Photo with dust jacket.

Me & the Devil!  I am finally getting around to annoucing this book release here!  I've been darting all over the northeast and Florida enjoying the summer with friends and family for the last 2-3 months so I haven't been in one place long enough to get to this properly.  I've been selling them as I've been travelling around, getting them into book stores and doing signings and all that stuff...what a great time!

Here is the description from my website:

This series of art has been published into a full color, hand-signed, hard-bound limited edition book of 666 copies. This largely wordless book visually narrates the part fictional and part non-fictional story of legendary blues musician, Robert Johnson.

The book is cloth hard bound with silver inlay book title on the cover. The interior pages have been carefully proofed to match the color and values of the original art and printed on 80# Xpressions paper. A special red book jacket was produced for the first 333 copies. The book contains 44 pages and each book is hand numbered and signed by the artist on a special page printed within the book.

Various illustrations in this book have been so far accepted a total of 15 times from all the major illustration competitions including the Society of Illustrators, the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles, American Illustration, Spectrum and 3X3. One of the images, "Got Down On My Knees and Prayed" has also won a prestigious Silver Medal from the Society of Illustrators of New York.

Below are some shots of the book, links to pages to purchase the book and shots of a couple of exhibitions the work has been in already.  Thank you to everyone that has commented in the past here on Drawger when I was in the process of doing the work.  Here's the final result and I couldn't have been happier!

View The Book! (There will be links to purchase by credit card or download an order form for check, money order or well hidden cash!)

FYI:  Any Drawger, Illoz and Illogator members will get a discount if they decide to purchase a book...e-mail me for a special link.

Here's another couple of illustrations I've done for Discover Magazine's special 'The Body' issue on newstands now.

It's an interesting article about steriods, doping and all its wonderful options which makes it so easy to get and use.  So not only are the top athletes using it, but even your Mom and Dad...or even the guy serving you coffee in the morning.  Talk about getting your 'Morning Boost'!

As the Olympics get moving along, i am sure we'll be hearing loads about this stuff.

The other illustration I did in the same issue.  The article was about a fellow named Michael West who sees a day that humans can go without surgery, design stronger bodies and I quote "Even grow wings!".  He also goes on about stem cell research and trying to beat the problems associated with freezing bodies to hopefully be regenerated another day.

Sort of makes one stop for while...and think about science and what it is being used for out there, huh?

The art directors and I decided to try something a little odd with the spread layout which accounts for the open areas and odd placements.  I had a great time working with them and how open they are to ideas and playing around with space.

While I was in Miami hanging out with Brian Stauffer, we ended up talking about illustrators and art directors, who we've worked for and spinning interesting yarns about jobs and all that.

While out by the pool I said:  "You know, it seems like everyone has worked with SooJin Buzelli except for me! I feel so left out."  Then I proceeded to sob furiously in my hands.

A few days later at home, guess who shoots over an e-mail to do an illustration?  Mrs. Buzelli herself!  Talk about good karma!

It is all true about what they say about her art direction, simple and direct with enough freedom to scare the pants off you.  Her only art direction was:  "Too much/overdoing something"  That was pretty much it.  I sent her some thumbs I posted below and she chose one.  An excellent experience and I enjoy what came out of it.

(Thinking hard:  "It seems like I'm the only one who's never done a TIME cover!"

;o)

This job was a fight...not for content, but for time.  I got the call on my cell phone Thursday from Pete Hausler while I was in a cafeteria eating lunch with some military officials in Colorado Springs working on a 3 day reportage assignment (info about that coming soon).  He needed to see sketches by Friday AM and the final done by Monday 9AM.

Since I was working on a job at the moment (and I was at this location on their dime so I felt I should be paying attention to the job at hand) and Friday was a flight day to come home, and Saturday was previously booked with a birthday thing, I needed to get sketches done the moment he called and really work this into my schedule.  Pete gave me the option of doing something another time after I told him what was going down but I have a hard time turning down work, especially with people I like to work with.

I found a Xerox copier that can FAX and e-mail where I was so I grabbed some printer paper and got to work.  Art direction was simple: "Come up with something...here's the article."  My favorite kind of art direction!  Pete is really cool about jobs and let's me do what I need to do.  He certainly was very understanding with this job as there were a few technology bumps with him getting the sketches.  He finally got them though.

While I was flittering about the place like a madman, I was busted by security by the Xerox machines because at the location I was, I needed to have a full-time escort with me wherever I went...again...military stuff.  I ditched everyone for a couple of hours to get these sketches done but was caught and reprimanded.  All in the name of art, man!  At least I didn't have to do 200 pushups!

On Friday, while I was delayed again at the airport (American Airlines has earned the Badge of Suckness from me), I got a call from him saying that a sketch was approved and I can go to final.  So I did when I finally got back in the studio on Sunday.

The job was printed in yesterday's paper.  The article was about folks in their late 40's-50's going back to their colleges to consult with councellors to get new jobs.

I went to a new illustration conference last week.  Being guest keynote speaker and helping with some of the workshops and sessions, I was treated very well by the organizers and staff at briCON.

Here below are some photos I took and a promotional video that the conference people made for this convention.  I don’t know about you, but I’ll be going to this annual event again!  Thanks to Brian, Alina and the Stauffer kids for the wonderful time!

briCON08: Miami promotional video of Break Out Session #2: Strokes of Genius

It's been a while since I posted up anything work related and now I think I am going to start catching up.  I also wanted to expand a bit on my normal 'here's a new piece' sort of posts and show some process.  Minnesota Magazine called a while back to do a job.  The story was really good and even better, the art direction was excellent:  "Read it and draw what you want." and the deadline was long.  Oooo...we all can only hope for this sort of thing.  As a matter of fact, it seems to be a dream job!

There was a lot of interesting imagery in the article.  Since I had time, my usual methods is to just draw and draw and then pick and chose from those drawings and build upon it further.  I am posting about 2/3rds of the sketches I did (most of which the art director didn't see) just to show process and thinking.

"Winston Churchill called it his Black Dog..."

"I've called it the Black Horrors and have been known to lie in bed, curtains drawn, waiting fo the storm clouds to pass."

Jeremy Enecio, MICA, $5,000 Award in Memory of Arthur Zankel/Illustration Academy Award-7 week program

I am privileged to announce that after over a year’s worth of planning and work, the new Society of Illustrators Student Scholarship Exhibition is now up and the opening reception is Friday, May 2nd at 6PM.  There is no admission fee.  This year we are giving away approximately $50,000 in scholarship money to illustration students from all over the country!  We had a GREAT line-up of 25 wonderful judges including Brian Stauffer, Jim Bennett, Coco Masuda, and Greg Manchess to name only a few.

The judging this year was handled a little differently. Instead of schools entering this competition with slides as they have been for probably over 20 years, schools are now entering their students work using a new digital upload/judging system.  This new system couldn’t have been possible without the help of our favorite men behind the curtain, Robert Zimmerman and Joshua Carpenter of BugLogic.  Zimm and I have been going back and forth since the beginning of last year try to create a viable, workable and modern system for this competition and possibly the other competitions in the future at the Society….and it friggin’ rocks!  Thank you Zimm and Josh!

Take a look at the portal and art:  www.soicompetitions.org

Also, as a follow up, the Annual Auction was a huge hit and thank you to all my friends and Drawgerites for submitting work at the last minute.  I don’t have any actual numbers in front of me but as I understand it, we broke last year’s numbers!  On behalf of the Education Committee, thank you….the students will be grateful!

If you are in the New York area, a student, a professional iller, art director or designer, please come down to the Society Friday night.  The art is amazing!

I am piggy-backing on Kroninger’s and my last post at the same time.  I’ve been thinking about posting this stuff in a gallery for a while and Kroninger opened the door.  When I was in Arles, walking around and meandering through the city I was taking shots of whatever interested me.  Besides the 2,000 year old beauty of the place, I also took shots of Street Art.  Some of it was graffiti and stencil art but the other stuff was areas where posters and notices were posted and ripped down then something else was posted on top of it and so on.  I guess I can call it 'found art' or 'accidental art' or if you are a non arty-type: 'a mess'.  I love the look and texture of it.

Here is a collection of some of the shots I took.

Novillada Sans Picadors | 16x20 | Acrylic/Mixed

Novillada Sans Picadors can be loosely translated into ‘Young bull without schmuck on horseback stabbing it with a spear’.  That's what it said on my ticket...before I knew what the translation was.

Where do I begin with this image?  Last week I had a bit of a break:  Spring Break so I didn’t have to deal with school stuff; a big project I am about to begin work on was pushed back until this week and the sketch deadline for another job isn’t due for another few days.  So after getting some extra sleep, I decided to work on this piece because it has been in my head (among others) since the summer of 2005 and I can’t seem to shake it.  It was tough to do this image.  I mean, it took 3 years to paint something that I thought worthy of finishing.  It is one thing to imaginatively create a powerful image but once you see something horrific, it is hard to figure out a way of illustrating it with the same power as seeing it live.  It makes me think about WWII artists and what they had to contend with.  I felt like it was never ‘enough’…and maybe this still isn’t ‘enough’.

I’ll explain as briefly as I can:  I was fortunate enough to spend nearly a month in an apartment in Arles, France in ‘05 and probably unfortunate enough to go to a bull fight.  You see, we went in thinking…’Okay…bullfight…neat.’  A bunch of guys with red capes and ferocious animals charging at them.  Sure.  They bow after, say thank you.  Cool.  Then we can go get a glass of Cotes du Rhone and this incredible St. Remy goat cheese I discovered down there.

The reality was unexpected.

The toreador punctured the bull with his sword through the spinal column into the heart while 3 spears that were stuck in its back from earlier ‘duels’ between the bull and the toreador.  Blood cascaded down the bull’s sides and out it its mouth while the bull honked and growled in pain staggering, tongue hanging out of the mouth swaying back and forth.  The other toreador ‘helpers’ swept in to wear out the bull flashing their capes across its snout as it tried to lunge with its horns at whatever was nearby.  Then after the toreador brought down the bull with the one lunge of the sword, a sort of ‘referee’ walked out into the ring, cut off the bull’s ear, gave it to the toreador and he walked, no…pranced with his chin high, and chest pushed out around the 2000 year old arena displaying this ear to the crowd as a trophy.  He threw the severed ear to a couple of kids around the ages of 6 to 16 in front of me who were ecstatic and cheering along with the parents. They were shooting dozens of photos of the kids displaying the ear with blood dripping down their fingers and hands which they wiped on the 2000 year old stone divider walls in front of them.

Apparently, in areas of France, this is legal.  Also, if you are interested enough, you can go to the local record and video shop and buy a DVD of your favorite toreador doing their thing.

Seven more bulls were killed that afternoon.  All for about $15 American dollars.