TIME magazine

Here's two pieces I did for TIME magazine recently for Ramesh Ponnuru's column.

"Our high college drop-out rate—40% of kids who enroll in college don’t get a degree within
six years—may be a sign that we’re trying to push too many people who aren’t
suited for college to enroll."

"The tight connectionbetween college degrees and economic success may be a nearly unquestioned part of our social order. Future generations may look back and shudder at
the cruelty of it."

The Republican's get some lucky breaks, but the return road to power won't be easy.

Getting Hitched Without a Hitch

For an article about how to deal with the roller coaster of emotions that come with a wedding. For LDS Living magazine art directed by Kelly Nield at Stephen Hales Creative.

I was thinking about how a bride imagines a fairy tale wedding, but in reality the mothers could be fighting etc. etc. Then I remembered in the Cinderella Disney movie how the birds hold up her veil when she runs out of the church and thought wouldn't it be funny if the birds were fighting with each other.

Kelly liked that direction, so I worked up some spots to go with the bird theme.


I decided the birds needed to show a wider variety of emotions. I looked at pictures of Jessica Alba when drawing the bride.

One of my favorite things about illustrating is seeing the beautiful typography right next to my piece that ties it all together so well. I love how Kelly's design echoes the curving linework of the artwork, brilliant!

Here's a detail of one of the quarter page illustrations.

And all of them in the layout. Thanks Kelly!

Green Iran Poster

Here's my contribution to the Green Movement in Iran.
Alot of artists from around the world were invited to design a poster for the cause.
Here's all the posters

http://sdz.aiap.it/gallerie/11538#top

Mine is at the bottom. Since I was late in creating my poster and had watched the situation progress, I thought a different poster about turning up the "volume" might add something.

Here's some of the many color studies I did. I wanted to do a persian version, but I couldn't seem get the typography right.

YALE Cover

Yale is developing an artificial pancreas, which if you have diabetes would be quite a breakthrough.

The idea was to illustrate the concept of what a pancreas does, basically regulate sugar and insulin levels.

When I got this job I thought what am I going to do! It seemed impossible at first, a pancreas looks like lump of orange-brown bacon, sugar is colorless, boring and looks like salt and insulin is worse! Plus the the whole concept of diabetes regulation had to be worked in.

So after I visited with the muse Panickia, I got to work and calmed down.

The roughs ideas... it took a few.

Here's a preliminary drawing. I like posting these because my final technique often results in a loss rather than a gain in accuracy, which is better sometimes but not others!

Inside full page and some spots.

Some detail.

In print.

ESPN Cover attempt

Got to try for a ESPN cover back in January, finally got a hold of a print edition.
Subject was "New Rules for the New Year", it was about changing 48 rules in sports to make it better for the fans.

I didn't get it and I didn't deserve too! Below is why.

Look at this brilliant idea from Jason Lee. Why didn't I think of that!
Perfect and so simple, which is the hardest.



At least I got inside though, with the other 4 artists.
I was honored to have been in the running with Rodrigo Corral, since he is such an amazing book designer, his cover (above mine) is my second favorite.

Just for fun, here's some of the ideas (there were more) I sent in.

Thanks to Ed Mann for even considering me for the cover.

Today's NYTimes Op Ed

For today's Op Ed piece on the cons of limiting US air power in Afghanistan.
Really enjoyed painting this piece, it took me back to my glue sniffing enhanced childhood "hobby" of building model airplanes. Too bad I blew them all up, I could have use them for reference.
Art director was Aviva Michaelov, of course.



Some rough ideas. I actually had more that 45min for this one which was nice! Aviva picked my favorite, which was ironically the first idea I came up, which is rarely the case.

Preliminary drawing.

ESPN Twitter

Got to do a fun full page for ESPN poking fun at jocks on twitter.
Thanks Lou and Siung!

A smaller quarter page illustration inside.

A bunch of roughs, request to make the football player Shaq,
which worried me a bit because portraiture isn't my specialty.


Preliminary drawing.



In print, sorry bad iPhone photos.