Partfaliaz.com write-up

Thanks to Antoine over at Partfaliaz.com for this recent post on my work. It's a great blog to check out for upcoming and established artists alike.

Patagonia T-shirt design

I did 2 t-shirt graphics for Patagonia in January of 2009, followed by 3 more over this past summer. It takes quite a while for the shirts to finally make it out for sale, and this 1st one is finally available as of today. It's been dubbed "Platform" for the oil platform I depicted in the middle of a very hostile sea. In the words of Patagonia:

"Mother Nature always wins in the end - we hope. Imagine the problems of oil dependency and global warming being swept away - for good. Featuring original artwork by Tim Tomkinson, the Platform T-Shirt carries an inside message about The Southern Environmental Law Center (SouthernEnvironment.org), a group leveraging the tools of environmental law and policy to promote energy efficiency and renewable resources that will lead us to a new, cleaner future. The shirt is recyclable through the Common Threads Recycling Program. "

I'll post the other t-shirt graphics as they become available. Click here to purchase this one, and to see some of the other great t-shirts they have available. They've been having some cool designs coming in from The Heads of State, Geoff McFetridge, and even Shepard Fairey.

Proprietor's Barrel whiskey label

Wow, this is my first post in a couple of months! Just when I think I'm getting pretty consistent with my posts, I end up falling behind again.. Well, you haven't missed anything TOO incredibly exciting. Things slowed down a bit over the holidays, as they normally do, but work has been picking up again the last couple weeks. Here are some of the things I've been up to: a 4-illustration assignment for Dwell magazine; 3 illustrations for Samatamason in Chicago for a video-conferencing client; identity and menu design for a new bar in LA; label design for a special batch of Wild Turkey whiskey; new designs for a couple of wine labels; concepts for new promotions and portfolios for 2010.

Some of these recent jobs are still ongoing, and others are not out yet, so I can only post images for the Wild Turkey label I designed. Wild Turkey agreed to produce a special batch of their Single Barrel Bourbon for the bar Death & Company, and to throw a party at the bar with their Master Distiller (Jimmy Russell) in attendance to sign the bottles. The name of the whiskey is Proprietor's Barrel, it is incredibly delicious, and here are the images to prove it:


P.S. I had to keep my design relatively close to an existing label they use for this bottle shape, using similar fonts, colors, and the same label shape/size. We didn't want the design to fall too far from the existing strength of the Wild Turkey branding.

Lunar Holiday Poster

Yesterday I finished this holiday poster for Lunar, a product design company based out of San Francisco. They approached me with the general idea of wanting to collaborate on their company holiday card, with the hope that it could become a fold-out poster incorporating lots of different types of imagery. They sent out a questionnaire to their employees in San Francisco, as well as to their offices in Munich and Hong Kong, asking them to name some of their favorite things. The point of this was to gain a bit of a cross-section of the "Lunar culture" as experienced by their employees around the globe. Here's a few sample questions they sent out:

- All time favorite holiday food?
- Favorite corner in the city?
- Favorite LUNAR project of the year?
- Favorite gift to give?
- Favorite festival of the year in SF/Munich/HK?
- What’s your favorite SF/Munich/HK institution?
- Favorite after work/weekend past time?

So I had to take all of the different answers and figure out some way to represent them into a holiday poster context. Here are my first 3 sketches:




They liked the 2nd sketch, but wanted way more stuff going on and more imagery from the answers incorporated into it. They found an image of a vintage Candyland boardgame, which they loved as an idea for more of a path or a map. They felt that referencing this could communicate something like, “LUNAR is a unique place during the holidays". And they loved the way the illustrations tend to combine things in strange ways, much like mine tend to do. So I did some revisions and we came to a final approved sketch..





The final poster will be printed at about 12" x 18". Here are a few close-up sections:

Happy Halloween!

I think I've seen this skinny dude walking around Brooklyn..

Arrive Magazine Illustrations

Last week I worked on these 3 illustrations for Amtrak's Arrive Magazine. The article's headline is "You can go your own way", and the subhead reads "The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in these hard economic times." For the opener illustration, I wanted to come up with a metaphor that tied in with this. I thought that the visual pun of swerving headlights could suggest that entrepreneurs are thinking ahead and avoiding disasters when they seem imminent. The 1st spot illustration (with the butterflies) will be in a section that discusses how to get the word out about your (the entrepreneur's) product or service. And the 2nd spot (with the horse) will accompany one of the sidebar sections – "Are you running away from something or running toward something?" If you ride on Amtrak's Acela line in December/January, be sure to flip through the mag to check these out!

I included my sketches below. For the opener, I was actually kind of hoping they'd pick the sketch of the guy on the stilts avoiding the bear traps.. but it in the end I think the one they picked works better. That 3rd one shows a beaver making a dam out of all the "For Sale" signs out there (doing something constructive in a bad situation). As for that 3rd spot sketch, it would have been for the sidebar section titled "Can you sell your vision?" I think I was channeling Magritte a bit on that one..

Germs

Germs are creepy, and so is this drawing...

The Book of Conversations

About two and half years ago I participated in this book idea called "The Book of Conversations", where 120 artists were given a provocative question to address in whatever way we wanted. I was given the question "Do you ever have racist thoughts", which I struggled with for a bit, conceptually. Eventually I came up with the above solution which suggests that people sometimes have these thoughts that they wouldn't normally have, that they are ashamed of, or that they don't even necessarily know are racist. I wanted the image of the painter covering up the racial slur to be open to interpretation (or more specifically, to conversation). Is the painter thinking that and covering it up? Did someone else paint it to make it look like other people are thinking it? Is the painter secretly assuming that the graffiti-writer was black, and he stoops to racism out of anger? Am I, as the illustrator, slightly racist for even coming up with this concept? Either way, it's a tough question, and it was a challenging illustration..

I'm posting this image now because the book is finally in production and will be available for sale online from the 12th of October at www.bookofconversations.com. Read a brief press release below:

When was the last time you had a great conversation? A conversation that was out of the blue, intriguing and interesting. A conversation where you found out so much more about your friends and so much about yourself.

The Book of Conversations came to life because we simply aren’t as good at talking as we used to be. Too often we just trade information. What we did, what we bought, where we went, what we did at work.

The book is a collection of questions, each question a conversation starter. It’s the intrigue of exploring someone and discovering what lies beneath. Some questions are deep, some trivial and some you will never forget.

However, just words were not enough. Images provoke people in ways that words sometimes can’t. 120 artists, graphic designers, creative directors, art directors, photographers, illustrators and animators were approached and were each given a question.

Their task was to provoke this question with an image. The image could make the reader cry, shout, laugh or think. But most importantly, it should get them to talk.

Let’s bring back the art of conversation to a world that needs it more than ever.

Let the discussion begin.


The Book of Conversations.
By Jason Schragger and Mark Carolan.

"Infinite"

I had some free time to doodle today, and I was in a type-drawing mood. So I checked out the Illustration Friday topic, which was "Infinite". Not surprisingly, the first thing that popped into my head was the infinity symbol. Perhaps it's cliched, but whatever.. I thought it would be fun to make an ornate infinity symbol wrapping around the word. I've also been in a red & black mood lately in my sketchbook, so that's what I went with..

UPDATE (9/26): Thank you, IF, for making my piece "Pick of the Week"!

"Now Playing" show at Gallery 1988 SF

I just finished this piece yesterday for a show at Gallery 1988 in San Francisco called "Now Playing". It's a group show where each artist was sent an original movie poster to customize with their own artwork, in whatever way we wanted. We didn't get to pick what poster we'd get, so it was a surprise when the poster tubes were shipped out. I was psyched to get the Terminator 2 poster.. it was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I recall trying to emulate Eddie Furlong for a couple of months, at least, after seeing it. I even rocked the same haircut..

After playing around with some other more serious ideas I decided to go with something a little more wacky. I wanted to change "Judgment Day" into something totally different.. like a holiday, for instance. Valentines Day seemed like the funniest choice to me, given the Terminator character and his cold, robotic personality. Plus I had the perfect opportunity to make his hand holding something other than a shotgun.

All of the artwork and type changes were collaged directly on top of the poster. I used a bunch of different types of papers and pages out of books for the background, to give the whole thing a warmer, more stylized feel. Then I drew, painted and collaged more stuff on top of that, including all the flowers and leaves.

The show opens this Friday, September 18th at Gallery 1988 San Francisco: 1173 Sutter St. / Polk St.

New Website launched!!

It has been quite a while since an update here... about 2 months, to be more precise. After the insanity of last summer and fall where I barely spent any hours not working, let alone any days, I was actually hoping for a much slower, quieter summer. Well, I got my wish with a summer filled with traveling, entertaining visitors, tons of sleeping, great food, a fair amount of wine drinking, book reading (it had been a while), gallery visits, sketchbook drawing.. as well as a little bit of commissioned work here and there.

Leisurely activities aside, I did spend a good portion of August redesigning my website. Originally I was going to hire someone to design and code it for me, but I decided to take advantage of my slower summer months and just do it myself. It was actually a large amount of work, and a lot of research for some of the coding, but I'm pretty happy with the results.. and I was able to set it up in a way that is much, much easier to update. I also simplified the general design and organized the content in a way that allows me to show a lot more work, including animation!

Just click on my new "Tim Tomkinson Illustration" logo, above, to get to the new main site. Or just click here. There are two smaller sections that are still under construction, but they may be finished by the time you read this.. whoever you are. Don't hesitate to contact me if you notice any bugs or generally dumb decisions on my part.

The image above doesn't really have anything to do with my new site, but a blog post with only type is sort of boring to me. I made that piece for a book pitch (can't discuss the details yet), and I later colorized it for a big party / art show that Friend & Johnson threw last May in San Francisco. All the artists submitted a piece that was printed as posters for sale. I have some extra posters of this for sale, as digital C-prints, so contact me if you're interested in purchasing one. Click here for a larger image.

Le Fooding d'Amour Paris-New York

I made this illustration for Le Fooding Magazine's upcoming event at P.S.1 this September 25th and 26th. The event, called Le Fooding D'Amour Paris-New York, will employ the talents of 12 renowned chefs from New York and Paris to cook some of their signature dishes on BBQ's for those attending. Tickets will be relatively inexpensive, and proceeds will go to the charity Action Against Hunger.

Each chef was paired with a graphic designer from their corresponding city to create a collector's menu. I was assigned to do the page for Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson from Minetta Tavern. They're doing burgers with beef supplied by the butcher Pat LaFrieda (presumably their now-famous Black Label Burger). I drew all of the elements for the illustration with pencils, and colorized and composed the whole thing on the computer. The idea for the frames came from the actual decor at Minetta Tavern, which is heavy on the wall-of-portraits look. Check the images below for better close-ups.

Some of the other graphic designers involved include: Ich & Kar, Change is Good, Gianpaolo Pagni, Helène Builly, Vanessa Verillon, Nicholas Blechman, Jan Wilker, Paul Sahre, Jeanne Verdoux, Christoph Niemann, Andre and So Me. For more info on the event you can read this recent article at nbcnewyork.com, or keep checking in on the Le Fooding website. I'm sure tickets for this event are gonna go fast... so act quickly once they're available! Eating amazing food outside at P.S.1, cooked by famous chefs on BBQ's, sounds like a party not to be missed..

New Death & Co. Menu

My wife and I updated the Death & Co. menu about a week ago. I made 8 new illustrations and created the category titles, inspired by old Stock Certificate lettering. The general design is mostly similar to before, but Kate had to change out all of the food and drink items with new stuff, rearrange some sections, and add in more quotes. It's head bartender Brian Miller's first menu, and I can't wait to try out some of their new concoctions. They have a new chef now, too, so the small-plates are all new... and sound rather tasty.

"The {Sketch}book" vol. 01!!

"The {Sketch}book" is the first volume of a new series of books showcasing all of my favorite sketchbook pages. This first volume is a rather large compilation of 114 pages from multiple sketchbooks I've kept over the past nine years. I included the cover and 7 interior spreads, above, as examples.

I spent the last 2 months compiling images and designing the book in my free time, and am really happy with the results. Originally, I started creating the book as an addition to my larger portfolio of commissioned jobs and gallery work that gets shown around by my agents. But I realized that I could offer it up for sale, as well, to whomever would be interested.

For more info on purchasing a copy please click here: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/626123

If interested, I highly recommend getting the hardcover version, but there is also a cheaper softcover version available. Both options are 8" x 10", 114 pages, on Premium Paper. Keep in mind that these books will likely be a pretty limited run as they were not mass-produced for book stores. Each book ordered is professionally printed and bound on-demand, and shipped within about 8 days. Please email with any other questions: timtomkinson@mac.com

"Idiot Box" - Opening April 2nd!

The group show "Idiot Box" opens at 7pm tonight, April 2nd, at Gallery 1988 in LA. It's the gallery's 5-year anniversary, and they're celebrating with a show devoted to "guilty pleasure television." They even got Mr. Belding from Saved By the Bell to be the host of the show!

I contributed these two pieces, nodding to several of my favorite shows from the past. The top one is a piece based on the shows Alf and The X-Files, titled "The Alf-Files". It's a play on the concept of Mulder's and Scully's relentless search for aliens, and finding a rather silly one in the form of Alf. The second one is titled "Miscellaneous TV Outerwear" and is pretty self-explanatory, unless you've been living as a Neo-Luddite for the past several decades.

I picked these frames for their gaudy, kitschy flavor, to reflect the feeling of most of these TV shows. There should be a great mix of killer work, given the lineup of artists and the subject matter, so be sure to check it out if you're in the LA area. Here's the gallery website for more info: http://www.nineteeneightyeight.com

Lurzer's Archive ads

I worked on these two promotional ads for Lurzer's Archive. The top one was made just a couple weeks ago, to be published in the near future.. and the bottom was in the vol. 4, 2008 issue.

The top ad was designed by Coco Connolly using some of the new branding for my agent, Friend & Johnson. The photo on the left was taken by Charles Shotwell, and I decided to make my page into a play off of his photo. I had free reign to do whatever I wanted, but thought it would be sort of funny to somehow use the missing chair from his photo. For some reason the first thing that popped into my head was a guy balancing a chair on his nose. So I went with that idea, and also pushed it to the more ridiculous side with the juggling of live grenades and the unicycle riding (which i've always wanted to try).

I designed the bottom ad myself, since I had the entire spread. And since I was extremely busy at the time, I used existing images: the left side being from a sketchbook, and the right side from a series of spots for Skiing Magazine.

IBM ad - "Connections"

Here's the first of 3 ads I did for IBM. I was asked to keep the people pretty graphic, so they're a bit different than the usual type of people I draw.. which ended up being sort of a fun challenge. I also needed to keep the color pretty graphic and limited, so I employed the same blotchy, loose look that I've been getting into lately (see the elephant down below)

The ads showed up mostly in magazines and newspapers in Europe. You can see some of the work done by other artists as part of the same campaign here. Click to the left or right to scroll through the gallery. I'm not sure what everything says, since it's in French.. but it's probably only interesting if you're an IT guy anyways. I'll post the other two ads I've been working on in the near future.

Spirit Magazine portraits

These are the last 3 portraits I did for Spirit Magazine - Howard Stoeckel, Richard Nelson Bolles, and T. Boone Pickens. The Howard Stoeckel portrait (top) is out in the current issue. Apparently he's the CEO of Wawa Food Markets, so he's got that going for him. My wife is from New Jersey, so I've purchased many a convenient snack from Wawa. Plus, it's fun to say.. Wawa!!

By the way, if you're thinking those words in their heads look sort of difficult to design and draw.. you would be absolutely correct.

wawa

Friend & Johnson - Promo

Here's the piece I did for the latest Friend & Johnson promotion (my rep), to be mailed out within the next couple of weeks. It's another group promo, and is being used to tie into a relationship with the non-profit 826 Valencia:

"Founded in 2002 by author Dave Eggers and educator Nínive Calegari, 826 Valencia is dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers get their students excited about the writing. Our work is based on the understanding that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success and that great leaps in learning can be made when skilled tutors work one-on-one with students."
– 826valencia.org

So in addition to this being a normal promotional mailer, it will be donated to the organization for use by teachers to show students how visual people respond to words. The concept was to show the inspiration of language based on the single word "Edge". So each of the F&J artists worked out their own illustration of the word..

I decided to turn "Edge" into an acronym, E.D.G.E: Effusively Dotted Golden Elephant. I didn't feel like being too literal with the word "edge", and thought this opened up some more fun words to play with. The string on his trunk is just a little joke about how elephants are supposed to have amazing memories, so they shouldn't need physical reminders like bows tied to fingers (or in this case, trunks).

The elephant, as well as the type, were drawn in ink and colored digitally. I'll try to post some of the other artists' solutions when I get the final book..

Aquafina - Kelly Award

I found out recently that the Aquafina ads I worked on for BBDO a while back received a Kelly Award for best Insert/Outsert. I'll admit, I had never heard of the Kelly Awards before.. but it's still pretty cool. You can take a look at the award page here: http://www.kellyawardsgallery.org/index.html#/Gallery/Winners/Aquafina/ If you click on 'Judges Comments' you can hear them talk a little about why they picked it.

There's a good chance you didn't see the actual insert out in mags (but possibly the regular print ad..). It was actually pretty cool. The single Aquafina bottle on the front of the insert was printed on "seed paper" and then glued down onto the ads. The paper literally had seeds embedded in it, so you could actually pull it off and grow a plant and/or flowers out of it. Hence, their headline of "Water Brings Things to Life".

The bottles and all of the type were hand-drawn with pen and colored with watercolor. I guess I figured a water-based color solution was the most relevant, given the subject matter. Ok, now I'm thirsty... bye