Warby Parker Buttons Live Drawing MYOB

 My final project of the year 2015 was a two-part live drawing session at Warby Parker SoHo, drawing and painting buttons per customers' requests. It was a fun and challenging assignment. I ended up doing a lot of tiny watercolors of family fotos, but also comic characters and funny concepts.

Thanks to Jamell and everyone at Warby Parker for inviting me and for making it such a fun experience, and to everyone who came by to visit. Hope everyone is enjoying their buttons!

Oktoberfest WiesnGuide for Ernst & Young

Here are some images from an Oktoberfest Wiesnguide" I did for Ernst and Young Munich / Stuttgart. It features some playful info, the location of all the tents, and folds together between two beer coasters. Thanks so much to Romesh Naik from EY Stuttgart and Bernd Klutsch from Medienmassiv for the fun collaboration!

Carrier Pigeon 14

I had the pleasure of illustrating a short fiction story in the latest issue of Carrier Pigeon, a high-end publication of art and literature founded by fellow alumni of the SVA MFA Illustration program. The book has always some nifty print and print-making features.

"The Speck" is a story about a the passing of time, watches, and a speck on the carpet. It's written by Jonathan Philips.

I used the opportunity for experimentation, created three pieces of art for each of the five illustrations– detailed pen and ink drawings, collage, and expressive brush graphics, and composited all three versions together in a dense final image.

One of the original layers at the launch party / art show at Sugarlift Gallery in Bushwick.

It's a book! On of my spreads in Carrier Pigeon 14 (Volume 2, #4).
Order it here.

Thanks so much for making me a part of it, guys!

Eurotrip Sketches

I've traveled in Europe throughout the last month, have visited friends, family, colleagues and clients. I especially enjoyed re-visiting London and Berlin. Here are some sketches, all done on location…
EDIT: American Illustration has done a feature about these, with some additional drawings

St Paul's as seen from the Tate Modern, London

View of Museumsinsel / Berliner Dom

View from the steps of the Altes Museum, Berlin

Markstrasse, Ravensburg

Friedrichshafen / Bodensee

Backyard of my friends in Karlsruhe

'The Truth And Other Lies', for the New York Times

I've got a new piece in the New York Times Book Review, this time it's about Sascha Arango's new crime novel The Truth And Other Lies. 

The "sociopathic antihero" of this crime story is a famous writer who lives a rich life, but he has a secret: All his book are really written by his wife, who despises publicity and just wants to write.
He's not a good guy. When his mistress reveals she's pregnant, he decides to murder her, as not to jeopardize his comfy arrangement.

Joseph Finder, the reviewer, is also a best-selling novelist and I recently had the pleasure to illustrate a review of his latest book, The Fixer. I have to admit, I do enjoy working with crime and noir in these assignments!

Many thanks to Art Director Nicholas Blechman, who's about to leave the Grey Lady for greener pastures… always to pleasure!

Last Boy at St Edith's by Lee Gjertsen Malone

The cover I did for Lee Gjertsen Malone's debut YA novel, The Last Boy At St. Edith's, has just been revealed and I'm excited to finally post about it! As the cover shows, the story is about a young boy stuck in an all-girls school, and his adventurous attempts to get himself expelled.

It was great fun to illustrate this long crowd of characters wrapping around the entire jacket, and to letter the title by hand. I'm also really pleased with the palette and limited color.

Here's a look at the original drawing. All line-work is drawn by hand, though I did make numerous digital tweaks afterwards and redid the type several times till we had it right.

Thanks again to the awesome folks at Simon & Schuster, especially Art Director Laura DiSiena, and Lee Gjertsen Malone for her great story! Now we have to wait till the book comes out in February of 2016!

New York Times Book Review: The Fixer

Here's my latest piece for the New York Times Sunday Book Review, illustrating a review of Joseph Finder's new thriller, The Fixer.

In a mundane setting, a former investigative reporter looks into the mysterious past of his father, after finding a pile of money in his home's crawl space.

After my the initial scribble, I added the flashlight effect, which really made the image. The final consisted of two drawings overlaid.

You can read the whole text on the New York Times' website.

Many thanks to Art Director Nicholas Blechman!

Children's Story for Johnson & Johnson

A while ago, I had the pleasure of working on a project with Johnson & Johnson, for their Care In Action initiative. They asked 5 children to tell them a real life story about caring. With the help of author Patricia Larkin these were shaped into five short picture books, and I illustrated one of them. Here are some of my spreads.

In Matthew's story, he saw some firemen in action, and it inspired him to also become one, in order to also help people.

You can download a pdf of all the stories here. Thanks to my friends at JWT / Hogarth, especially Hugo Fitzgerald, for arranging this project, and the nice folks at Johnson & Johnson. I hope the project inspired a lot of care!