Happy Dysfunctional Holidays!

I received a call from Pete Hausler of The Wall Street Journal end of the day last Thursday, he needed 5 color spot illo.s by lunch the following Tuesday. The article was dealing with typical dysfuntional family situations that repeat themselves every holiday season. He wanted to know if I was interested? The short answer was Yes. He wanted the sketches done and approved by end of day Friday. Being that the turn around time was so short I submitted one sketch per situation, 4 of which were approved by the days end. The 5th sketch was approved Monday morning which gave me the weekend to work on the approved spots. Pete had seen a job I had done for Tyler Darden when he was at Virginia Living Magazine at my online portfolio and wanted these handled in a similar fashion.

 

Virginia Living

He thought the more graphic, chunky approach to the color would be a good fit for this article.

The 5 typical situations were, in no particular order;

Your son comes home from his first semester at college looking like an alien exhibiting a new and surprising fashion sense.

Mom and Dad fighting over the correct way to cook the gravy and pretty much everything else.

The Aunt who doesn't realize when she's had one glass of wine too many.

The negotiation of which set of parents you'll be spending the special day with.

And the calm and civil discussions that will take place between you r siblings as to who will get what heirlooms once the folks have left this mortal coil.


                                     Happy Holidays Everyone.

Unpublished Illo. Dept.

This illo. was done for a national newspaper and the story ended up being canceled due to the fact that one of the paper's major competitors did a story almost identical to this one a day or two before this was to see print. It's not the first time something like this has happened so it wasn't to surprising but still it was a bit of a let down.

The story had something to do with hospitals attempting to improve the customer-patient experience and improving it to the equivalent of a 5 star hotel. I got the call from the A.D. on a Friday afternoon and the finish needed to be done by 12:00 the following Monday. I didn't get the chance to read the manuscript because the writer hadn't finished it at that point. The A.D. knew what the gist of the story was so he discussed with me what he and the other editors thought would be an appropriate solution. I quickly did the sketch per our conversation, scanned it and email it to him. He promptly got back to me with an OK and I was good to go.

I worked on the illo. over the course of the weekend, did the the finishing touches Monday morning and sent it off. The A. D. seemed very happy with the end results and said that the publishing date had been bumped to the following week. I contacted him early the next week to check and see which day it'd see print and that's when I received the news of the story being killed. Oh well.

Pop Up Holiday Shop

popidiot will be selling t-shirts, post cards, stickers, etc. at the Pop Up Holiday boutique at Artisan Alley, 323 W. Broad St. tonight from 6:00 to 10:00ish. There will be lots of other artists and crafters selling their unique handmade local wares. The pop Up Shop will be open Sat. & Sun. as well and then every Fri. thur Sun. up til Xmas. If you're out for First Fri. Artwalk stop in and get an early jump on your xmas shopping.

http://www.facebook.com/events/118632931584058/