immediately grab ol'trusty. Hopefully, I'll stumble upon it and get some playing done there as well.

Sorry again for the lack of commissioned work this week; I need to spread it out :) Check back next week for a new piece!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Cham-paign, anyone?

2009-10-15T11:13:00.009-04:00

Hello again! I don't have much time to chat today as I have a pretty complex project on hand, so I'll just jump into a brief step-by-step of a recent project I can finally post. I think. Although I do not see anything for the campaign online, I was told that I could start promoting the artwork in October...

Over the summer, I was very lucky to be chosen for a poster campaign. It is for Sidedoor Productions, a film studio that accepts submissions/scripts for movie ideas (think Project: Greenlight). They are teaming up with Mountain Dew to get the word out: you could have your movie made! The design firm handling the promotions was TracyLocke in Connecticut. A special thanks to Kim and Andy for selecting me as well as their friendly demeanor and patience.

The project was originally going to run four posters, but the number was cut down to two due to budget. There may be a third poster in the future if needed. The first two posters were to a pitch/script-themed poster and a generic all occasions poster.

Quick composition layouts that were discussed before sketches: Round one of sketches:

Round two of sketches (face alterations):

Round three of sketches (additional face alteration):

First round of finished art (too green):

Second round of finished art (more facial detail and new figure, background alteration):

Third round of finished art (face alteration and color changes):

Final posters as produced by TracyLocke:

I decided to show the original artwork on my website so that viewers will see exactly what I delivered. So I placed the needed text on the art and produced these versions for my promotions:

The entire process for these posters took around six weeks due to Andy and Kim waiting for feedback from folks at both Sidedoor and Mountain Dew, folks on vacation, etc. I do hope we continue with the third poster as I greatly enjoy working in a series. I also think I enjoy poster work so much that I am hoping to do more both for clients as well as self-initiated projects.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Charity and A Gift.

2009-10-07T13:02:00.005-04:00

Howdy! Welcome back for another weekly post! Wow!

I just added some new work to the site, and I will blog about one piece this week and the other commission next week. Give me a break; I have to spread it out or I'll be writing all day.

In a recent commission from Miami Herald, I was asked to do a section cover illo concerning the economy's effect on Florida charities and non-profits. In a nutshell, donations are down as folks are hesitant to give money. As such, charities are having to try alternative methods of securing enough funds such as directly soliciting and cutting budgets/programs. I won't be showing sketches as I may want to use them for a future assignment. Final artwork:

I like the image; its simple and to the point. It changed slightly from the sketch in that I added the spotlight.

Also, in a great turn of events (and thanks to Scott Brundage showing my portfolio), I am now being represented by Richard Solomon Artists Reps. I won't say much about this as I think Richard and company has some future announcements planned concerning their roster and direction. I look forward to working with them and hopefully bringing in some advertising campaign work as well as any new commissions and collaborations!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Breaking down to Build Up!

2009-09-30T14:46:00.009-04:00

Hello all. Welcome to another post! All is well in the studio, and I'm in the middle of a little breather. Two possible projects are being sorted out, and I am taking advantage of the downtime to really attack my sketchbook. I'm really trying to feel out why and how I draw while trying to let go of any idea I have of what is "good drawing." I'm also sorry to say that I am adopting a "my eyes only" approach to the sketchbook; the idea is that I will only focus on progress and experimentation instead of making pretty pictures for other folks to see. So there may or may not be additional sketchbook updates.

Although it was poorly made, listening to a documentary about Henry Darger (In the Realms of the Unreal) brought to light how a person can make art only for oneself. Until this time, I felt all artists crave attention, and I often joke that "all artists want to be famous" as we really just want people to view our work; we need to be validated! But there is certainly something to be said for a man who spent his whole life writing and illustrating a 15,000 page manuscript that no one saw until he was close to death. It makes me wonder where the assumption that I have to show my art comes from and that keeping it to myself feels selfish. But hey, keeping it to myself should keep it honest, right? I already find myself drawing differently and drawing subjects I wouldn't otherwise. So its off to a good start.

While exploring the sketchbook, I am also trying to really explore other aspects of drawing by looking at as many drawings as I can and trying to figure out WHY it appeals to me, reading and researching how drawing works from both an artist's and a viewer's perspective, and trying to discover how one moves from drawing to another technique such as painting; they really are two different beasts. Defining such things can be very frustrating and there are always artists and images that counteract any definition one hypothesizes. however, I feel doing so and asking myself such questions will make me more honest with myself and my work.

I am also trying to "step out of the box" within my regular assignments as a loose continuation of this exploration. A good example of this approach is a recent illo for John at Bloomberg Markets. I was very happy to be contacted by John from a referral by Kam, the Bloomberg designer I worked with last summer on a great assignment concerning Asian stock market regulators. John was looking for a metaphorical image to represent the mistreatment of retirement pensions by General Motors. We discussed concepts and such, and I provided the following sketches:

John wanted to see a sketch of a "pension" license plate that was beat up and rusty. The plate is a Michigan plate to allude to GM and "motor city."

In the other sketches, I wanted to explore the pensions as dwindling. This sketch of an emptying funds gauge fit the bill, but I think it was too static.

I enjoyed this sketch that worked in both my idea as well as John's license plate request. However, it was decided that the size of the image was going to be small, and certain elements of the sketch would be hard to read. The final art:

Initially, the image was "too clean," and John asked that the license plate be dirtier. Upon revision, we were both quite happy with the finished product.

This image was a little intimidating for me as I do not usually work with textures, and I do not usually aim for a more realistic representation. However, I was adamant that those two elements were key to this image being successful so I basically jumped in feet first to scanning textures and making brushes in photoshop. I had not worked in this manner for years! Replaying the creation of this art in my head, I have to say that exciting nervousness of not knowing where the image and just trusting yourself is going is a lot of fun; I hope to push it into more work.

Thanks for reading! Look for a new post next week!
Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Non-profit work pays more than money.

2009-09-23T12:07:00.009-04:00

Hello, again. I'm trying to keep up with blog posting, and I am aiming at a weekly schedule (hopefully). The idea is that posting often will result in shorter posts.

So what's new? Well, I finished up a new promotional mailing effort yesterday, and I am working on a few projects as well. As usual, they are hush-hush until publication. The following illo was published last week so I can share it with you. It is a commentary illo for Education Week. Vanessa emailed me with the assignment details and the title alone piqued my interest: "Failing to Learn." The article is pretty captivating, and I was looking forward to tackling the issue visually as it was definitely going to be a challenge outside of my comfort zone.

The main gist of the commentary is that our education system is repeating the same mistakes, and we are not learning from errors of the past. The sketches:

This first sketch was based off the classic tale of William Tell. Vanessa liked the concept, but the editors felt it may be too obscure. I like the image, and I may complete it as a personal piece since the message can be related to by a wide audience.

Sketch #2 was more situational with Sherlock Holmes "examining" education (in this case, a poorly trained teacher). I liked playing with scale in this sketch. Thanks to Aliyah gold for reference poses, and I was the model for Mr. Holmes.

I felt the third sketch was my best concept, but my worst drawing. Maybe I should have "sold" my idea better. To show the repeating of past mistakes, I felt an ambiguous figure that could be either a student or a teacher with a collection of dunce hats would work well. However, Vanessa's editors felt this was too harsh and ma be seen as downright offensive. I could see that as well; its a bit too subjective. So Vanessa and I agreed on using the Sherlock Holmes sketch, and I was off to a finish:

The image was actually submitted in two versions with both a blackboard and a green chalkboard; Vanessa preferred the black version as it popped in her layout more. There were lots of little challenges in this image that I enjoyed solving, and I tried a few new things that worked out in my favor. Thanks to Vanessa for the kind words and fun assignment. I hop eto work with more non-profits in the future!

Enjoy the day,
Chris

Less chat, more splat (meaning art, sorry Moe).

2009-09-18T12:26:00.012-04:00

Hello, folks!

I'm pretty loaded with work this month, so let's jump right into the artwork!

I don't see that I posted this on the blog although many of you have seen it online in various other sites. its a portrait of Michael Jackson done for Drawger's MJ gallery. Check it out; some great stuff in there. Drawger is a one-stop site for illustrator blogs that I hop eto someday be a part of.

Mister Michael Jackson (RIP):
This piece went through SEVERAL stages. Three sketches later, I had something I thought was working. Then I was done, posted, boom. THEN I was critiqued by folks I have alot of respect for, and they helped improve the image. Thanks to John, George, and Sterling for their observations.

In August, James at Financial Planning contacted me with an awesome assignment: the athletic portfolio. I was thinking "what on earth is that?" After James' description and reading the article, I was eager to start. It was to be a full-page action-oriented image based off one man's integration of kickboxing philosophy into investing. James' editors were looking for a kickboxing-based image. I was super-psyched to do this assignment as I was really wanting to do some action-oriented work.

Here are the sketches I provided:
A kung-fu image where I was trying to nail down the feel of old kung-fu posters and movie box covers. I was considering a layer of japanese text around the figure but thought it might be too candid.

I got the phrase in my head "punch up your portfolio." I think the sketch explains itself. POW!

With the last sketch , I really kind of went nuts and really wanted to push the action. Its kind of like a comic book spread. All of these were really fun to draw, and I was happy taking any of them to finish.

James enjoyed the sketches as well, and he decided to go with the "punch up." I think this was the best choice as well as it can be seen as a representation of either boxing or mixed martial arts; its not as limited as the other two sketches. It was the best choice to represent the general phrase "athletic portfolio."

Final Art, approx. 8x10:
I really enjoyed this piece, and I was happy to add it to the website. It was also feature on the ispot's "news" blog and Altpick's "news" section. Thanks to James for the opportunity to flex my action-drawing muscles!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Whet's New Studio

2009-09-15T17:27:00.008-04:00

Whoops! Found these pictures on my camera that I meant to post a while back. These are some images of the new studio after we moved from Beacon NY to New Paltz. Prior to this, I was working at my desk in the living room. The studio is a small room in our apartment, and is already getting full. The first rule of the new studio was NO CATS! It gets lonely, but it will be warm in the winter and is in the shade during the summer. Its a bummer that we will have to move in a year.

Corner 1: Drafting table gifted by Uarts when they decided to replace their studio equipment. My travel-sketch bag is on the table, but I've since replaced it with another. Homemade lightbox under the table (coke crate lined with lights and topped with plexiglass). the empty spot on the wall is for the later mentioned art to be displayed.

Corner 2: Computer and Office Space. I built the table when we moved for about $35. I love the light in the room throughout the day. I must say its very quiet here in New Paltz, and I enjoy it much more than living on Main St in Beacon. to the left of the table are boxes of job files and artwork to hang. Corkboards and a calendar keep me on schedule and serve up reminders. The computer is a mac gifted to me by Scott Brundage. Its doing the job as I don't do much that requires huge processing speed or memory. I'm hoping to replace it someday with a new imac, however, I am very stingy with that type of purchase :)

Corner 3: Books and Supplies. the left shelf contains sofware books, my laptop, and mostly "art books." The stereo doesn't get much use as I usually use headphones throughout the day as our upstairs neighbor is very loud and obnoxious at all hours of the day. Headphones let me concentrate :) The middle shelf is pretty much all comics. Hey, I read a lot of comics. The shelf to the right is all supplies. Up top is an old PC that I don't know what to do with so I keep it around as a "backup" in case something ever happens to my regular computer on a deadline. Paints, inks, recordable media, postcards, portfolios, paper, and office supplies. To see the shelves' contents and book titles, the next images are pretty large:

A larger image of Francis Vallejo's Nas I was lucky enough to win when he auctioned it. I'll hang it eventually, and I hope to get more original art from my peers for studio decor. Peter and Tim's gift paintings are on the living room mantle. Sorry! I also have some James Jean prints I could hang from the Kindling portfolio (not pictured).

And lastly, here are some more books I picked up at a library sale in New Paltz. Great deals; I think I paid $8 for the lot plus an old RSVP that was pretty disappointing. Shown are two Rockwell books, a collection of Little Nemo strips, a book on Michelangelo's sculpture, and a winslow Homer portfolio. Good stuff.

And that's that. Thanks for looking!
Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Sketchbook 9/11

2009-09-11T21:21:00.005-04:00

Hello, all. Here are some new sketch pages for perusal while I am working on projects. Trying some new things in the sketchbook. I am producing lots of ugly pages and poorly drawn faces in the book, but here are some I feel ok about :)

I won't go into the aesthetics or philosophy behind my new sketchbook approach to spare you my whimsical "artsy" mentalities. Thanks for viewing:

I'm going to really try updating the blog weekly as I am piling up a backlog of work to share. Also, I hope to share some big news in the coming months. Sorry for the long time between posts!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Visiting IMC a.k.a Inspiration galore.

2009-08-19T11:37:00.004-04:00

Hello, hello! Hooray, its my fortieth blog post!

Today, I'm going to change things up a bit; I'd like to get personal. Come, scootch closer.
After this bit, I'll share a new piece!

I want to talk about an experience I had a while back that has somehow slipped under the blog radar. It was in June that I attended the Illustration Master Class' Open Studio with my buddy Scott Brundage. First off, I really enjoyed hours of car-ride with Scott talking about art and illustration, business practices, and everything else under the sun. Its always nice to have someone to talk to who is in the same boat as you. Anyway, this year's IMC featured Rebecca Guay, Greg Machess, Irene Gallo, Scott Fischer, and Charles Vess. What a lineup. The Open Studio is basically that: after a week of workshop and lecture, the studio is open to the public so that you can see some sweet paintings.

All of the artwork is fantasy-based as that is the focus; I gathered that the faculty gives a choice of assignments and the artists produce a piece within the week. First, let me say that the paintings were really intimidating. Not being a painter, what they do is a magical mystery to me. So many pieces were so impressive and inspirational. However, the most inspirational aspect of the open studio was the first thing I saw upon walking in the door:

Everyone was sketching! Like madmen! IMC provides a complimentary sketchbook to anyone who attends the workshop, and the artists were passing them around getting and giving sketches. Wow. I think I spent most of my time there just watching so many artists sketch! Doing so really opened my eyes; their skills and confidence were amazing. Its really inspired me to just attack my sketchbook as much as possible. I'm really enjoying it, and I think its helping my confidence in my work.

Also, just seeing actual physical paintings by the faculty was also quite inspiring. They really make you want to pick up a brush and join in. Also making you want to be a part of the group is the genuine friendliness of everyone there. All of the faculty and "students," were so familiar and friendly with each other. It was like being in a room filled with a giant group of friends. And they are so welcoming of new faces to the field; there does not seem to be the competitiveness I associate with editorial illustration. Everyone there just shared a passion to make beautiful images.

That really spoke to me. Artists working as illustrators that put creating a beautiful image before a clever concept. Its really something else, and it is very appealing. Its made me want to focus more on that type of imagery with my self-initiated work. I was going to work on a body of fast black/white newspaper editorial work in hope of getting into some of the larger newspapers, but I think I will focus on more poster/book oriented images.

We'll see what happens! And here's the artwork for the post:

Football illustrations during summer? Seems to be a trend for me.

Dennis Huynh, art director of Cincinnati Magazine, emailed me recently with a new illustration challenge. The article was to be about Cincinnati's semi-pro football league. It consists of mostly blue-collar workers volunteering to live out their football dreams. I was very excited about working with Dennis again after our "Nerdcore" collaboration so I readily accepted the challenge. Dennis lined up a blurb for me to work from, and I provided these sketches:
The blurb described the league's players as "heroes" for football fans that were tired of watching the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals lose. I latched onto that sentence, and I sketched up this idea of the players as heroes a la Superman/Clark Kent.
Continuing the "secret identity" motif, this sketch was a play off of helmets. I liked the idea of a welder flipping up his helmet to reveal a football helmet facemask beneath.
This last sketch is more action-oriented, however, I also felt it was the obvious solution; its the "safe" sketch: the sketch the art director can choose if my other concepts are too abstract.

Luckily, Dennis and I think alike! He chose the first sketch, and I was so excited to render the final art:
I provided two versions (a different color background), and Dennis chose the brighter of the two. I was super-psyched to add this piece to my portfolio, and I look forward to working with Dennis and Cincinnati Magazine again in the future!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

The ol' Switcheroo? Works for me.

2009-07-27T12:20:00.006-04:00

Welcome back to the ol’ blog. Whats new? Well, the cycle continues.

New cards went out in July with a pretty good spike in web traffic; hopefully, this will mean some commissions to come. I have also gotten some good web traffic from my emails with several direct responses about the artwork. I even had a commission come from the last set of images, however we were not able to work out a suitable budget for the rights requested. It always sucks to turn down a job, and you get scared that it was a mistake. But if we do not ever say “no,” then we will never re-establish a value to the use of illustration.

You gotta value what you offer; I don’t mean you should be conceited or pompous. Don’t talk down to the client or insult them. Simply offer what you can at their budget and then state what you would need to charge for what they are requesting; this way, the choice is theirs. You aren’t “backing out;” you are providing options, and if neither option works, then the job dies with no one being at fault. I think some artists take offense at a low-budget offer, and then lash out at an art director; what purpose does that serve? Not only does it make you look like a big-headed jerk, but it also make illustrators in general look the same way.

I digressed; I wont rant about etiquette and manners today.

I’ve been a little behind on the blog posts again. Sorry. So this post features the creation of an illo for Matthew Bates, art director of SNEWS. This magazine is a trade-based magazine for folks in the outdoor/recreation field. Matthew is also art director for Backpacker; I had sent him promos aimed at work in Backpacker, and he brought me onto SNEWS, which he was re-tooling with better visuals. Confusing? Sorry!

The article was a profiling of several up-and-coming outdoor industry designers. Matthew wanted something bold and iconic, and he referenced several pieces on my site as well as some poster art that he thought would guide me in the right direction. Matthew was a pleasure to work with; he was really flexible as I was simultaneously working on other projects. We verbally communicated concepts, and we reached a point where only one sketch was needed:
I was working off of the phrase “giants of industry” which came into my mind while reading the article. I brought in specs that one would see on a blueprint or model sheet to re-enforce the industry aspect. I was really motivated by the phrase “outdoor industry,” and I wanted to somehow juxtapose the two words visually.

Matthew approved the sketch and I created two versions as he was not sure if his editors would want the “specs” or not. So I did one without (more of a portrait) and one with (more of a concept). Also, I hated the guy to the left so I re-drew his head:
In the end, Matthew used the version with specs, and that was a great relief as I felt the other version felt a little generic.

In the end, I’m not thrilled with what I did with this piece; some of the drawing isn’t my strongest. However, the artwork does what its supposed to do so it is a success. I sometimes think I lose sight of the forest for the trees. However, this piece has also inspired me to try my hand at more “group portraits” in the future. Planning is in progress so hopefully I’ll get to them soon.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Sketchbook 7/26

2009-07-26T22:58:00.004-04:00

Hello. I have decided to share some pages from my sketchbook:

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Thanks

2009-06-16T09:07:00.005-04:00

Thanks to Maria at AltPick and Jami at Ispot for spotlighting my new work in their respective "News" sections. I'm honored!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Time Flies!

2009-06-15T13:22:00.005-04:00

Hello, reader! Welcome back! I'm happy to say this post will feature ART!

In regards to my last post concerning the field of illustration, I would like to say that after some research and correspondence, I was educated on the Conyers Bill from 2002. Check it out for info on what was almost an illustrators' union as well as info on antitrust laws. Its interesting stuff. I do still think some type of universal creative organization would be beneficial but I will stop talking about it as it appears its been tried before and didnt work out as parties could not agree or act in unison.

No worries, though! Lots of other things to focus on! New cards are coming this week. Maybe you will get one. Six new pieces are finished or in the works for future publication in the coming months. I'm hopefully getting to work in some personal project book covers this summer, and I'm looking for new ways to promote. I am looking for illustration groups and organizations to join as well in order to just have some sense of community as working from home is very solitary.

What else to mention? Currently, I am halfway through a multi-illustration project that I look forward to sharing when published. Its all hush-hush now but hopefully it wont be for long!

So for now, I can only share some artwork that is being published tomorrow:

ESPN the Magazine contacted me back in March with a cool illustration assignment: the defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The artwork was for ESPN's Fantasy Football 2009 Magazine. I had been wanting to do some sports-related art but I could never find the time; so I was super-psyched to do the job!

I was actually a little intimidated as the magazine is for "SUPER DIE HARD football fans." I was so paranoid (as is always the case) that I would mess up a uniform aspect or a player's name/number. So I did tons of research before even starting sketches to really familiarize myself with the team. Ed Mann, the art director, also sent me some nice high-res reference as well which helped greatly. After Ed and I settled all the details of the project, I sketched up these action-based images for him.

The Sketches:
I called this one "the stack." I was really having fun just trying to show the defense as a mass of helmets and uniforms. A swarm, if you will. I liked how this one was a stack of players where you don't notice the ball carrier at first; it focuses on the defense by not even show the carrier's face/front.

I called this one "the wave." In this sketch, I was going for more of a "crashing down" on the ball carrier. Unlike the first sketch, this one features the ball carrier prominently but in a position of weakness. I really enjoyed how the figures are unrealistically stacked to the right; this sketch feels almost like fantasy to me. Perfect for fantasy football!The last sketch was one I called "the wall." I wanted to show the defense as a literal "wall" between the ball carrier and the goal. The aspect I liked of this sketch was the hands obscuring the ball carrier's uniform number; this would help by not singling out any particular player as the victim, and its also a bit metaphoric. I also liked the "back against the wall" aspect that no one would probably ever notice but me :)

Ed chose the third sketch ("the wall"), and I was off to create the final art. I decided to flip the image so that the viewer's eye would travel top left to bottom which made more sense to me. I also altered my use of blacks to focus more on the Steelers' uniforms and less on light and shadow; it worked well in this piece as there is still a healthy pattern of blacks and value.

Final Art:
One note I would like to make is the effort put into the logos and uniform numbers. I dont mean to boast, but its all there, even the helmet "Riddels!"

Thanks to Ed for the opportunity to make artwork I really enjoyed! I hope to do more action-oriented artwork in the sports field for future assignments.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

What can we do? Educate each other.

2009-06-05T16:00:00.008-04:00

Hello, friends. I'm really sorry I have not posted in a while. I am quite busy with a multi-illustration project that takes up most of my time. Also, projects from the past few months are just now starting to get published. So in the coming months, there will be more art posts. Again, I apologize. So I'm sorry if this post is a dangling carrot, but I wanted to open a possible forum to discuss a several topics in the field of illustration.

It seems every interview, blog, or podcast dealing with the business of illustration eventually discusses stock. For laymen, "stock" is the term used to describe illustration that an artist sells to a company including all rights; this company in turn sells the publishing rights only to anyone with the money (usually a much lower price) than a custom illustration. Some reports of stock illustration for a $1-50 are common.

What stock does to the illustration field is an attack in two-parts. First, it takes money from an illustrator's pocket by denying someone a commission, i.e instead of commissioning you to do a custom piece, a buyer can go to blank.com and buy an illustration that "sort of" fits the topic. So first, its takes money out of ALL artists pockets and gives it to these companies. Secondly, stock kills the creative process that results in unique and moving art; why pay someone a fee to think and be creative when one can just buy a generic businessman illustration or photo?

We all know stock is harmful. Yet people are still fueling these companies with new artwork. Why? Are schools not teaching students the harm of stock? Are stock companies paying more for work? I doubt it. Maybe some illustrators see it as free money for artwork they already made, but they do not realize that the small fee they get is harming the industry by denying someone a full commission. I honestly do not know why folks are still giving these companies art. I DO know its hard to make ends meet at times when freelancing; I do know its scary out there when the phone isn't ringing and the inbox is empty.

So I've come to the conclusion that many illustrators just may not be educated on the subject. Perhaps these illustrators did not attend a school or perhaps they moved into illustration from another field. It really does not matter where or why. We cant change what has happened or the cause; stock is here, and we must deal with it.

I applaud the efforts of the Graphic Artists Guild, Illustrators' Partnership of America, Illustration Conference, and numerous individuals (too many to name). Please note, I am not a member of any these organizations (although I soon hope to be when funding is available :) But their sites are free to visit so PLEASE DO!

Yes, these guys are working hard to benefit us, however, I see limitations that we must deal with. First, I think those that teach should educate their students THOROUGHLY. It assumed that these students are selling their art after graduating and seeing it as a good deal; they are making money directly from ther art. However, they are selling this art for basically nothing. Repeatedly drive home that stock is competition not opportunity. Cite examples if need be; I 'm sure I'm not the only one who has lost a job to a stock image! Don't just say "stock art is bad" and leave it at that. Even if the students groan and complain, make them aware. Play them podcasts! Read them articles by Brad Holland. Have speakers on the illustration practices and pitfalls from the Guild or even just from working professionals. Maybe make reading book such as "The Education of an Illustrator" mandatory instead of just "suggested." Thinking back I had a professor who did repeatedly attacked stock, and another who just glossed over it. I'm very thankful for that professor who made the extra effort!

I feel the above mentioned organization efforts to fight for illustrators' rights are great. The organizations are batting for all of us. Unfortunately, not all of us realize it. I see this as a big hurdle. The Graphic Artists Guild and Illustrators' partnership are valuable resources, and they are constantly trying to make headway for illustrators through efforts such as fighting the Orphan Works Act. But its "under the radar" so to speak.

Illustration is a career of solitude; we work and live alone for the most part. These organizations have information available but maybe these illustrators and students selling to stock companies don't know that these insightful and helpful organizations have websites and books geared toward helping us. Perhaps more of an effort needs to be made to reach out to the new faces in illustration. I really feel unless one searches out these venues of aid, they will not be aware of the existence of such helpful resources.

I know meetings are held and solutions found at conferences (panels of which I have been fortunate enough to enjoy) or at events, exhibitions, etc but lets face it: kids in school or fresh out cant afford to attend much of anything. Maybe we should have some "no charge" meetings for folks who cannot afford to attend. I feel any information on the subject of proper business practice and ethics should be free as it helps all of us. Heck, lets make pamphlets and hand them out on the streets if need be :) Please realize I dont mean to attack any organization; I just think we can reach more people without fancy parties and such. this may be a stretch but look at Alcoholics Anonymous: a open door, a welcoming group, and people talking and resolving issues; look at how that helps so many people.

That is one reason why I am writing this; I think a number of young illustrators and designers frequent this blog, and I hope this post will get some of them to visit these sites and read some valuable material not only about stock but about all aspects of being an illustrator. I also hope to open up some discussion on the subject by asking people to comment or question. Let's share information and resources!

Maybe organizations should "go guerilla" and aggressively deliver info to schools and illustrators? I don't know, but I DO know we need to get awareness and knowledge out to everyone in the field. WE also need to get illustrators motivated to want to learn. I know I learned a great deal AFTER college by just reading and visiting sites on illustration. And by communicating; I think thats our biggest weakness as an industry: we are so divided be it by geographic region, financial status, or circles within the industry. I have a friend working in film, and it amazing what their union has done for them. Perhaps its time for something like that? I don't know. Any thoughts on anything I've mentioned here are greatly appreciated.

Links:
Illustrators' Partnership: Lots of essays and articles on all aspects of Illustration

Graphic Artists Guild: Publishes the Pricing and Ethical Guidelines Handbook. Features a contract monitor to help understand contracts along with other valuable resources.

AIGA: A huge site with lots of info (link to Orphan Works page)

Freelance Switch: Lots of article of freelancing. Features a podcast on everything illustration including business etiquette, contracts, valuing your work, you name it. Also has a rate calculator and other useful tools.

Starving Artists Law: Info on copyright, trademarks, volunteer lawyers, etc

These are just few. PLEASE feel free to link to more in comments! I hope this helps someone; I just want to make an effort on behalf of the industry.

Books:
The Education of an Illustrator (Heller/Arisman)
The Business of Illustration (Heller/Arisman)
Starting Your Career as a Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer

Illustrophile Feature

2009-04-27T20:54:00.006-04:00

Today I got an email from Charlene Chua letting me know that I would be featured on Illustrophile's homepage for the week! Awesome! Thanks, Charlene!
Stop by and check out their blog; there's something for everyone!

Enjoy the day,
Chris

A Desire for Academics and Creativity

2009-04-20T01:05:00.010-04:00

Hello.

Well, here we are. April. The end of this month will mark one year of this new journey. I am very happy to say I have been able to survive as a freelancer for a whole year. Much has changed, and at times I am still uncertain of what to do. There is still much to learn and much to be done. But I do think I'm off to a good start!

To mark this anniversary of sorts, I took it upon myself to re-design chris-whetzel.com(being uploaded tonight). Lately, I had been really unhappy with the website layout so I read up on some coding issues I was having with the site, and fixed it up to look a little better on any size screen. Also, I decided to use clearer thumbnails and add some features to make things easier for art directors after viewing joshuamiddleton.com. Thanks to Scott and Irene for bringing this website and its positive qualities to my attention. Also, thanks to Josh Middleton for amazing art on a well-designed site. I am really happy with the re-design, and I feel it may be around for a while. Of course the artwork will be updated as close to monthly as I can manage!

The time since my last post has been filled with work, thankfully. All are pending publication, so they will eventually be featured here. I have been very lucky to have some children's work to supplement my income! I am considering featuring the kids work on this blog as well as setting up a site for it. Also just completed was artwork for a client I was very excited to work with! Sadly, this artwork will not be released until June, and I can't wait to add it to the portfolio!

Its been a weird period. I have found myself to be very artistically driven as of late. I just added three new self-initiated pieces to the portfolio (which was a project in itself), planned more portfolio work, and provided artwork for three commissions. The odd part is that while being very busy with this work, I have had this yearning to be reading more. These past two weeks I read Robinson Crusoe and Lord of the Flies; I am currently working my way through Walden again. Walden is a very important book for me; a much of the book reflects how I attempt to live my own life (with some allowances :) Anyway, I have found that this rekindling of the desire to read has really inspired my creative side. What a pleasant surprise.

Now shut yer trap, Chris! Its time for the artwork!

This blog post features three new self-initiated pieces based upon Shakespeare's works. I took these on as a vehicle to experiment within my own artistic methods: playing with color, cropping, and composition as concept:

I am pretty happy with these, and I hope to get more work along these lines. If not, I'll just keep making them for myself, experimenting along the way!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Personal Projects

2009-04-01T17:18:00.009-04:00

Hi! How ya doin'?

Welcome back! So whats new? Well, two posts back work was very slow and I am very grateful to have had some projects come in these past two weeks. So while working on them, I just got my new postcard out last week, and I am working on some new pdfs for the website. I FINALLY just got all my taxes sorted out and found that my amount due wasn't too bad at all. Nice! What else is going on?

Plenty! I actually wanted to talk a bit in this post about the slow times in freelance. It only took a little slow down to make me panic. I was sure the business was done, and I needed to find another production job. Maybe that will be the case if the economy continues the way it has this past year. But for now, I see the past two months as a great test to my fortitude and desire to really be doing this type of work. No doubt about it, my faith was definitely tested every time I looked at my bank account. Also, when not working, one's self-esteem takes a pretty big hit, too. "Why isn't anyone hiring me? Do I suck?" These questions creep up on you in the quiet times.

I have found the best way to deal with these times is to focus. Focus on one's work. Promote more. Fix anything you don't like about your portfolio; make it stronger. Clean up your website. Go draw. JUST DO SOMETHING so you aren't constantly doubting yourself.

I find this is a great time for personal projects. For me, its hard to make time for them when commissions are on the drafting table. So to utilize the time, and to assuage my doubts, I took on the Joker portrait from the last post, and another personal project. Something I have worked on here and there is a comic concept my brother is tinkering with. I liked it so much I want to draw some stuff for it. We are currently reworking a short script, and here are the non-final character concept sketches:

The main character and his father (we are discussing a re-design of the father as I feel his character is wimpy)
The villain in armor and in robes:
Supporting characters:
A character study to capture a "crazy look:"
I also started a little poster campaign for myself concerning our current economic situation and energy needs. It will eventually be a three poster series but for now it just one :)

Sketch:This was just a sketch in my book. I had been tinkering with the concept for a bit prior instigating the poster project.

Final 11x17:
I decided to crop the art to more easily draw attention to the bulb; I felt the sketch had too much info in it. I mocked it up as a Waste Management poster to work my typography muscles, and I sent it to 'em. My contact there forwarded it to the proper channels, but I don't expect to hear anything as WM works with a design studio for all of their materials. But still, I wanted to at least try my hand as pitching an idea to a cold client to exercise those muscles as well. Anyway, the other two posters are looking to be themed around recycling and public transportation while using the term "green thinking." Someday, you'll see them. They are actually on a far back burner for projects I am much more excited about right now, both commissioned and personal.

And that's that. I have sketches for more posters underway, and some work due early next week so I better get back to it.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Tee Hee!

2009-03-23T14:08:00.007-04:00

Howdy folks! I just wanted to do a quick post about an upcoming show in Philadelphia. The show takes place at Brave New Worlds in Olde City. It is a themed-group show put on by The Autumn Society.

Exhibition info:
Opening Reception: Friday, April 3rd, 2009 6-9 pm
Brave New Worlds
45 N 2nd st
Philadelphia, PA 19106

I decided to focus on the comic-book Joker as opposed to movie versions as portrayed by Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger. Also, after seeing much of the art for the show, it seemed to me that much of it was humorous or based on capturing the likeness of Mr. Ledger. I decided I wanted to focus on other aspects of the character. In my diagnosis, he feels completely misunderstood by society. Lacking any constructive means to express himself, he does so with violence. I think he truly enjoy one's suffering, even his own.
Sketch:
Final:
You know, I always like my sketches more. I may explore this in full-color, and I think expanding upon these portraits is a good personal project for me.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Fear, Money, Romance. C'est la vie!

2009-03-13T14:51:00.002-04:00

Hello, hello. What to say? Work has slowed down to a crawl, and I have found I'm not alone. My buddy Scott works at a well-established illustration rep in NYC, and they too are "very sluggish." Also, I follow a very large amount of illustrators' and reps' blogs, and it seems that folks are slowing down in terms of posting published work. But what can you do? Just gotta keep promoting and have a little faith, right?

The stock market seems to be doing better this week, and I am confident that its growth as well as the Recovery Act will instill confidence in illustration commissioners! So with that said, I continue seeking out opportunities online, and I should be getting my next batch of promo cards today. Its hard to make myself spend the money to print/send them when very little money is coming in. Eh, its just money. I can always get a job!

The Zuzu show is coming down next week, and I am working on several projects including a piece for a show in Philadelphia in April. The show is "Joker-themed" and is put on the The Autumn Society.

And that's pretty much it. I am focusing all of my spare time into finding new work opportunities this month as well as putting together my design/production portfolio to possibly seek opportunities in fields outside of illustration.

And now, this post's art section!

Kristin Lipman at Honolulu Magazine emailed me at the end of January with an assignment very different from the usual themes I find art directors requesting I illustrate: an optimistic article depicting how "Main Street" people can handle the economic crisis. The article was titled "Stop the Fear" and is featured in the March edition of Honolulu. She needed an opening image and two smaller illustrations in the first week of February.

Just the upbeat aspect of the article intrigued me, and I looked forward to creating "optimistic art." Kristin chose three sections (the article featured ten sections, each written by a different person with a positive outlook), and I was off to sketch. With time being a factor, I spoke in great detail with Kristin about the concepts I had BEFORE sketching. We agreed on what would be the most powerful, and I was off to sketch.

For the opening image, Kristin had the idea of people climbing/hiking up a hill with mountains in the background, a metaphor for conquering their troubles and hardships placed upon them by our economic situation. To me, this was a good starting point, but I like to take my work a bit farther and work with a more visual concept. So I suggested that we make the hill/mountains out of chart lines. Kristin trusted me so I sketched up this image:
Kristin asked the figure feature long hair and dark skin that is common in Hawaii. With that addition, I was approved for a final:
I actually provided two color versions of the all offinal art as requested by Kristin; she decided to use the gray-on-red version for the opener. I actually decided to feature the full-color version on the website as I wanted to add some variety to the portfolio in terms of color palette.

The second sketch dealt with debt; specifically, the theme was freeing oneself of debt during tough times. Kristin's initial concept was a man climbing out of a whole in the ground (viewed from above). I decided to take this a bit farther and have a heroic figure climbing out of a well, a wishing well if you will. The sketch:
Kristin liked the sketch and suggested that all garments in all of the illustrations reflect the casual attire of most Hawaiians. So we decided to drop the business attire, and switch our hero over to what I refer to as "casual beach attire." The final:
I like how this image turned out; I feel the colors are bright and "optimistic," and the figure is powerful. I'm glad Kristin decided to use full color on the last two illos as the grayscale can look forced with some subject matter (like money).

The last illustration which deals with keeping romance alive during tough financial times. Both Kristin and I were having a little trouble with this concept as most of the ideas we came up with focused more on the financial problem being bothersome and not with it being overcome. As such, we agreed on two concepts to explore, and I supplied two sketches that I thought showed the couple enjoying some romance despite their money woes:
For some reason, I was intrigued by the idea of using downward spiraling chart arrows as lightning bolts. This grew into a couple romatically kissing under a stormy cloud in front of a subtle chart background.
The second sketch was a little more ligh-hearted and subtle. A couple relaxing in a hammock made of bills, overdue notices, mortgages, etc. This idea actually came from the name of another client I was working for at the same time: "Hammock" publishing! Kristin liked both ideas, but she decided to go with the "cloud" sketch. We decided to add more clouds and "bolts" to feel more like a storm before going to the finish:
I worked up both versions, and we went with the multiple cloud/line version. I actually wish we had kept the simplicity of a single cloud; I now feel it reads easier than the final, but I guess its really personal preference. However, Kristin was happy with the second finish, and it was off to the press!

Kristin sent me an issue this week, and I am really happy with the layout of the images and text! I certainly enjoyed working with her as she really encouraged my ideas and thoughts throughout the entire illustrative process. I hope to work with her again! Thanks, Kristin!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Throw ya hands in the air. In Vulcan, that is.

2009-02-26T15:23:00.004-05:00

Hello again, all. I'm afraid not much is going on right now except for a few self-initiated works and some promotional efforts so I'll jump right in to this post's illustration feature:

Dennis at Cincinnati Magazine emailed me with an awesome assignment for their March issue; an illustration dealing with “nerdcore,” a new type of hip-hop that is becoming very popular. He requested an image that would be exciting and humorous, and to get me started, he sent me some reference as well as a link to a rap duo called “Dualcore” (www.dualcoremusic.com) of which one member was interviewed for the article.

With lyrics ranging from 80s old school to comics/sci-fi to computer hacking, there was plenty of imagery to choose from. Also, I am somewhat of nerd so I had that area covered, but I am a bit of a “newb” to hip-hop so I had to learn a great deal about the genre in a very short time. Much thanks to Josh K and Tim L for helping me bridge these two lifestyles into some clever concepts. As a freelancer working mostly in a bit of a vacuum, its great to have fellow artists with which one can brainstorm and bounce ideas back and forth.

This assignment was so fun that I did more sketches than I probably should have allowed myself. However, I wanted to try a few images without the typical “glasses and pocket protector” nerd.
Sketches:
Nerd with gold fronts that say “geeksta” instead of “gangsta.”
Nerd going “thug” with gold calculator and pacman chains, in front of graffiti wall
DJ Spock and MC Kirk: hypothetical rap group of “Trekkies”
“Thug Wars” Hip-Hop posed R2D2 and C3PO who is also throwing Vulcan signs for the Star Trek fans.

Dennis went with the StarTrek-themed sketch, and I was off to a finish:
I had a blast with this image! The turntables and equipment were especially fun to create, and I was really happy with the figure gestures. Please note: Spock’s scratching his record with a Vulcan sign ☺ I actually worked up and submitted a second version with a different “warp speed” background, but Dennis felt this one was more powerful. In hindsight, I agree. Thanks, Dennis!

I actually just received the sample issue from Dennis, and its looks great. I was very proud to be featured in a magazine with such a broad array of illustration!

*This blog entry was featured on the ispot's "Art Talk" and blog! Sweet!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Zuzu’s: “An Illustration Collective"

2009-02-19T22:09:00.010-05:00

Hello, hello. “Welcome back,” to quote a friend. Last Saturday was Valentine’s Day, and it was also the opening night of a group show I curated at a small café called Zuzu’s in Beacon, NY. The artist were Doug LaRocca, Peter Wonsowski, Danielle Rizzolo, and drawings by yours truly. The show will be up until March 18th. Doug’s work is a mix of screenprints, digital work, and paintings on various surfaces. Peter Wonsowski is a mixed media artist in the sense that the works in pretty much every medium. Danielle is an oil painter who is currently painting on wood, magnets, and metal surfaces. Here are a few photos of our work (sorry for the poor quality), and if you would like to see more please visit their respective websites.

Doug LaRocca:

Peter Wonsowski:

Danielle Rizzolo:
(These last two pieces by Danielle feature objects painted on magnets that may be removed to show aspects of the painting beneath and they even allow for rearrangement of the "room.")

Drawings:
These drawings are not in my typical illustration style, but I see "fine art" as doing whatever I want in whatever style I want; who knows what will be in the next show? 'nuff said. *Update Feb 27: I was notified today that one drawing was sold (girl wearing headphones). Yay!

In other news, I will have some leftover prints from the OpenSpace show of the following pieces, all limited to editions of 12. If interested, please email me. I hope to also set up a “store” section on the website in March:

Sorry folks, no new illustrations for this post as I’m waiting on several things to be published before I can show them. But there should be a good bit of new work hitting the site and blog in March. Stay tuned! Sadly, today a job fell through as they decided to not use illustration for a cover; I blame the economy. So to distract myself from all the economy doom and gloom, I’m working on two self-initiated pieces that I hope to have done before March. And here and there, I’m doing a bit of character sketching for my brother’s comic concept (which is pretty cool).

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

In Light of Recent Developments.

2009-02-02T23:28:00.007-05:00

Hello, all. Welcome to another installment!

Today is Groundhog Day! I certainly hope Puxatawny Phil provides some good news as its COLD here in Beacon, NY. In fact, its so cold that I have had to vacate my studio space as it simply is not warm enough to work in. So for the time being, we're keeping our production streamlined at chris-whetzel.com. I have set up in a smaller space in my apartment that is easier to heat, and its working out well. Streamlined equipment includes: laptop with mouse and internet, cell phone, and sketchbook. I run out to the studio space for books and to scan drawings as needed. Whatever it takes to get the job done, right?

And the job has certainly needed to get done! In January, I had six jobs with a huge rush at the end of the month. The last two weeks have been 10-14 hour days, but they were totally worth it! I will share projects as they are published, and I am quite excited to add a few pieces to my portfolio!

With that being said, I'm afraid I am going to have to limit my blogging efforts. I am truly sorry, but there is simply not enough time for me to share all of my thoughts, actions, and methods on this blog. Who knows, maybe it will slow down bit for now I will mostly be posting short blogs focusing on new artwork.

And so lets hop to it. Last Thursday, a cover I created was published so I can now share the experience. Earlier in January, Rob at Nashville Scene emailed me to see if I was available for a cover. The subject was Steve Ganaway, a Nashville resident who claimed to be a reputable businessman despite evidence that he was "running numbers" (think ghetto lottery minus taxes). Rob wanted to design the cover with a "blaxploitation movie poster-feel." Was I interested? Oh yes.

I sent Rob a few really rough layouts (not worth showing) to choose from; dealing with so many aspects and objects, we wanted to nail the composition down before sketching. This saved time on my end as well as I only needed to do one sketch.

The Sketch:I actually sketched everything separately and composited the elements in photoshop. I even drew Ganaway's head separate from his body so that I could get a good likeness as well as lots of detail in there. Most elements were drawn on simple typing paper and his head was drawn at about 5" tall in my sketchbook. Rob liked the sketch, and I got the green light.

The Final Art:Detail:There was a change while working on the final; I wasn't happy with the figures placement and size; it looked to me like he had short legs and a toy car in front of him. So I asked Rob if I could enlarge him to make his face easier to read as well as to make it feel more like a montage, and he was fine with it. Rob really dug the artwork which was awesome. It was nice to work in full-color as I had not really done so in a while. Sadly, the background was dropped out before publication and replaced with a radial gradient of the same colors, but the image still holds up well.
Rob was a great art director to work with, and he pretty much let me do my thing; he was also very cool about the article and how it basically made fun of the guy. When I asked if Ganaway would be upset about the cover he said, "He'll probably love it; he'll want a poster." We both agreed he would sign copes for people.

And that was that; Rob got me tearsheets super-fast, and I plan to use it in the portfolio. Now, back to work :)

Enjoy the Day.
Chris

I like 2009.

2009-01-22T13:22:00.009-05:00

Hello, All! I hope your year is off to a good start!

Let’s see…whats new? Well, I suppose I’ll start off with updates and we can progress from there. January has certainly been a busy month, and its not over yet! As I had mentioned earlier, the OpenSpace print show titled “Limited Run 2” is up for a second month until mid-February. Being fortunate enough to be in this show was one thing, but after the holidays, I stopped in to see Dan and Kalene as I was walking home. To my surprise, they informed me that my prints were actually selling! Hooray! I knew about selling two panda prints (one to a friend) on opening weekend, but it was nice to know that someone bought a digital print of a jetpack piece I did last year! Yippee! I always worry about doing digital work for shows as its very costly to have prints made; so I at least wanted to sell ONE to get a little bit of that money back…and I did! Sweet!

That night the gallery had a second opening, but it was snowing badly. Aliyah and I had actually planned to attend the James Jean show at Jonothan Levine in NYC, but the weather prevented it. So stuck at home, I do believe I was working when Dan from OpenSpace called me. He said that two people were in the gallery at that moment, and both wanted to buy the panda print. Having only two left (one in stock and one for display), he was hoping I had more. We agreed he could sell both, and I would bring him another for the wall. After frantically searching my closet, I did find a print I had kept for myself. It was recommended at this point that I finish the edition (I only had six of the twelve printed at the time). While dropping off the print at the gallery (I live right upstairs!), Dan informed me that one of the buyers had also purchased a digital print of the jetpack. It turns out one buyer was the former director of the Whitney museum in NYC and the other is a pretty well-established music producer from New Orleans. Nice! Sadly, no one has bought any wrestler prints, but I think I can sell them myself in the coming months.

So with “Limited Run 2” wrapping up in mid-February, I am trying to plan the group show I have put together at Zuzu’s coffee shop. The artists are (hopefully) toiling away at their easels, drafting tables, and computers! I think it will be a fun reception as I do believe the café has live music planned for afterwards? I thought I had heard a little about it today at the shop. Sadly, I think I am only doing one new drawing for the show as I feel I may be busy with work. As of now, I should be displaying roughly 12 drawings, perhaps a tiny sketchbook, and I will be offering a children’s coloring book as many parents bring kids in there throughout the day since Zuzu’s has a playspace for them. But who knows? On occasion, once I have started drawing, I get a bit obsessive! Once my girlfriend told me she was jealous of my spending so much time at the drawing table, and she also stated “it was like I had another girlfriend.” Sorry!

So that covers art exhibitions! I hope to line up a few more this year for my digital work and stencils. But sadly, I cannot live on print sales alone ☺

January is the start of a big push for me in terms of freelancing; I really hope to grow the business this year. I sent out 1048 postcards featuring my latest and best piece on the 12th, and I do believe response has been good. Web traffic is up (a good sign), and feedback via email has also been enjoyable. I think the last card bombed, and now I know why: I sent it to myself last week and it turns out the post office was blocking out my web address on the front! So not only was my contact info not visible on the front, but a huge sticker covered the bottom of the image and made it look disgusting! I guess they needed to cover it for their own reasons, but no printer has ever warned me about using type on the FRONT of a card, and the Postal Service says nothing about it either. And then I wonder if they did the same thing on other cards I sent out designed in a similar manner?!? Ah well. Live and learn. Now I am designing all future cards VERTICALLY so the type is one the short side of the card; I do believe postcards are scanned lying on the long side so hopefully this will keep my contact info from being obscured. Also, I am featuring a white border around my cards for the post office to print upon so that they hopefully do need to use those horrible stickers again.

Just thinking about that really burns me. So let’s move on, shall we? A new piece I just created for the Improper Bostonian was just published so I can show and discuss the process. Still being bummed out from the holidays (I get like that) and still fretting over the cover job I couldn’t do, January was initially a little scary. Then I got an email from Katie at the Improper Bostonian. She was requesting a portrait of Chris Wallace to accompany an interview they would be running later in January. Chris Wallace is a news anchor for Fox News; most notably, he is the guy who had Bill Clinton losing his cool on the air. Anyway, Katie asked for a standard portrait of Mr. Wallace that would run-full page across from the interview. After gathering reference, I drew up a likeness of the fellow:

Initial sketch:
I wanted to do a second sketch as I am trying to steer my portfolio away from non-conceptual work. So I tried my hand at taking this portrait in a more editorial direction.

Second sketch:
To my surprise, Katie wanted to go with the second sketch! I was so happy! The finish for this piece went very quickly; I don’t know if I’m just getting faster or if I was really pumped to make the art! The finish:

I feel like this piece is something different for me; it’s a bit more subtle and dare I say sophisticated? I don’t know. It definitely has a different feel than most of my work, but I see that as a good thing!

And that’s that! What a fun project! Right now, I am actually swamped with work, and its awesome! Five projects in January makes me very optimistic for 2009!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

The Holidays and I.

2009-01-03T16:18:00.007-05:00

Hey there, folks. So the holidays are finally over. Happy New Year!

I must say I am very excited to get cracking in 2009! I am trying to get my taxes settled ASAP so that I can focus on more important things. With the Zuzu's show coming up next month, I finally studied the space and planned which pieces would work well in the layout. Also, the Openspace print show is up for another month so I'm hoping to sell a few more prints there. The Panda stencil has sold a few prints but I do not think anyone has purchased any of the digital work. I guess I should plan to sell them through the store I'll be setting up on my website soon :)

Speaking of the website, it has come to my attention that featuring my process-blog on the index page was a bad idea: art directors seem to be reading the blog for 5-10 minutes without viewing the portfolio. So I have changed the blog to a link below the portfolio, and I now use the space on the index page as a "whats currently happening" area. This seems to be working better as now images are being viewed individually AND the process-blog is being read. I think this is much more efficient as I assume the art is viewed first, and then the process is seen. Lately, i have been thinking about changing up the website yet again. Just some simple tweaking of links, adding print sales, and possibly shrinking the header/logo so that it fits over the lefthand links. The theory is that this will look more professional and give me more space for the portfolio images and blog. Stay tuned to see if it works out!

I have also just updated my ispot portfolio with better keywords and larger images. I have done this as almost daily I am getting a visit to my website from my ispot portfolio. Hopefully, a more professional presence on ispot will win these visitors over and get them to call or email for a commission.

All of this is being done in conjunction with this month's direct mail card. So hopefully, it will all work together to bring in some new (and previous) clients! December was a bit of a slow month for me in terms of freelance :( I actually missed out on a job as I was visiting family for the holidays; I had no idea someone might contact me the day after Christmas! Sadly, I saw the email too late on a Friday. What a bummer. Lesson learned!!!

But I did luck into a few illustrations for The Sacramento News & Review. This was cool as the art director, Andrew Nilsen had contacted me earlier in 2008 stating that he liked my work and was waiting for a good opportunity to work together. Such an opportunity presented itself in the form of a holiday fiction piece in their Dec25th issue that the editor decided would work well with some interesting illustration to spice it up. Originally Andrew wanted to do a cover and two spots but due to budget constraints we had to settle for three interior illustrations and single sketches for each piece. The story was about a group of unique individuals who were "anti-Christmas." They gathered yearly during the holidays for a party at the apartment of Lisa, the main character. The story is told through third person narration and letters that Lisa writes to her friend in New York city. Andrew and I decided to focus on 1) a party scene, 2) the letters to the New York friend, and 3) the "holiday togetherness" felt by these "anti-holiday" people.

The sketches:

I decided to show the "spirit" of togetherness as a ribbon winding through the party folk (it was only a four-person party). I then decided to apply this "ribbon" to the spots to tie all of the illustrations together (bad pun). Upon seeing the sketches, Andrew asked that the closest figure be made a bit more "unique" with trendy glasses, tattoos, and a more disheveled appearance. Otherwise, the sketches were approved.

The Final art (originally grayscale, colored for the website):

The day I turned these pieces into Andrew, I was full-speed into a horrible cold. Luckily, he was very happy with them and needed no revisions! I then collapsed into bed for basically a week until we headed down to Virginia for the holidays.

This assignment was very different for me; the characters had to look a certain way as described in the text (old guy bartender for example) and the illustrations had to be actual events that took place in the story. You can read the piece on the Sacramento N&R website. While performing these actions, I had to also add an editorial concept to the pieces; it was basically two assignments in one! Cool! I like to mix it up!

And that wraps up 2008! Bring it on, 2009! I am very excited to see what this year has in store for me. Unless it bad. Then I don't want it.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Recent Sighting

2008-12-30T11:37:00.005-05:00

Sorry, a little late with this one. The MyBusiness cover I did last month was featured on the ispot's "Art Talk" as well as their blog. Cool!
And the same cover was also featured on The Little Chimp Society blog:
Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Guest Speaker at UARTs

2008-12-30T10:32:00.004-05:00

Hello, hello. Sorry for the lack of posts in December. As we all know, the holidays can get a bit out of hand. Throw in a terrible case of sickness, and one’s time and energy is easily spread thin. But now that all the hub-bub out of the way, let’s get on with the show. But first, I’ll recap a bit on happenings since my last post.

December started out with worry. I assumed that work would drop off with the holidays. I was right and wrong. The month started off with a nice little assignment that I’ll recap in the next post. First, I would like to talk a bit about something really exciting that happened (for me at least).

In previous posts, I’ve spoken on my plans to apply for teaching positions in the spring of 2009. In doing so, I have requested letters of recommendation from several of my UARTs professors. In a lovely twist of fate, I was asked to speak to the current UARTs seniors by Megan Berkheiser, my senior illustration professor. I was super psyched so I eagerly agreed. We spoke about what I should address and what I should bring. I worked up a little presentation and gathered up sketches and tearsheets to show. Then it was off to Philadelphia!

Now let me say one thing: public speaking is not my strong point. My nervousness did not really hit me until I was walking around the city a bit before heading to the school. I was freaking out a little when I walked into the elevator on its way to the Illustration floor.

But WOW, things had changed. The floor has been drastically altered to allow for a HUGE gallery space (currently featuring work by Jerry Pinkney). Also, the number of students is growing; in 2003, we were about 30 seniors. Now that number is closer to 50! All of the students have computers in their studio cubicles, and the rooms seem very quiet in comparison to our old class.

Anyway, I headed into the office to meet Megan and Rosae. Those two ladies are great; they are both so super-friendly! They really put me at ease before the talk. I must have been really nervous (showing it on my face) as while setting up the computer and projector, Rosae looked at me strangely and said “Chris, are you ok?” I think I may have been a bit pale. Then she wrapped an arm around me and said “Don’t worry! You’ll do fine!” Sadly, this really didn’t help at all.

So sweating bullets, I was briefly introduced by Megan with a little background of my time at UARTs. I was surprised she remembered so much. After this, it was time to start, and I froze a little; I really didn’t know how to start! I think I mindlessly jabbered about what I did senior year and after school from the senior thesis to my work as a production artist to my current freelancing situation. Then I managed to stumble into the powerpoint presentation I had prepared.

Ah, darkness. Not having to look at people during the slideshow really helped me collect myself. Speaking mostly to the screen, I was much more comfortable and thus able to better present the information that I hoped would help the students; I even managed to crack a few jokes.

I tried to be as thorough as possible; basically I wanted to give them all of the info I wanted from visiting artists that I never received. The presentation hit on everything from art to business. The presentation covered the following:
-Employment immediately after school (freelance to salary as both a designer and as an illustrator)
-Gallery exhibitions and personal projects as a way to stay creative
-Finding a style within your natural way of working that is both satisfying and marketable
-Workspace (a small request from the students, sorry my space is so small!)
-Treating yourself as a business and promoting your work
-Money matters such as taxes and invoices
-Establishing relationships with art directors

After the slideshow, I went through my website and gave a brief summary of how each commission went, how I felt about pieces, and I also covered this blog and my creative process feed on the site. I wanted to let them know that a lot of what I would not talk about or would forget to address could be read here.

And that was pretty much it for the talk. There were a few questions about salary work as well as some questions about having/building a website. The students were welcomed to look through tearsheets, sketches, and sketchbooks I had laid out. It was really nice when a lot of them stuck around and wanted to talk about the art and the work. I actually did a “round 2” with some sophomores who were invited in by the faculty to check things out.

On a side note, it was also really cool to see speak with my former professors Earl, Mark and Ralph. I was told afterwards that the students were glad I came and that they were having lots of conversations among themselves about my work; I was really happy to hear that as well as being told that it was “the most informative talk they have had in a while.” Wow, that felt great! It was also nice to meet the new faculty as they seemed really cool and dedicated to the students.

The main idea I wanted to get across to the students was how I managed to push myself out of salaried design/production work into a career as a freelancer. I think that is a major obstacle for folks who find themselves stuck at a job that pays well. It took years and I don’t make as much money as I used to, but thankfully my situation is working out. Honestly, I told them it was not easy at all; I had to make myself draw after working all day as a production artist. I had to make myself save money to finance that dream of freelancing that we all have as seniors. And I also told them how great having published work feels; it makes you hungry for more. Hopefully, some of my experiences will help the students avoid my mistakes.

After the talks, I was able to walk through the studios and check out the students work. They are currently working on their thesis project; it is a series of four pieces linked thematically and displayed in the senior show. There were some really innovative things that really impressed me; I met Daniel Fishel, a cool guy I had only spoken with on blogs. He’s doing some really awesome things with his work, and I was stunned at his process. I also saw some really cool beer bottle labels, a funny little pop-up, and what looked to be a very cool diorama as well as much other awesome stuff I’m sure I’m forgetting to mention. The kids were really busy and tired, but they certainly had an energy that I miss! Sadly, I did not get to see all of the studios, but I hope to speak again in coming years! I’ll allow for more walk-and-talk time!

Thanks again to UARTs Illustration the faculty for having me! It was a blast and an honor!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

OpenSpace Print & Zine Show

2008-12-13T15:21:00.005-05:00

Hey guys! I just wanted to post some images from a group show I have artwork in that will be up for the next two months. Check out the links on the Openspace website! There are alot of artist in the show you folks would prob like! I was really lucky to help hang so many great pieces of art. Images are below.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Our Uncle.

2008-11-28T19:47:00.003-05:00

Howdy-Doo, folks!

Well, I must say I’ve have been blogging a bit more than usual lately. But then, I’ve had a good bit going on. Hope it doesn’t scare anyone away!

Aside from actually creating art, one thing I’ve had going on since the last post is feeling my way through some new marketing techniques. I’m not doing anything new in terms of actual promotion, just re-vamping my branding. As you can see, the site features a new look and logo to better match the artwork I produce. This look obviously spills over into other artwork sites, my stationery, invoices, etc. In tackling this “branding” monster, I’ve also taught myself a great deal more about things like HTML and feeds that I feel are really necessary for an artist trying to market themselves today.

Also, this may sound strange, but I’m becoming more familiar with my artwork thus allowing me to better sell my strong points as well as how I differ from other illustrators. This is still in the “trial and error” phase, but I really feel like my marketing materials and promotions are looking much more refined and professional, and I’m more eloquent and confident when describing my artwork. So I’ll be testing these techniques on my winter promotional efforts. We will see if all of this actually works in the coming months!

This post’s artwork starts off with a cover piece for MyBusiness Magazine, a subscription publication by Hammock Inc. The art director contacted me after she viewed my ispot portfolio. The cover’s concept was to address the current economic crisis, specifically focusing on small business owner/main street America supporting the economy. The art director really wanted to show literally Main Street with shops, the street, people, etc. However, I was free to experiment
outside of that concept as well.

The Sketches:
A broken piggy back being held together with "Main Street" tape. Pretty self-explanatory, and very cliche.
"Main Street" turning into a bar graph. The concept here was that the common man is seen simply as a business figure.
Small business owners holding up the economy as represented by a "monopoly man" figure. A bit more of a political cartoon?Uncle Sam being supported by a Main Street crutch. I liked this one. And yes, thats me as Uncle Sam.

So we all agreed that the Uncle Sam sketch was the most powerful. I also felt this would be the most comfortable within my vein of art as the others were a bit too light-hearted for a subject that I see as pretty serious. I was given the go-ahead with the only revision being to "tone down the crotch." Yipe.

The Final:I was really happy with how this one turned out, and the art director can be quoted as saying “I LOVE IT.” That was nice.

But what was really nice was turning this artwork in, and managing to land another commission just by being in the right place at the right time. The art director needs some “children’s art” for another magazine, and she asked if I knew anyone. I have actually done a lot of kids work as an in-house illustrator before heading into full-time freelance so I sent her some samples of that work. This turned into a nice fun little job that allows me to flex different creative muscles.

Oh, and one more "bonus!" This same art director also purchased a stock piece from me while I was doing the kid's work. That was nice!

And so we reach the end of a very busy work month!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Spoof Me Once...

2008-11-25T14:37:00.011-05:00

Howdy all! It certainly has been a while since my last post. I humbly apologize. However, I am waiting for some artwork to be published before I am able to show it. But don’t worry. December’s coming about will add some work to the portfolio! Then I will talk about those pieces in great depth. As for now, November has been a little slow but I have managed to get a couple of commissions and to re-sell the rights to a useful image. Time in between gigs has been spent drawing and promoting. I also entered the Society of Illustrators competition, but I did not get in. Perhaps next year, I’ll have better luck. Congrats to all who did get in! It’s a show I’m definitely going to try to see!

I am a bit worried as my last promotional postcard as not brought in the work I was hoping it would. I am trying to figure out why this is; many of the folks I contacted were new, so perhaps they just need to see more cards. Or maybe I chose a poor image; in comparison to the previous cards, its lacking something. Well, lets hope the next card has a little more impact. I just ordered it from my printer; they are having an “Economic Relief Sale.” How lovely. I do like the image on the card more than the jetpack piece; its definitely more conceptual so hopefully it’ll bring in some work.

Other than promoting and working, I’ve also become very interested in applying for some teaching positions at local colleges and art centers. This came about when I attended SUNY New Paltz’s first ever “Draw-A-Thon.” Not only did I get to do some live-model drawing (its been about five years), but I also got to see the school and what goes on there. Aliyah is teaching a summer class there while studying for her Master’s, and just talking to her about what takes place in classes and crits makes me want to see if I could teach. So I’m gathering my recommendations and drawing samples, sprucing up the resume, laying out a sample syllabus, and hoping for the best.

Lets see. What else? I turned in my three prints for the OPENSPACE Print Show taking place in December. I submitted a stencil piece and two digital prints, all in editions of 12. I am really excited about this show; its just hit me how much fun it should be. I have had some good conversations with Dan, the owner about how to value and sell work, how absurd artist statements are, and how he teaches at Parsons. Nice guy, that guy. I will try to remember to take photos of the opening and post them here.

Also, I also just spoke with Nate at Zuzu’s about the group show. We finalized the show for Feb-March with an opening on Valentine’s Day. Aww! My drawings should fit the day…kind of. Other artists in the show are Danielle Rizzolo, Doug LaRocca, and Peter Wonsowski. It should be a good cross-section of illustration work. I also have a couple of new pieces I would like to get done for that show. Hopefully, time will allow it.

But everything was on hold this week for a commission. I received a call from the art director at The Phoenix New Times. He had gotten my contact information from the art director at Houston Press as he was looking for someone to do an Obama spoof. Apparently, I came highly recommended so I sent a “thank you” to that friendly art director. Anyway, the portrait was to be of Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano; at the time she was under consideration for a position in Obama’s administration. The folks at New Times were not happy about this and disapproved. So the spoof was to say “NOPE” instead of “HOPE.” The deadline was cut a day short as the paper needed to be prepped earlier due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Nonetheless, I was sure I could finish the artwork in the timeframe, and the art director even sweetened the pot a little for my taking the job under the circumstances. Nice guy, that guy.

So due to concept and timeframe, only one sketch was needed. I tried to make he look unfriendly and little disgruntled to sway the viewer. Initially, I worked from what I thought was the most recent sketch; the one where her hair was more gray and she had more wrinkles.

The Sketch:

Obvious, right? However, upon submission the art director told me that the other photos supplied were actually more recent! Now, I don’t want to say anything, but I think someone may have had some work done if you know what I mean. But no big deal; to make a lady younger you just remove some lines and shadows. So the sketch was approved with only the revisions of removing her glasses, filling out her hair to its current length, and making her a bit younger.

The Finish:
After doing this piece, I have to say I think I won’t be doing anymore of these spoofs. Although I do enjoy drawing and rendering the portraits, I do not find it to be very creative. I think I will actually group this piece with the other spoof in the portfolio because they are so similar.

Ironically, currently in the works is another portrait. I am pretty excited about this one though as its lighthearted and something new for me. Hopefully, it will add something to the portfolio. Look for it after Thanksgiving along with two additional posts the first week of December!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Arrive has Arrived

2008-11-03T15:48:00.006-05:00

Hello! I just wanted to post a few grabs from the Nov/Dec issue of Arrive featuring "The Art of Woo" article I illustrated last month. They feature a full-issue pdf on their website, www.arrivemagazine.com.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

WhoHub Interview

2008-10-20T13:35:00.013-04:00

Hello! Just wanted to post a quick interview I did with the folks at WhoHub.com. I was invited after they "saw my artwork online" somethere. Whatever, free publicity! I decided to post it here as alot of the questions are questions that folks ask me as well as questions that I ask myself!

Click here to Read

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Entering The Busy Times?

2008-10-17T15:14:00.012-04:00

Hello again, and welcome back. October is a busy month for me, but I am currently waiting for an approval on some sketches. So while I wait over the weekend, I'm having lots of coffee, writing a blog entry, labeling/stamping my new mailer, and getting a little personal drawing done.

First, lets speak on the subject of promotion yet again. I received my next run of postcards yesterday, and I am very pleased with the quality. I have seen/used cards from many places, and cards from uprinting.com are comparable to anything else. This company is a little different, though. First, you can choose your delivery options: the longer you give them, the less it costs. Obvious, right? Well, with uprinting I went with 1000 color front/black back card (14pt, glossy) and a six-day turnaround for $86. Almost $20 less than my previous supplier, and almost $100 less than a certain popular west coast printer. I did a rough count,and I think there are even more cards than I ordered (around 1150). And the BONUS of uprinting: they will do custom pieces i.e. they will do non-typical printing sizes to meet your needs. Very cool; it really opens up the possibilities for unique marketing material next year. But for now, I'll be getting 1000 cards out on Monday. Wow, I am usually a week behind on these mailers.

And I guess I would still have been if the sketch approval I'm waiting on had come yesterday. Sadly, the art director was out of the office so I had to send the sketches to another designer who was not familiar with the project. The sketches were shown to the client who specifically liked one, but I could not get approval until it was signed off by somebody else. So I get the weekend off (sort of). I try not to take any days off so I'm pushing through this mailer, updating lots of spreadsheets (taxes, deductions, income, client list, etc) and online images on the site and ispot, and trying to figure out how to push my artwork farther as I feel its getting a bit monotonous. My buddy, Scott Brundage, turned me onto the website of Frank Stockton who talks alot about pushing the style and trying new things while still satisfying the clients needs. So I think I'm going to play a little, maybe some holidays gifts!

I have also spoken with Nate about the November show, and it is being pushed back to January which is a bit of relief as I am feeling a little overwhelmed with work and social expectations (especially with the holidays coming up). Monday, I'll talk with Dan at OpenSpace to see when he will need prints for the December show. I'm wondering how this works as apparently its a "salon style" show with prints in acetate sleeves; I do not know if each sleeve will hold numerous prints for immediate sale or just a single print. If numerous are needed, that may be a large financial drain at the worse time (over the holidays). Eh, gotta spend money to make money!

And speaking making money, I provided artwork for the Boston Business Journal's 2008 Biotech insert yesterday. The art director contacted me after receiving an email promo that I had sent out at the beginning of October. The subject dealt with how the biotechnology industry has lost $5 billion since 2003. This was a project where the art director and editors had a concept they liked before contacting me. Normally, I do not like working that way, but it is a good concept that I thought I could make unique. They wanted various "biotech items" swirling in water that is heading down a drain. In terms of layout, the art director requested that the illustration be circular, and he provided a pdf of a temporary layout.
The sketches:

The first sketch was pretty straightforward. Various pills, syringes, test tubes, money swirling around. However, I felt this sketch lacked something so I decided to try to the old comic book technique of "moving the eye" in the second sketch.
Now this is more like it. I have always loved that moment in movies where the video camera gives the audience a split view of both above and below the water. In fact, I think I may want to explore this more. I was happy with this sketch, but I decided to try a concept outside of the art director's suggestion just to explore the possibilities:
This concept had potential, but it feels very "photo friendly." One thing I try to do with my illustrations is to make them "unphotographable." What I mean is that I do not like to provide an illustration that could easily be a photograph. So I was hesitant to show this sketch, but I was confident that it would not be chosen when shown with the other two.

The art director chose the "vortex" sketch, but there were a few concerns. He was afraid that the circular format was actually working against the image, and he wanted the surface of the water to be bursting out of the circle. After some discussion and layout testing, we actually decided to lose the circle completely and bleed the image behind all of the type elements.
The final:
The blue at the bottom and the black at the top bleed to top/bottom with the logo and text over them. I think it worked out well, and the art director seemed very happy! Here is a little jpeg I made with the temp pdf he sent:

I think we both felt that we took both the image and the design to a level higher than the initial concepts. He is sending me both a pdf and issue samples upon publication; I'm starting to accrue a library of published work on my bookshelf. Mom will approve.

So thats the week. Next week, I will (maybe) be doing a piece I am very excited about! Hopefully, the sketch will be approved with no revisions :)

Until next time, I bid you adieu.
Enjoy the Day,
Chris

Oh, October!

2008-10-11T19:22:00.018-04:00

Hello, friends. Much has happened since my last post. So let's hop to it!

First off, after finishing up the rodeo piece, I had time to tackle a calendar event piece that was on the back burner:

This has already been posted on some blogs, and I was fortunate enough to be featured as Little Chimp's Society's "Editor's Pick" again. Very cool. This piece has really gotten my website ALOT of traffic from Sugar Frosted Goodness as well as Little Chimp Society. I added it to my ispot portfolio in hopes to bring in some work. Anyway, the SFWeekly assignment (which I had to turn down due to a full schedule) was a jetpack event in San Francisco. I sent a jpeg of the art director at SFWeekly just to remind him I'm alive, and he said "nice one" so that was cool. I have also decided to use this piece for October's promotional postcard.

After finishing up the above piece, I focused in on setting up a rotating quarterly promotional schedule. My client possibilities have grown dramatically so I am now promotiong through both postacrds, blogs, and email. The rotation works out so that once per quarter, I am contacting three groups (one per month) every month with two months in between. To explain better:

-Group 1: contact in Sept.

-Group 2: contact in Oct.

-Group 3: contact in Nov.

And repeat.

My promotions were getting a bit unwieldy, so this schedule will keep me on-track and consistently promoting every month. I found myself in a bit of a dry spell a while back; hopefully, this will help to avoid that situation again.

As cheesy as it may be, I want to take a moment and express how grateful I am that I can support myself doing strictly freelance illustration. It really was just a dream for the longest time, and I am thankful for every day (even the "slow" ones). My outlook on life has changed dramatically since making the transition, and I feel healthier and more satisfied than ever. I thrive on the stress this lifestyle brings in terms of deadlines and creativity as it really seems to keep me going. There are still the money worries that come with the uncertainty of not having a salary, but I'll get used to it.

I am already becoming familiar with the "quiet days" (promotion/marketing and administrative duties), and I am taking steps to make those more artistically productive toward the other dream of someday working in comic books. Onward and upwards, right? So I have someone writing scripts for me to work up into sequential artwork. I am really looking forward to this. The reason this has come to pass is that I feel my illustration portfolio is now self-sustaining so I do not need to make new work specifically for the portfolio. Granted, there are still pieces I do want to make to add to the portfolio, but they will have to work beside this new endeavor. Of course, it all goes on the back burner when paying work comes a-knockin'! Also, I'm considering trying to get into the comic book field by showing my illustration portfolio to some comic folks; maybe I can get some covers or pin-up work. Hey, its a foot in the door!

So while I wait on those scripts, its been a timultuous time! The day after I finished up the jetpack piece, I recieved an email from the art director of Arrive Magazine. Arrive is the on-board reading supplied by Amtrak! A big deal for me at least, as its a good recognizable name to have as a client. This assignment came from my promotional postcards sent to the art director in May and August. The assignment was for an article titled "The Art of Woo." The basic premise is that among the business crowd, everyone is getting bored with PowerPoint presentations. To re-energize both their presentations as well as their audience, people are changing over to person-to-person (verbal) communication and dropping the digital standby. The art director wanted to explore the idea of a speaker addressing a rapt audience while standing on/infront of/next to a pile of laptops. After shooting tons of reference of myself sweating in a business suit, I explored this idea along with two others in sketches:

The initial sketch was an interpretation of the art director's concept. I had a to change a bit as a stack of laptops just really looks like books to me, and it felt very"soapbox" i.e like a lecture, not an enjoyable event. So instead, I changed the image into a speaker on the confernece room table, captivating the audience with charm. I was trying to make the situation like that of a rock concert with groupies cheering next to the stage.

The second sketch was based off of the art director's original concept, but I wanted to try and make it a little more personal. The premise is that the presenter has lit his laptop on fire, and he is verbally presenting his idea. I liked the idea of alluding to telling stories around a campfire. This felt very Norman Rockwell, and I really wanted to play with shadows if this one was chosen.

The third sketch idea was a bit over the top, but fun. I wanted to work on the "woo" concept of the title. I try to do this with every assignment as my philosophy is that the title and image should work together. I was worried this would be too similar to the Filmy-Eyed piece already in my portfolio, but I was confident that the art director would favor one of the other sketches.

As was my assumption, the first sketch was chosen . The only correction needed was to add some ladies to the mix. No problem. After shooting some reference of the lovely Aliyah Gold all gussied up, I added in two figures, and the sketch was approved: I was a little concerned with this piece as it was getting very crowded, and I had never rendered such a large group in the timeframe I was being alotted for the commission. But you just sleep less and eat at your desk, right? Everything actually worked out quite well in terms of time management, and I finished up the rendering with a good amount of time to experiment with color. I worked on some great color combinations that do not work for THIS project, but they are filed away for when I do need them :)

I submitted two versions of my final art from which the art director got to choose a version. Sometimes I like showing both a "loud" and "quiet" color theme, and I think this makes the experience more enjoyable for the art directors as they are more involved. So far, it seems to have gone over well. For this assignment, I submitted the following two images:

Now, I was pretty sure that this version would not be chosen, but I do like the pink:) I feel its very "woo."

A close-up: The orange version was chosen. Apparently, I am commissioned for the "high visibility" quality of my work. I'm fine with that :) Nonetheless, I am trying to show that I can work in both striking and subdued color combinations so that I can be more versatile to meet the client's needs. The final art changed a bit from the original idea of "rock star" to more a "Jesus" type figure. Nonetheless, the central idea of getting the audience's attention is still the main gist of the image, so I'm happy with it. Hopefully, we don't get sued for using or alluding to Sony's or Dell's logos :) The art director seemed thrilled with the art as he passed on some contacts that may be interested in my work. Also, they are running a bio and photo of me in their "Contributors" section. Lovely!

Now, while working on this project, I got a phone call from a magazine art director for cover sketches that I am currently sketching with final art due on the 17th. Busy busy! I'll be posting the details and artwork along with another magazine cover I will be finishing on the 24th. Look for the post hopefully before Halloween along with a website update! Also, this month's mailer should be out on the 20th! I am trying out a new printer, so I'm excited to see how these cards turn out.

Today was a sketch day and also a family day as we visited Aliyah's grandparents for thier 61st wedding anniversary. I was kind of "under the gun" today as lots of folks were asking about what I do, how i do it, etc. It really felt good to be able to field their questions not as a "freelancer," but really as a small-business operator i.e. I am my product; I have to consistently sell me to make money. I have to always be looking for new clients, and I have to keep my current clients satisfied by providing my best artwork. I must be confident in what I provide, and not sell myself short by settling for low rates or deadlines that are not feasible. And most importantly, I must not waste time or be docile; I must consistently be doing SOMEthing that progresses the business that day. Simple, right? What surprised me most is how I didn't break out in a pouring sweat while answering these questions; I'm becoming more and more familiar with this way of life, and I'm proud to do what I do!

Thanks for stopping by!
Chris

New Work, Old work, and Promotions!

2008-09-25T16:37:00.013-04:00

Howdy, all! Welcome to another post in which I regale you with tales from illustation's underbelly. Just kidding! Illustration's fun!

First, I would like to plug a few fellow artists doing their thing. I'll start with those crazy folks over at The Autumn Society. If you want to see some artwork by Philly's finest, I would suggest checking out their blog. New folks are joining, and its growing like mad! Also, a few Autumn Society members will be attanding the Baltimore Comic Con this weekend. It would be a mistake to miss that table of goodies!

Next up regarding Philadelphia, my good buddy Josh Robeson will be having a show of woodcut prints tonight at 712 S. 4th St. Please stop by and check it out. Sadly, Josh's website is under construction, but hopefully he'll have images on Flickr or Myspace.

And finally, Jinxed on 5th St, off South St, is hosting "Homegrown," a show of artwork by Philadelphia artists including the talented Alicia Neal, Danielle Rizzolo, and Leanne Biank. I think alot of Autumn Society memebers are in there, too!

Speaking of shows, the coffee shop show at Zuzu's is definitely happening. I sent Nate, the manager, some links to other illustrators, and he liked some so the show will take place this winter. Also, upon skipping out of the studio early a while back, I ran into Dan, owner of OpenSpace Gallery. We chatted a bit, a little shop talk. Then Dan mentioned a print show thay are having in December, and he asked me to be in it. Sweet!

Ok, now down to brass tacks. What has happened illustration-wise since my last post? Well, the Houston Press Best of 2008 issue has been published. So now I can show the "Best of Sports" spot illustrations I did at the start of September. I'll write show each blurb, the sketch, then its finish. I only did one sketch per illo as we discussed th econcepts by email beforehand. That was great; basically I said "I'm thinking this..." and she said to hop to it. Also, all of these spots were printed in black and white, but I have since colored them for my portfolio:

Best Basketball Court: The courts at the Downtown YMCA are a solid place to find a pickup game. Or, if you don't have the stamina to physically run the length of a basketball court, there's usually enough space to find an open hoop where you can just shoot around. There's a group of older guys that play Monday nights, but the 50-somethings can hoop. And you know the old guys play dirty. Learn the times for league games, though, because those usually dominate the courts later in the evening and can get intense, especially when the local Pro/Am league swings through. If you're interested in watching the oil industry's finest live out their hoop dreams, check out the Corporate A and B leagues. (my concept was to show businessmen playing basketball to show anyone can use these courts)

The sketch:

The final:

Best Dynamo: Pat Onstad is the best goalie in Major League Soccer. Period. That's why we're glad he plays for us. Nobody tops the keeper's ability at dashing a shooter's hopes of getting a goooooaaaaal! Sure, scoring helps in the winning department, but those points would mean jack if the other team were able to turn around and match them. Onstad also knows his defenders and is able to organize and work around them in order to create one killer first line of defense. If you have any doubts about his skill, just take a look at some recent 2008 season games where he's been MIA. He was actually playing for the Canadian National Team. Oh, Canada, is there anything you can't do? (my concept was Onstad blocking the goal)

The sketch:

The final:

Best Astro: Hunter Pence hit the big leagues like a man on fire last season. Any ball that came close to him, he hit. And any ball that came close to him in center field, he fielded. Not even an injury slowed him down. This season, Pence has become Mr. Indispensible to manager Cecil Cooper. He bats first, second, third, fifth, sixth or seventh, and he hits from any spot in the order. More importantly, Pence moved from center to right field this season without complaint, and already his glove and arm have saved several games. But Pence is also the Best Astro because of his attitude. He always hustles, always runs. He never complains. He just does his job the best he can. Every at bat, every game. (my concept was to show how hot Pence is, game-wise, not attraction-wise. tsk tsk. )

The sketch:

The final:

Best Place to See Fake Wrestling: We wouldn't be surprised if Doomsday sent one of its "wrestlers" to our door to fake beat us up for this award. We tested fate last year by naming the athletic-comedy-acting troupe as Best Comedy Show. But we'll take our chances once again in order to tip our hat to antics that would either piss off the wrestlers of WWF or make them laugh so hard they pee their pants. Forget the fights — the competitors alone will have you in stitches before the bell for round one. Doomsday's roster includes Bill "The Thrill" Korczynski, a geriatric has-been who's been defeated in the ring by more heart attacks than opponents. Kosher Killer, Russian Bear and The Stormin' Mormons make up the ever-increasing variety of beefed-up stereotypes and other fighters we're not so sure about, including Precious Jewels, a gender-bending oppressor who dons a head-to-toe, sparkly pink S&M suit and defeats his opponents by dry-humping them. These guys and more are matched up for bouts that result in both headlocks and hilarity. Ding! (the art director and I agreed this illustrated itself and a more documentary approach was appropriate)

The sketch:

The final:
So there you go. These were alot of fun, and I also enjoyed experimenting while coloring them. I think these sports images really add some diversity to the website. Now i just need some more recognizable celebrities.

On a side note, I changed up the website, removing the "linear style" all together. I have decided: 1)no one was interested in it 2)I need the space for new work and showing additional graphic works make that portfolio stronger for 3) next month's promotion and my possibly seeking out a rep. In addition to this strategic move, I also set up a portfolio of graphic work on the ispot. Although no work has come of it yet, I am confident it will produce something as the folks there have highlighted my newest additions on both the ispot blog and the "Whats New" section. Iwas told by Dave, my ispot contact, that these areas are frequented by art directors on a regular basis. A fellow UARTS alum, Jeanine Henderson, just told me that after being featured in the "Whats New" section, she received two job offers within minutes of each other! Cool!

And next up, I'll guess I'll show my newest work, the piece featured on ispot's blog. It is a calendar commission from SF Weekly. It was a pretty straighforward job. I'm sure you can guess the event :)

The sketch:

The final:

I switched up the rider's position, and I think it made the piece much stronger. A bonus is th art director like the piece as well as my being generous and submitting two versions (one with a blue background). He said he will look for a cover for as I have helped him out in a pinch. Nice!

And thats about all I got right now. Really close to finishing a piece mentioned a while back ;) So I'll be posting again soon!

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

Hope, Money, and a Show!

2008-09-06T16:34:00.012-04:00

Wow, its been as while since my last post! Looking back, its odd that my last post was about a lull in the workflow. I certainly don’t feel like things have been moving slowly! To start things off, I’ll talk about some “business” aspects of the past month.

Taking advantage of the downtime, I implemented an income/collections/taxes tracking system. Basically, now I know roughly what I’ll need to pay in terms of federal taxes come April. I am keeping this estimated amount in its own savings account. In conjunction, I’ve also revamped my deduction-tracking technique so that its a lot simpler and easier to process come April.

Another administrative task I’ve been tackling as of late is collecting on invoices. I have learned that the end of the job is never the end of the job. Its can get pretty hairy and confusing. I’ve learned that folks process invoices immediately, at the end of the week, at the end of the month, or after publication. As such, I never know what going on with the invoice after the job so I have to email to follow-up. With the new system, its been easier though. Upon invoicing, I’ll now simply ask the client when they process their invoices so I can project a rough estimate of when I should be looking for a check. Then I can contact clients as needed after the date passes. I don’t know how other people feel about this or how they work, but I can get spacey on these matters when I’m concentrating on artwork. So instead of randomly hoping for checks when I open my mailbox, I am being more active and organized in collecting. Working in this manner, I now know where every invoice I have out stands in terms of processing and delivery. Sadly, some payments have been sent to my old address (long story) so I assume they will be forwarded by the always-punctual postal service.

What else has come up these past weeks? Ah, another thing taken into account since the last post was communication i.e, talking with other artists and illustrators. With Aliyah starting her graduate classes, it has been a very difficult solitude. Having just moved to the town of Beacon, I barely know anyone. After exhausting my trips to coffee shops and running errands, I have started posting on blogs to meet other artists. This also exposes me to a lot of new art. Pretty cool. I look forward to posting more, and I tend to check blogs every day or so. Similarly, I was invited to join sugarfrostedgoodness.com this week. I know that none of this is a big deal in terms of moneymaking, but I really feel that posting on these blogs as well as chris-whetzel.blogspot.com and theautumnsociety.blogspot.com really keep me motivated. As lame as it sounds, it fends off the lonelys :) And the bonus is that links from these sites increase chris-whetzel.com’s search engine ranking. Cool.

And the final thing I would like to say about blogs is to simply mention a helpful one: cedricohnstadt.wordpress.com. This blog is awesome for anyone freelancing. Its basically years and years of one guy’s experiences in the field. He also posts so many links that are illustration-business related. Great blog! One gem I found (of many) was the freelanceswitch.com podcast. Very cool. If you like the ICONIC podcasts, you may enjoy these. However, the Freelance Switch panel focuses on the BUSINESS of illustration by discussing a show-specific topic and answering questions about everything from contracts to etiquette to networking. And its all handled in a fun and light-hearted manner! This podcast also comes in handy when working long days alone and you just want to hear human voices! Its like being in a roundtable discussion!

Ah, discussion. I am jealous to hear Aliyah talk about class discussions. I miss it. I’m kind of disappointed that my friends and I never really got a collective together. I tried to establish “drink and draws” patterned after Dave Johnson’s group, but it never really took off. Its cool that Philly has The Autumn Society, but I’m in New York! Granted, I had a great artistic talk with Joe Game last week, but its not the same as sitting around looking at each other art, having crits, etc (and he totally guilted me for not blogging). However, I’m finding out that the artists in Beacon do meet; I just have to find out how to get involved. I was working at a coffee shop last night when a group formed next to me. Not really paying attention (I listen to my ipod when working outside the apartment), I noticed they were discussing art in between songs. Turns out they meet to just talk art, tell what they are doing, and pass on opportunities. This is awesome. I wanted to talk to someone in the group after the meeting, but I had to leave before they disbanded.

But hopefully, an opportunity to chat will present itself as I have been asked to take part in a show at that very coffee shop! After speaking with Nate (the manager) today, it seems the show will be November-ish. He really liked my drawings enough to ask a price on one! So it will be my “artsy” drawings as opposed to digital prints. He said he is still looking for illustrators who specifically have drawings to show. If you would like to be considered, drop me a line and I'll give him your website.

Striking off on a tangent, I was recently asked to attend the Baltimore Comic Con as part of The Autumn Society Collective. This was a great honor as I really respect the art of the other collective artists taking the trip: Joseph Game, Peter Wonsowski, and Craig Parillo. Good guys who make good art. What sucks is that I can’t go. Financially, I just don’t feel comfortable spending a lot of money to travel, for space, etc to promote to a field that probably can’t use my artwork. Plus I'll have a big expense thi smonth that I'll discuss later. I REALLY tried to rationalize going as I am a hardcore comic fan and I just wanted to be a fanboy for a weekend, but logical-me won the battle. Best of luck to the guys attending! Wish I could be there!

And so, being proud of my willpower, I have decided to commit to an ispot portfolio this month. I am worried about spending the money but its deductible, and I really think I’ll get some work from it. Dave Tabler at the ispot has been very accommodating with my hesitancy. It turns out they have a payment plan so that assuaged the fear a bit. And as a bonus, it turns out that ispot and Adbase have a deal where ispot members get a discount at Adbase. Cool. Next year, I hope to take advantage of it!

Another reason I decided to go for the ispot portfolio was that work picked up. August has been a super-busy month. It was sad to leave a personal piece unfinished to start new jobs, but I hope to have it done next week. Anyway, on to new work!

Ok, so the first commission came via email from Houston Press. This paper was a new addition to the mailing list so that was a good sign that the new card wasn’t such a bad image choice after all! The job was four spot illustrations for their “Best Of” issue due in a little over aweek. The budget was lower than I could afford, but we negotiated a budget that worked for both of us. Awesome. I can’t discuss the subject matter or post images until after publication on the 25th of September. But these were a lot of fun, and I think they add a little diversity to the portfolio. I’ll post them, sketches and all after the 25th.

Although fun, the period of working on them was a little crazy as while sketching them, I got a call from the art director of Retail Traffic who needed a quarter page spot by that Tuesday! Awesome, but the tight deadline was a little intimidating. Nevertheless, I knew I could do it so I accepted (just sleep less). He sent me a version of the article titled “Taking On Water.” It was about the California budget crisis and how its affecting the housing economy. It was an odd subject matter, but I enjoyed the challenge. Pushing back the Houston Press sketches, I ripped out these three sketches:
I like them all for different reasons. I assumed they would go with the first one of the house sinking on the chart, but he surprised me by choosing the house with the life preserver. I also like the "stormy weather" one, but we both agreed its more of a full-page image as everything is so small. The final:
This isn’t my greatest piece, but I like that it shows I can think outside of figurative work. Originally, I left off the “S.S. California,” but I was really happy that they asked me to put it back on the life preserver. I took this piece a little farther in terms of color as I want to push for more color in this graphic style.

One interesting aspect of this commission was that Retail Traffic is a magazine published by Penton Media, the same folks that commissioned the 10 portraits for Registered Rep a few posts back. My first return customer! Sort of. I worked with two different art directors but whatever. I count it.

So anyway, I finished the piece up on Tuesday. Prior to this, while doing the finish for Retail Traffic, I also finished and submitted sketches for the “Best Of” article. The art director really liked them, and we were set. However, the day I finished the Retail Traffic piece, the Houston Press art director called and asked if I could provide a cover in addition to the spot illustrations! Whoa! I told here there was no way I could have both done in four days. Then she explained that the spots were not needed until later in September and that the cover was for that week’s weekly paper. Now that I can do! On a sidenote, I have been becoming more relaxed with art directors, and it makes things more fun and light-hearted on both ends. Everything has been very laidback with everyone this month aside from getting work done. Its really kind of cool. So anyway, the spots got pushed back a week so that I could do this cover.

It is a portrait of Gary Kubiak, coach of the Houston Texans (football team). The idea was pretty simple: parody the popular Obama campaign poster using Kubiak instead. I was hesitant to do this as I like coming up with my own concepts, but I like paying rent so I agreed to do it. I was little worried about plagiarism, but my good buddy, Scott Brundage, said its not as he has seen this issue dealt with at his dayjob. I won’t show the sketches for this as there were like four versions with both the art director and myself photoshopping things, and they are really just messy sketches (not my usual rendered drawings). So anyway, here is the finish:
I like it. Initially, I wasn’t going to put it in my portfolio, but it really opened me up to using a palette without black and white. So I’ll keep it in there and add more pieces like it. What I really like about is that it’s a pretty good likeness in a totally non-existent pose i.e, I didn’t have direct reference to work from so I was making up lighting. I like jobs that challenge me and make me work harder. This one was a real test of my abilities! I never really thought my likenesses were good enough to market, but people seem to like them. As such, I’m trying to draw more popular figures in my non-commissioned works to get better at capturing a likeness. I have a list to work from!

However, there was one downside of this commission. Less than eight hours after taking the cover job, the art director at SFWeekly emailed me with a job for a half-page calendar illustration about a JETPACK EVENT! Arrrgh! I was so bummed to turn this down, but there was no way I could do both pieces as the turn around on the calendar was less than two days. We have a good, jovial relationship and he understood. Still, I hate turning anyone away. I think I’m still gonna do a jetpack piece just for fun and send it to him. I told him I might work it up for the portfolio, and he said its inspired him to break out his acrylics. Cool stuff.

And that’s all I got, folks. I just finished up the “Best Of” spots today, and they were approved. So the next post will probably feature those as well as the personal piece I am getting back to after almost a month. I don’t even remember where I was on it…Plus I stil lwant to do a particlular portrait and new drawings for the coffee shop show.

And maybe I’ll do something with this sketch I did while watching the DNC last week:

I like Obama. Good guy.

So who knows what next week holds? I'm sure I'll find something to occupy my time :)

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

The End of the First Quarter.

2008-07-29T17:23:00.011-04:00

Hello, all!

Today marks the three month anniversary of chris-whetzel.blogspot.com! Hooray! We're doing it! The goal is to keep this blog going strong for a whole year. I won't lie; its pretty tedious and often gets put on the back-burner, but its definitely keeping me working.

So whats new since the last post? Well, chris-whetzel.com is newly updated with two distinct portfolios. New images have been added to both portfolios as well as the News section being updated. The new Graphic vs. Linear division of artwork had paid off as it seems to help art directors. This became apparent after getting an email from the art director at SF Weekly where he requested a portrait in the "graphic style." Wonderful!

This portrait was to go with a music article on Dolly Parton who has started her own recording lable and will be performong in LA on the 5th. It was an interesting read, and the art director wanted me to specifically work from the excerpt "the biggest, brightest Dolly she can be." Sadly, since the commission was for an alt-weekly, the budget wasn't as high as I had hoped. But I really wanted to do a celebrity for the portfolio so I took the job after some negotiations. The lone sketch was approved:

I personally like the sketch more than the finish on this one. It was awkward working in black-and-white for this piece, but I like the quiet, subdued tones in comparison to alot of my two-color pieces:

So, yeah. A fun piece, a really easy-going art director, and a good addition to the portfolio. A three-pointer! *Swish!

The only bad thing was that this commission came through the day AFTER I had just sent my promo card files to the printer. Drat! This would have made a better one than my choice of the Crisis Magazine image a few posts back. Especially if I had colored it. Ah, well. Speaking of the cards, they just arrived. And I have to say: I am losing my patience with overnightprints.com. Many of the cards were off-center on multiple sides and text was right on the edge of a few even though I had stayed within the "safe area." Grrr. Its really frustrating and luckily I was able to trim some down and still use them. But really, its just more incentive to try the USPS print-and-mail service. Think thats gonna be the way I go for the Halloween mailer.

Another thing I'm considering for the future is using AdBase. We all know how awesome it is and I'm considering subscribing to that as opposed to the ispot. I can only do one right now, and I really can't decide. Decision, decisions. Hopefully, whichever I choose will fund the other. I think I'm going to wait for a bit as my list is freshly updated, and I should be fine for a spell. I want to see the response to this next mailer before I do anything. Don't want to spend money I don't have :)

And that's that. It promotion and drawing this week! Oh, and I'm still working in the spare time between jobs. Its a little harder with Aliyah being home all day, but I must be strong! That, and I'm just getting over a cold from last week so its been twice as hard to get cracking.

All this with web updates, building a small site for my personal drawings, and re-building/updating Aliyah's site has kept me busy. It seems there is always something to do, even though there's nothing to do in this town :) Let's hope the mailer going out tomorrow brings in more work to occupy my time as well. Fingers are crossed!

Enjoy the Day and thanks for reading!
Chris

A Move and An Assignment

2008-07-17T17:14:00.003-04:00

Hello, friends. Sorry for the delay since my last post. There simply has not been a spare second these last couple of weeks. We are finally settled into Beacon, NY with much more room in the studio and lots to be done in it! Its a bit of a culture shock here after living in the heart of Philadelphia for so long, but I just assume I'll get even more work done. Or I'll be in NYC alot, either one works for me!

In my last post, I mentioned the next mailer coming out on what was supposed to be July 15th. Well, that has been bumped back due to a rather large assignment to be done literally while relocating. But all is well, and the mailer is off to the printer. While I wait, I have an uncommissioned piece I am working on for the website. Speaking of the site, I am moving things around a bit to separate the artwork into two distinct portfolios. Hopefully, this will make things easier on viewers looking for a particular style. Check it out next week as I am updating it as soon as some artwork is approved by a new client.

The art director from Penton Media contacted me on July 1st asking if I would be interested in doing caricatures for an article they run periodically. Its about ten people to watch in the financial world, and the article runs in a magazine called Registered Rep. I happily agreed to do my best as I had just finished up a big chunk of work, and was hungry for more. I was a little worried about the move getting in the way, but the art director was very understanding and lenient with the deadline. I believe that this may have had to do with the budget being less than ideal and workload involved. Nevertheless, I had fun drawing old folks! The art director was also very helpful, and he provided both written backgrounds on each person as well as reference for the first nine figures as the tenth person was undetermined. So while packing and moving and unpacking, I managed the following sketches:

Not my best by any means :(

I was so tired after the move and so sore that just getting out of bed was a chore in itself. But you gotta make the doughnuts! The art director was happy with them, and I got started on the final art. At this time, we finalized the tenth person and the art director told me there was going to be a switch so they would need another sketch. What?!? But he arranged compensation so I was happy to do so.

This last sketch was a tough one! There was almost no imagery of the guy on Google or anywhere else. The art director managed to find two photos: one in a dinner-type setting (all flash) and one with literally NO light on the face. However, throughout all the previous sketches I had been drawing a pose from one photo and applying a fictitious light source upon it so I think I handled the situation well. The tenth sketch and the additional person:

The last sketches were approved and I was set to go!

And here they are:

Larger images will be on the site. These final images are cropped to my liking. The files supplied to Penton Media are each head-and-shoulder images. The art director needed the bodies to not touch the sides and to bleed off the botton of the image. He will then place type around them and bleed the background as needed. I am very interested to see how this goes! Its almost like a collaboration! He will be sending me copies so I'll have tearsheets, too.

Also, I received copies of the Bloomberg issue from a few posts back. Looks great and it was so cool to flip a few pages beyond my work and see something by Yuko Shimizu! I'm in good company! The director at Crisis also said he would send me some copies. I've been surprised at how accommodating everyone has been with tearsheets.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Penton Media is featuring me on their "Contributor's Page." Ha ha! Its funny to me, I don't know why. Thats where they always have writers and doctors and such. Anyway, I sent them a biography and a photo where I don't look TOO geeky!

On the business side, I have been worrying a bit about money. The move has been a financial drain, and checks are not in the mailbox. I contacted Accounts Payable at Bloomberg today to see if my invoice had been processed and they had no record of ever receiving it. So after getting it to someone there, it seems I'll have to wait probably another month to expect that money. Also, they do not pay with check but rather with direct deposit with I have never heard of being done for freelance work. In addition, the Crisis invoice is coming up on 30 days, and I guess I'll ring them up to see whats what. I figure they pay all invoices after the end of the month so its probably in the mail. Still, no real worries as the savings are still there. Its just been nice not having to use them!

I am happy to say that since I left my salaried employment, I have been able to make ends meet with money solely from freelance. Other than moving expenses (apartment deposit, truck, etc), I have not spent my initial savings for things like food or bills. The two invoices mentioned above cover July's expenses and the Penton job pays for August. NICE. Hoping to "stay ahead" of the bills like this!

So this brings up the topic of a budget and my lifestyle. I have been having alot of conversations lately with friends and family about money management. I have some friends looking to make changes in their lives and they want to know how money and savings factor in. I personally have lived on a pretty frugal budget since 2004 to save enough for this freelance endeavor. I have resisted the urges to buy anything expensive like a car, house, enormous TV, etc so that I can do this. And now, I am used to living this way. I still have fun, and I still go out. I just limit it so that I can have days where I don't need to make money. AND ITS SO WORTH IT! Granted, those days are spent tracking money or promoting or archiving, or finding new clients so I guess I am still making money in some way. Whatever.

Its all working out.

Enjoy the Day,

Chris

The Next Installment

2008-06-30T17:27:00.002-04:00

Howdy doo. Well, I just got back from an exhausting wedding weekend. It was a lot of fun though, and I even managed to get a little artwork in on Friday night. Currently, I am just happy to be back in my little corner studio working on the next piece. Sadly, after the current piece, I have to take another break for the move to Beacon, NY on the 8th and 9th of July. Throw in the 4th of July weekend, and time gets tight especially with all of the packing to be done. But it should all be worth it to be able to easily head into New York City on a whim or on business.

Speaking of the business, here are the sketches for the Crisis editorial mentioned in the last post. The article is about sexism and the oppression of females in rap music. The art director wanted a "I am woman, hear me roar"-type of illustration. So I decided to explore that as well as other avenues.

Sketches:

I actually did five sketches, but two were pretty lame so I didn't even show them. The art director like the "fist-in-yo'-face" sketch so that was that. I personally like the "spitting fire" sketch but was happy to do either. Perhaps I'll do another finish off of the unused sketch if I feel so inclined.

The Final Art:

This was a fun job. I am actually using this as my next mailer around July 15th (after the move and getting situated). Hopefully, it will arouse some interest. Also thinking of working on some likenesses for the portfolio before the end of the summer in this style as well as continuing to push the linear-style with new pieces. A newly updated http://www.chris-whetzel.com/ should be up by this Friday to coincide with the mailer.

And thats that. Back to work :)
Enjoy the Day,
Chris

The First Week.

2008-06-09T14:16:00.002-04:00

Well, this is it.

So as of May 29th, I am kind of, sort of, unemployed :) The first week of June has been a busy one though! My mother and brother came to Philadelphia to visit from May 29th to June 1st. The Wizard Comic Convention was in town, and my brother and I are big comic fans. Sadly, I do not get to read nearly as many as I used to simply as I have little time and little money to spend doing so. Nevertheless, the con was a mish-mash of freaks and geeks (my kind of people).

Our nights, however, were a bit tame as I had gotten a call on the 29th to do a spot illustration for Bloomberg Magazine. This was totally unexpected as while slaving away on my client list last month I had actually removed them as an unlikely prospect! Needless to say, immediately after the call, I placed the contact back on the list lickety-split. So I had to have sketches to Bloomberg by Monday making for a play-all-day and draw-all-night weekend.

The spot illustration dealt with the issue of the Asian stock market and how it is being regulated by outside influences. Monday I sent these to the designer at Bloomberg:

Not my best drawings, but the point comes across. Sketch one was an attempt to show a graph of the stock market following the Great Wall of China. The designer liked the concept, but felt it was too much to show in a small spot and that readers may not be familiar with the wall enough to identify it. Sketch two was based off of the designer's thumbnail of two hands pulling down a graph line. I took this a bit farther in Sketch three as the article mentioned the market prices being lowered AND raised. The designer liked this sketch best, but felt said that the editor felt the hands were" giving the finger." Ha ha! I rectified it as such:

The designer and editor were both happy with the revision and approved work on the final:

And that was that! I am super-psyched about this being in Bloomberg. Seems they are a good name to have under your belt. And the designer seemed psyched too so perhaps he'll commission me again! Good stuff.

Also this week, I wrapped up the previously mentioned logo work. My client was showing it to HIS client last week, and I am waiting to hear the result. Also starting another small logo job and possibly designing a site around it. Honestly, I'm getting a bit tired of this type of work. Granted, I need the money so I do it. Hoever, I am hoping against hope that the illustration will pick up enough so that I can start to turn away "design" work.

Which brings me to today which is all "business" work. Confound this client list. Its slow-going updating this beast. What else am I doing this week? I'm also working on a new uncommissioned piece until hearing back on the logo and starting the concept work that will be spread out through June and July. Still in the sketch phase, though as I really want to push this client list to be finished (along with a website update) in time for a July 1st mailer.

Today we are also going to New York to view an apartment which cuts down on work time. This place is on the Metro Line, so I should have a simple commute into NYC. I am assuming I will be able to shop my work around the city through portfolio reviews, but lots of folks are saying thats dying out in favor of website reviews. Guess I'll just call some clients and ask once I'm settled in.

Oh, I guess I have to put together a printed portfolio seeing as how I don't have one now:)

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

The Waiting Game.

2008-05-12T13:03:00.002-04:00

"Hello. I hope all is well with you."

I have lost track of how often I have written this phrase since my last post on this blog. So much correspondence!

Last week was a rough one, balancing freelance work, corresponding, marketing, and my day-job. Thank goodness I had Friday off! The middle of the week was most spent at the day-job, emailing concerning the editorial commission (which was pushed back a week t0 05-13) and laying the foundation for the project with the marketing firm. The firm's contact and I came to terms that we both agreed upon, and I was set to turn in concepts Friday at 5PM.

So needless to say, I ignored my day-job the rest of the week, gathered my research and reference, and worked my tookus off to get those concepts in at 4PM. Then a collapse into bed; I guess I need to get used to this again as I have not worked that late into the night since college! I am waiting to hear the thoughts and feedback to see if this project moves forward. I worried all weekend, and I sent a follow-up email this morning. If I don't hear anything by noon tomorrow, I will call. Gotta be pro-active! Still, biting my nails hoping it all goes well!

Because if it does, I will be moving up my last day at my day-job! I have decided its not worth the time I sit here that I could be working or looking for work. I find I slack off a bit on my marketing and promotion just because I am SO tired.

Plus, there may be more work on the horizon to keep this little boat afloat. I have been contacted and I am finalizing a contract for a large number of black-and-white commissions to be completed in July and August. Its strange, but this person found my work in a posting I put up at conceptart.org. Its just a forum for people to showcase art and talk about whatever. This is actually the second job I have gotten off of this site. So be aware, friends: put your art anywhere and everywhere it can be seen! You never know who is looking and where. I know alot of people probably think jobs from places like this are small potatoes, buy hey, small potato jobs put said potatoes in my belly. And the commission amount will free me up to work and promote in the following months.

So basically, today is a waiting day. I'll spend the afternoon looking for my daily three new clients for the mailing list. By the way, as this list grows it is also shrinking as it is getting more and more targeted. I am slowly deleting all the businesses I don't see being interested in my work. The initial list was very broad, and I think a bit rushed. Tonight, I'll try and get all of my house work and such out of the way as I'll be expecting an email from an editor tomorrow with specs for a piece due Friday(which I will probably skip out on at the day-job to work). Hopefully, I'll hear back from Jim at the firm with good news as well as Nic's ok on the contract.

Waiting has it benefits, though. While freeing up Sunday and tonight for uncommissioned artwork, it also keeps me in check. Not knowing what is happening and relying on these people and their business definitely makes me value their patronage. I must always be grateful for any opportunity given to me. Plus the gratefulness for paying my bills.

In other news, I finally let myself buy a new-to-me ibook. It has already gotten me more motivated to work when I get home, plus on the train, subway, lunch, dreaming :) I love technology.

I guess I should discuss monetary issues. Savings are going up, but this may stop when I leave the day-job. I set up an additional savings account solely for my freelance income, and I'm waiting on paperwork for a third savings account that will be strictly for freelance taxes. I have seen numerous people get hit by $3000 and $4000 amounts that they needed to pay the feds come April. And then they empty their savings account to do so. Hoping to avoid that. I also set aside a credit card just for business expenses simply to make bookkeeping easier.

Waiting on a few checks, too...if all works out I should hit my July 31 goal by the end of this month. I've read that you should have three month's expenses (food, rent, etc) saved up before leaving a job as a safety net. Being anal as I am, I have about a year if I am not frivolous. So the way I see it, thats a year to make this work.

We shall see! Sorry I have not posted any artwork. I finished up some corporate stuff that isn't anything special to me, some silhouette work for a local company. I am whittling away at a piece that is close to being done, but tonight is probably the last couple of hours I'll get in before the paying work demands attention the rest of the week (UPDATE: Jim called and assigned more work for tonight and tomorrow so no progress here). Hopefully this weekend I'll get it done, though! Also hoping it will work out as my next mailer!

Sad news: I didn't get into the Communication Arts annual :( Honestly, I was not expecting to. Still waiting until June to hear back from 3x3, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. Ah well!

And thats all I have for today!

A few Rays of Sunshine.

2008-05-01T12:05:00.003-04:00

Well, after getting NO responses to my mailer, I finally got an email from an art director interested in my work after receiving my card. Although nothing has materialized from my response email, I am keeping my fingers crossed. Even if nothing comes of it, its inspiring to know that there is an interest in my work. Granted, the increase in site traffic hinted at that fact, but actual personal contact was just really validating. And of course, it just makes you want to work harder! So I have been gearing up to mail the remainder of my 1000 cards this Monday. I've heard that it is more efficient to mail through USPS as they print and stamp the card, keep your art on file, and you can mail only the amounts you need. I'm going to check into this for the July mailer.

In addition to the above response, I also got a large amount of website traffic yesterday. This is particularly surprising as I was pretty sure all of the cards I sent out had made it to their destinations last week. And every visit yesterday was:
1) a long one, multiple-minute visits and one visit of 16 minutes(1) and
2) a visit too many individual images and the "contact" page.
So I'm assuming art directors are coming back to the site(yes!) or were too busy when the card actually arrived and are just now looking(still cool as it means they kept the card and didn't chuck it).

All of this is just extremely validating. True, no work yet, but its a bit of a reminder that you aren't alone and that you aren't wasting time and effort.

So mailer goes out Monday. Sadly, my weekend is shot as I have to attend wedding stuff when I just want to work. But on the bright side, I finally gave notice at my full-time job as an in-house illustrator/designer! Hooray! They are pretty understanding, and they are defintely interested in my freelancing for them after I move to New York. Nice. Although completely removed from the editorial illustration I want to pursue, working like this has its moments. The woman I share an office with totally supports my freelance endeavor so I get to spend time seeking out clients, invoicing, and emailing while at work. And I jam as much artwork time as possible in there too. Sometimes I feel guilty, but it helps so much!

Also, to get to and from work, I commute through public transportation. While doing this I work up thumbnails for new pieces, read The Metro and Philadelphia Weekly for articles that seem exciting to illustrate, and listen to ICONIC. Iconic is a podcast my friend Danielle Rizzolo introduced me to. Its basically just interviews with working illustrators, reps, etc. VERY inspiring and informative.

Basically, I'm trying to inundate myself with all things illustration. It seems to really be helping motivate me as I love everything I'm doing. I'm tired every night when I go to bed, yet excited to start the next day. Hoping to finish up the current piece Monday. I feel its a good addition to the portfolio. Definitely works into my goal of a more consistent style and a unique concept.

Stay tuned!
Enjoy the Day,
Chris