Plot to Blow Up the Liberty Bell?

This is an illustration for the cover of this week's Philadelphia Weekly. It is about the wrongful arrest of activists in the late 60's. It is believed that the FBI framed the students by planting explosive material in their apartment. The story is very interesting and encourage you to read the article.

First Time Homeowner

This is an illustration for Baltimore City Paper about the joys of buying a house(for the first time) in Hampden. These joys include painting while your roommate is passed out on the couch.

I also thought this would make a good illo for Illustration Friday this week as the word is "Undone." I tried something I usually don't do and left the background white to make it look like the wall is not done being painted.

Rock and Soul..

We're playing a show New Years day at the Black Cat in DC. If I have one regret about this poster is that I didn't budget enough time to hand letter in info but I have to finish 2 jobs this weekend and have to still find time to get them done. I'll be posting them soon with some other fun stuff. Also check out the Link Wray tattoo on Diana, I bet she listens to Link.

The Power of Johnny

I recently drew this for Chris of Sal Bando. His idea was to have flying guitars over melting snowmen. I went to google to look for snowmen images and on the front image search page was a photo of the Beatles in a pool. I thought they could become elting snowmen and who better to elt them than Johnny Ramone.

Crispin Glover for City Paper

I really wanted to draw some rats and a flux capacitor but I never saw the article so I didn't know if it fit. For all I know he could of mentioned how much he hates being known from Willard or Back to the Future.

Inspired Sketch

I was looking on Phawker.com the other day and saw a New York Times Magazine cover containing a photo of Stanley McChrystal. I've never been a very good photographer myself but this photo really blew me away and I felt like I had to draw it. The photo really tells a story just in the expression on his face. The photographer is Peter van Agtmael and I hope I did his photo justice in this sketch.

Shane Scheel from Upright Cabaret was in need of an artistic poster for a performance he is putting on in November. Shoshana Bean of Hairspray and Wicked fame is singing a set of Barbara Streisand songs at Lincoln Center on Broadway. This was a quick job but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.


Below is the sketch I sent last Friday. The final didn't turn out too different and I think I actually like the sketch better. Oh well.

Farwell to the Spectrum in Philly.

Here's a spot for Philly Weekly. In the article 5 Philadelphia musicians share their memories of playing t the Spectrum.

Collaboration with the Talented Jeff Lance

I was recently commissioned to design a poster for a Halloween party featuring Julie Brown. This poster required a level of text that I had no idea how to lay out so I called my friend Jeff to ask for assistance. He went above and beyond and used the illustration I came up with to create an awesome poster. This was actually an early version before he added more text but I liked this one the way it was so I'm postin' it. Check out Jeff's work at Jeff Lance Illustration

Lots of New Stuff

Now that the wedding is done and we've been back for a couple weeks I've been getting back into my usual routine. I just posted a few new illustrations and there are a lot more to come. I'm just starting to catch up on everything I was assigned before the wedding. This illustration is for the cover of this weeks Philly Weekly and deals with the Right trying to bring down Acorn. We decided on a Nutcracker theme. I'm also posting a spot I did for Phawker.com that goes with the same theme.

Poe vs. Irving

This illustration is for Urbanite Magazine and deals with who wrote the better Halloween story, Edgar Allen Poe or Washington Irving. It was a fun assignment and they laid it out nicely with the type.

Baltimanual Cover

Baltimanual, an annual guide to Baltimore was launched yesterday and will be distributed throughout the city throughout 2010. I started sketches for this months ago and in the end a more simplistic illustration was decided on. The final turned out to be a slightly tighter version of one of my sketches. I'm happy enough with it though.

Heckled by Congress....

Here's a sketch I drew after the speech to congress about healthcare reform. I could not believe the level of disrespect coming from certain republican members of congress. As awful a president as Bush was, no democratic congressman ever heckled him in this sort of way. I felt like I was watching a movie last night. I think Obama's speech was well written and fairly reassuring. Time will tell but I'm optimistic so far.

Illustration Friday - Strong

This week's word is strong and I thought Elie Wiesel would be a good choice. I've met a number of Holocaust survivors over the years and could never imagine how hard it was to just stay alive during their years in concentration camps.

On a lighter note, this Saturday I'm getting married and will probably not post again for another week. I have a lot of jobs going on right now so please check back soon.

Illustration Friday - Caution

Just one cover now....

I took down the San Antonio cover because I found out it wasn't used at the last minute. Instead 5 spot illustrations I illustrated for the inside were collaged on the cover. Not my choice or the art director's but what can you do. The editor is always the last word. Chuck's still a great art director and I hope we can do more work together soon.

PW Cover Illustration

I recently illustrated this cover for Philadelphia Weekly. The cover story is about Phil Berg, the first birther who started rallying other nuts to believe Obama was born in Kenya. I was trying to make Berg look as crazy as I think he is in the illustration. The Obamaa in the sunglasses refer to Berg's paranoia. I was trying to make it clear that I was not pro Berg. I went kind of comical with this cover but honestly people like Phil Berg scare the hell out me. I hope this country can really start making steps towards looking past race and religion but it's looks like a lot of people are trying harder than ever to keep that division there.

Illustration Friday - Wrapped

I was watching a special about Woodstock. I started thinking about the famous photo of the two people wrapped in a blanket. Get it...wrapped...not too clever but I'm too tired to use my brain tonight. Enjoy.

*Below is the sketch I drew up for this as well.

The Legwarmers site is up!!!!

For the last couple months, on and off, Chloe and I have been designing a website for D.C. 80's tribute band The Legwarmers. They are a great band and great to work for. They wanted a simple Patrick Nagel inspired site with elements of my own style. My fiance Chloe did all the web work and the site is up as of today at www.thelegwarmers.com/ These are some samples but please check out the site to see more.

Illustration Friday - Impatient

I took a quick break today from a portrait job that I can't seem to get right. Some people are really hard to capture but now I feel like I can go back into it and get it right this time. Here's an Illustration Friday illo.

Teen Wolf

Here's an illustration I did a little while back for Covered, the blog where illustrators reinterpret already printed comic book covers. It turned out to be a little too much of a deviation from the original theme so I'm working on a new one that I'll submit soon. In the mean time here is the Teen Wolf/Vault of Horror I came up with. Enjoy.

Because it's 2am......

...and I got inspired by Alice Cooper on The Old Grey Whistle Test DVD that my friend Neil let me borrow. Here's some sketching and computering.

CD Jacket spread

I decided not to go with the shadow layers because it just didn't fit with the overall look of the design. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out but may go back and change some more things about it.

Standing in the Shadows of Elvis

Here are variations of an illustration for this week's City Paper book review of Leiber and Stollers' new Autobiography "Hound Dog." It opens with a story about them finally being accepted as songwriters after years of not being taken seriously by the songwriting elite who thought writing for Elvis was a bad thing. Stupid song writing elite...Here's some art.

Crazy Man, Crazy

I recently did some illustrations for the cd jacket for Philly rockabilly band Crazy Man Crazy's new cd. They wanted to base it off the poster for Gamera. I stuck Philadelphia City Hall in there and their Septa trains. I started the coloring process tonight but still have ways to go to make this really pop. I just wanted to post this because I won't be able to post the longer jobs I've been working on until later in the month.

Illustration Friday-Modify (Modified)

First, thanks everyone for the comments on the first illustration. I realized after drawing the first one that Penelope Dullaghan , the talented illustrator behind illustrationfriday.com had already created a similar illustration for an editorial job. Being the OCD artist that I am I had to create another image for modify. I couldn't resist MODifying Elvis. Thanks Penelope for returning my email and for your nice message.

Sidebar Poster

So the type on this won't be winning any awards but you'll have to cut me some slack, I started this poster at midnight after working all day on assignments. I really didn't want to flake on this after promising I would do it. There are so many bands too. Maybe I'm just making excuses but I still like the dog(R.I.P. Stout) and the most important thing is advertising the show. If you are in Baltimore you can't miss this.

Illustration Friday - Idle

This is my first Illustration Friday entry. I've been working on a lot of long assignments this month and thought this would be a good way to take a break every week to do a quick drawing without the fear of revisions. This week the word to illustrate is Idle. Hopefully I'll be able to do a new one every week.

Worth repeating..

If you are in D.C. tomorrow night you should stop by this show. I think my band plays first (no surprise) and the other bands will be great. Make Queen Vicious proud.

Walter Cronkite dies at 92

An old illustration for Crinkles Mangazine

Last minute...literally...cover illustration

I got a call last night from Art Director Tim Gough at Philadelphia Weekly asking if I could turn around a quick cover illustration. The article deals with the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Tim is one of my favorite art directors to work with so I didn't mind staying up until the wee hours of the night putting this together. After lots of concept sketches and wasted ink I settled on this. There are some things I wish I could change but for starting at 10pm last night and emailing it at 5am this morning I don't think it's too bad.

Fur is Social Suicide......

Here is a new Illustration for Social Affairs Magazine about the taboo of wearing fur in a green world. I usually don't post sketches because they are always a mess but this sketch came together pretty cleanly.