Branching out, literally. Two recent assignments that allowed me to play around with a different line quality, more organic shapes, and "gasp" human forms. I'm so removed from hand drawn imagery, and way too reliant on just using my Wacom board and stylus to approach my work. I'll do thumbnails to nail down an idea, sometimes. 
So I'm going back to hand drawn elements. I've had real trouble addressing people in my work, a couple pieces were okay but lots of uncomfortable fumbling, and quite simply drawing people with vector tools just doesn't feel right. Houses and circuit boards, great! Still doing my vector line but drawing and scanning other elements then redrawing them. Of course I'm also using the new powerful tools within illustrator to manipulate my line.
This head of veins piece was done for a Chronicle book, the Art of Science, a collaboration between artists and scientists. Julia Rothman was the art director on this. They were very open on how I was allowed to interpret the theory, What is the Structure of water?  I had seen an image of the vascular system and wanted to do that, then fit my concept around it. I figure we are the structure of water, right?

This piece with the burning woman was for the University of Chicago alumni magazine, art directed by Guido Mendez. The story was on microfinancing, a well meaning program intended to lift people out of poverty, specifically in India. Tiny loans would be made with reasonable repayment terms. As things go the program went bad, people couldn't repay and many women set themselves on fire. I don't get many humanistic problems to solve, but I like it. I gave this assignment to my students and explained this is not a story about money, it's about people.