California Ain't Going Nowhere

I threw this effort together for a Matt Artz: Ace Reporter story about all that noise some folks are making about California seceding from the United States. Turns out it might be more trouble than it's worth – surprise, surprise.

Drawn & colored in Photoshop.

Not too crazy about my Trump doodle there. He looked better early on, but toward the end I zoomed in and refined him until he sort of strayed from a decent likeness. Ah well. He's one of those characters that you don't have to have a perfect likeness to get the point across. I have a feeling I'll have to draw him again a time or two over the next four (8?) years. Plenty of practice ahead.

It ran on the Nov. 27, Sunday front page of the Mercury News, East Bay Times, Marin Independent Journal and looked like this:

The End.

Happy Trumpsgiving!

This artistic effort was created for a story about the possible tension at the Thanksgiving family gathering because of the hard feelings that have been generated by the election. It is, of course, a riff on Norman Rockwell's classic painting.

This is one of those illustrations I'm both happy with and totally disappointed in. I had only about one shift from start to finish. Imagine if I could have cluttered the table with more food, more utensils, more fists shaking, perhaps some food flying through the air. More angry faces! Some background.

Drawn in Photoshop.

Ah well, I guess it turned out alright, all things considered. Below is how it looked in print!

The End.

Another Unused Illustration

I found this today in an old folder squirreled away in the archives. It was for a front page story about how the water restrictions and fines weren't working on those people who can afford to pay the fines and keep wasting water... or something like that. It's been a while.

Not sure why it wasn't used. I recall it was a quick turnaround, so maybe it just wasn't fitting right, or the designer didn't dig it. Totally can't remember.

Therefore it's an unsuccessful, unfinished piece but I like it as a rough sketch kind of thing.

The End.

Election Stress

I created this illustration with Manga Studio & Photoshop, and it ran on the front page of the Mercury News on Tuesday, Oct. 18.

The excellent story is by Angela Hill, a writer I've paired with many times in the past. When she writes with a smile I think my drawings compliment her work very well. You can read this piece online here.

Drawn and painted in Manga Studio with a bit of Photoshop.

The concept occurred to me immediately when I was given the topic. I put the rough together in the early afternoon, after discarding some other compositions along the way. When the rough was accepted, I discovered I only had a few hours to get it finished, so there was some illustration-about-election-stress stress when I found out it was needed that quickly, but it worked out.

Sometimes I think my art is better when I don't get the chance to polish it up too much.

The end.

Illustration Denied

Here is a color rough for an illustration I will not finish... because it's been canceled. This was going to accompany a story about creating pathways and tunnels for animals so that they don't have to cross busy streets and highways. One look at my rough and they decided against it. Sniff.

Had fun drawing it, tho.

Painted in Manga Studio and Photoshop!

Abstractin'

A few years ago I found an old folder in the attic full of post-it notes stuck on sheets of typing paper. Hundreds of post-it notes with head drawings and abstract doodles. Looked a lot like this:

Drawn in MangaStudio. Click to enlarge, altho they
probably won't be improved by closer examination.

The other day I ran across a video on YouTube where an artist was drawing abstract stuff as an exercise for coming up with ideas for more realistic work. I'm not pursuing that goal here. I enjoyed watching the abstractions appear as he drew and thought they were just fine. I want to play, too!

I decided to turn off the thinking machine and just doodle. Draw a line or two, spin the page 90 degrees, draw more lines, spin the page again, draw more lines; and so on, until each one looked right. Well, they don't all look right to me but, at some point, they looked "done."

Drew three pages of them this evening and stacked them in the order I drew them, top to bottom. You can tell by the third page that I desperately wanted to get back to drawing something that wasn't an abstract doodle!

It was a lot fun to focus on composition and not craft. But now I seriously want to draw real stuff, like dogs playing poker, or something like that.

Family Harmony

Here is my latest illustration. It ran on Sunday, Sept. 25 in the Bay Area News Group family of newspapers (Mercury News, East Bay Times, etc.) and online. You can read the excellent story by the always excellent Michelle Quinn at this link.

Drawn in Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop

Below is my first rough. 

I didn't have a clear idea about how to show what was going on in the cloud so I just put an old iPod up there before showing it to the editors. It's the same idea, same concept, but I needed a better symbol. Otherwise there wasn't much change from the get-go.

Here is how I tweaked it for online presentation:

Below is how the great Daymond Gascon used my scribble on the biz front. 

The End.

P.S. Yes, I put that shirt on him on purpose because . . . shhh . . .  (whispering:) I really dig KISS.

Keeping You Safe

This is a piece that ran in the Mercury News on Sunday, Sept. 4. The excellent story, by biz writer Queenie Wong, can be read here, at this link.

This is the reconfigured format for online presentation. Open in new window for a HUGE image.

Here is what it looked like in print.

Design by the always wonderful Daymond Gascon.

That is all!

Blue Tooth At Home

I did this a couple of years ago for a story about blue tooth devices for home and car... I think. It's been a while and I can't find the story online, but that sounds about right.

I'm a bit rushed today so I don't have time to do all the usual legwork, but I'll update this later if I get around to finding the story, the pdf for the printed page, etc.

Doodle Dump

A couple of screenshots of recent brainstormings.

I was given two assignments on the same day, and sketched roughs for both of them on the same sheet of "paper." You can scroll down a couple of posts to see the finals.

Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop 

.
The figures below were doodled in anticipation of another illustration, but we ended up going in a different direction when the story didn't quite match up to what I thought it was going to be about. That happens from time to time.

I'd forgotten about that assignment and therefore haven't shared it here yet. I'll do that soon. Ended up being a Sunday front page illustration!

Photoshop sketches

The End