Nominee for Illustration for a Cover of the year, SPD Annual and in the American Illustration Annual 2012
This seems to be the week where many announce certain pieces were accepted into competitions here and there. I usually resist the announcements since if I ever DON'T get in I would not want to shine a light on it.
This year I was completely thrilled to have three Time covers accepted, chosen, anointed, whatever you call being in the book, into American Illustration.
Time has been a loyal client for many years now and I am so happy to be able to do work for them. I really try to break my back for them when they trust me with a shot at a cover and when it works out and one is selected, I think we are both happy.
The work here was done in the past year, or in the case of the Bin Laden cover, done years ago, but published a year ago.
On Friday night, May 11th I'll be attending the SPD Gala where the illustration for the Gadaffi cover is up for an award for Illustration for a Cover. Being nominated is so great. This is a tough jury.
Let's hope I get more chances with more covers for more clients in 2012 and beyond.
Thanks to D.W. Pine, Skye Gurney and Rick Stengel and Arthur Hochstein, as always.
I became aware of Chuck Berry as I was growing up, seeing him show up on TV variety shows and the Grammy Awards. He would do his famous duck walk and sing what I thought were Beatles songs.
Of course it was the Beatles who admired him and who were influenced by his aggressive rocking style.
I had a tape of his music in my Ford Granada in college that was all blue with the words wiped off by my turpentine covered fingers. Still, it was part of my music rotation for all those years. On it were songs like Mabelline, Memphis, and Too Much Monkey Business.
Chuck Berry and Little Richard made Rock and Roll rougher and more syncopated and less white bread. I had in the past, the honor of painting Little Richard for Rolling Stone but wished I could have done Chuck Berry too.
St.Louis Magazine called me and made my wish a reality.
The request was to illustrate their cover celebrating the 100 greatest St. Louis musicians.
Now, the thing about what I had to do was to not just paint a piece of reference but to create a new, realistic image of Chuck Berry using parts of images. I was able to cobble together a source 'Frankenstein' reference and do my illustration based on that. (I would show the references acquired by St. Louis Magazine but I don't have the license to do that, FYI.)
There are many images of Chuck Berry in this position. Not all are crisp, at the right age or really all that good for a cover image. The goal was to create a new image and in the end I'm thrilled to have added to the images of Chuck Berry out there. He's a special American treasure who is in his twilight years and deserves one more moment in the sun.
There is something about him in a white suit on white and his warm, dark skin that I love. Also, the geometry of his duck walk, the right angle is great.
Up close that portrait is quite painterly.
Below is a pretty fascinating clip...it sure looks like the birth of Rock and Roll to me.
This is the 100th year anniversary of the tragic sinking of the Titanic. As we think about this date and the mythology of the loss of this massive ship on it's maiden voyage, Smithsonian Magazine asked me to illustrate the Titanic and how it stays vivid in our minds and imagination. It's an historical anomaly that makes a sure thing seem less so, that nothing is assured and that nature wins out in the end.
My family has a connection to the Titanic that I heard of only fleetingly years ago and was recently clarified by my cousin George Waldron, the son of my grandmother's older sister, Mary.
My great grandmother was Ellen Moran, whose husband Patrick had died and left Mary and her alone on the farm in Ireland. My great grandmother was expecting. My great grandmother had a sister, Delia, who lived in Massachusetts and after hearing that my great grandmother was pregnant, came back to Ireland to help her. One day Delia came home to excitedly announce that she could book passage back to the US on the maiden voyage of the Titanic but my great grandmother was crushed and pleaded for Delia to stay in Ireland and not go back to the States. She changed her plans and stayed. My Grandmother was born June 10th, 1912 and the Titanic sank in April of 2012. Delia from Massachusetts always said that my grandmother saved her life. In recognition of Delia, my grandmother was also named Delia.
The wonderful AD at Smithsonian asked me to capture the way this ship is so considered and discussed 100 years later. To do this I worked on an old idea of mine, ships escaping a frame.
The one thing that made this cover 'trompe l'oeil' difficult was trying to also do a lighter cover. To convey depth and highlights, darkness works best. Still, I was able to shift values where needed to pull of this trick.
I'm happy with the cover and that it's all a trompe, something I studied in college. This is the kind of thing I always hoped to do when I was a wee lad.
I dedicate this piece to my Aunt Mary, who is lives in Hamden Connecticut at the healthy age of 102.
She is our bright shining hope of a long life and is sharp as a tack, and clear as a bell.
'Realism' -In the collection of the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators, NY.
This is my digital sketch that uses a ship reference purchased from Getty for this assignment. With not too much space to convey the visual trick, I had to eliminate the sharp shadow next to the front for more air around it.
I tried out a porthole but I didn't like the shape as much...circles are inherently whimsical, aren't they? The color and values
Final artwork. Oil on Panel.
Without a Mahl stick this is impossible.
My name tumbles out of the window.
Mary Waldron, my grandmother's older sister, celebrating her 100th year in 2010. She's still making us smile.
Last week I received a call from Time Magazine asking if I would work on an international cover about Kim Jong Un, the newly anointed leader of North Korea.
The idea was fluid and I offered some possible solutions. One was the leader on the statue of his father, merely swapping faces. This one almost was the final but a last minute switch was requested.
Calmly I re-calibrated.
They asked if I could paint Kim in a formal way like the state portraits of his father seen around North Korea. It is an idealized style and smooth. I don't mind having to do this, to paint in the style of another artist usually but I do worry privately that any smooth blending and frankly, less investigative rendering might be viewed as me slacking off. It's not.
But this job evolved further. The managing editor asked if I might try a smirk. Now, I already painted a non-smirk portrait so I just said YES and painted another portrait. I actually like the smirk quite a bit. The second (or was it the third) request was to try out different backgrounds.
So clouds were suggested, mountains and even patterns.
In the end we honed in on a certain pattern that was a cheeky idea.
In the final evolution Time had a type treatment and design worked out and decided to use my NON-smirk cover and their own type solution. The combination is great.
I don't mind collaborating on projects at all. If in the end the client puts my work in a new light, how can I resist that? It's sort of like a musician playing with people they don't often work with.
The last funny thing was a nice e-mail from D.W. Pine, Time's art director. He conveyed how much he and Rick Stengel liked the portrait (which is something all art directors should do, by the way) and showed me a PDF of the final version. What I noticed was all the domestic type stories above the TIME logo. Was this now a domestic cover? Did Jon Stewart's gentle ribbing the night before on the daily show have any effect on moving the story worldwide? Rick Stengel was on Morning Joe this morning and deftly sidestepped the question but said they work up all kinds of covers for different places. He did rib Stewart back saying that his objection to last week's story on Pets was based on Jon's well-known hatred of Animals, dogs in particular. That was funny.
Anyway, an exciting and fast paced week of collaboration kept me on my toes.
Anyone want a portrait of Kim Jong Un with a smirk on his face?
First idea was Kim as a grand marble bust. The sketches are all digital but the final portraits are painted.
This is a close up of a bronze statue. He looks like chocolate though.
I was given the green light to go to final but quickly halted to stop and switch gears. This would have been a great image to paint and I still might do it anyway.
The new request was to paint Kim like this stylized portrait, but to also work out a background that connects to him in some way.
A cloud. O'Brien always tries this first.
Korean lanscape?
North Korean flag?
My wallpaper behind him? This was approved and I made the wallpaper below.
This is the final portrait. It was painted then halted to paint a version with a smirk. I then went back and finished the jacket which would have to work for both.
The smirk.
$2000 firm.
What I thought was going to run...
Finally two clips. The first is on Morning Joe this morning. Rick Stengel premiers the cover and discusses Kim and even the Jon Stewart ribbing the night before.
Rick held his own with with a smile and some flare.
The next clip is Stewart teasing Time Magazine for fluffy domestic covers.
Thanks for reading all this.
When I spoke to D.W. Pine about the final status of the cover, he said an outside designer worked up the background and type. I loved it and when I got my issue today I saw the name of the firm. Post Typography
POST TYPOGRAPHY
P/F 410 889 7469
WWW.POSTTYPOGRAPHY.COM
WWW.LETTERINGANDTYPE.COM
Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals did that work and really added something wonderful to the cover. As you can see up on top, I didn't quite know where that background was going but I have to hand it to D.W. for not settling for what I did but for keeping the investigation going. They were charged with trying out different solutions and to attempt a reference to Lil'Kim's album covers as well. The result was a sheet of choices that really explored the spectrum.
Bruce told me the the sheet below is about only half of what they showed.
My art with that type and background made a great combo. I'm glad to have shared that cover with them.
These are the type treatments of Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals of Post Typography. Thanks fellas.
