Inextricably Linked..

Dwell Illustrations

I have these 4 illustrations in the new April issue of Dwell Magazine, which should be out on newsstands in a few days. The article deals with the history and future of manufacturing. The art director let me get a little more experimental with these concepts, perhaps to help liven up the subject matter a bit. The added leeway made these illustrations a lot of fun to work on. (Thanks Brendan!)

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.

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:

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.

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..

"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

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.

Men's Journal - Chuck Yeager & Jon Voight

Here are my two most recent portraits for Men's Journal. The Chuck Yeager piece was in the last issue (January), which may still be on stands. Shaquille O'Neal is out next. Each of these portraits are appearing on the very last page of the mags, in the "Exit Interview". I especially liked Chuck's answer to the question Who's the toughest guy you know?: "In my profession, it'd be the guy who kills you."

Men's Journal - Tim Robbins

This one is in the current November issue of Men's Journal. I'm back to doing monthly portraits now, after a 2-month hiatus. I've already done portraits of Jon Voight and Chuck Yeager for the Dec. & Jan. issues, which I will post after they hit stands.

Tim Robbins = Tall

Men's Journal - Dennis Hopper

I did this one back in May, for the August issue of Men's Journal. They asked me to do portraits for the September and October issues as well, but I unfortunately had to decline because of this Key Bank campaign. I've had to say no to all other jobs that have come up since June, too. I haven't even had time to update this blog since last month! I'll be wrapping up the Key Bank job in the next couple weeks, after which I'll be able to post more updates, and take more jobs (oh, and leave my studio!). I have been squeezing in my monthly Spirit Magazine portraits, though, since I had already agreed to do them back in April. More posts soon (hopefully)..

Men's Journal & Update

I know I haven't posted in about a month. But it's not for lack of work.. quite the opposite. I'm not sure if I've ever been quite this busy. I landed a big ad campaign for Key Bank, which has me creating all of the artwork for 5 different TV spots as well as the artwork for print ads and billboards / bus stops. The artwork for the spots will be animated by a motion graphics team. And all of this work will need to be finished by mid-August. More on this job later..
So in addition to starting this job, I managed to create a portrait of Morgan Freeman (above, on stands now) and Dennis Hopper (next month's issue), another 2 portraits for Spirit Magazine (will post those later), and about 10 icons for Death & Co.'s new menu.
Also out this month, a couple illos I did for Runner's World in early May. I'll post those later too...

Institutional Investor Magazine

I did these portraits a few weeks ago for Institutional Investor Magazine. The article had to do with some sort of round table discussion involving some sort of investor types. The group portrait almost made it on the cover, but they had to run with a larger story about the tanking economy. Gee thanks, economy!

Design Ranch Illustration

Design Ranch commissioned me to do this 2/3rd spread for a magazine they design, 39th+Rainbow. The article was about the varied paths taken by students of medical schools. It talks about how some students have already had completely different careers, or raised families, before deciding to become doctors.

Business Week Illustrations

I did these two pieces over the weekend for Business Week. The issue will be on Newsstands Friday, the 14th. Here's the copy that accompanies them, if anyone's curious:

--"U.S. Carmakers care about what online game players think about autos – the gamers are an important demographic for the industry: Most live in households with at least 2 cars. And they are seen as “influencers,” with many researching vehicles online and giving advice to other potential buyers about brands of vehicles. Now a new study of these gamers shows that while the majority now own American-made cars, almost 80% are planning to buy an import for their next car – many of them in the next 12 months. Other results of the surveys: Not surprisingly, they like cars with a lot of tech (MP3 plug-ins, GPS systems, SurroundSound). Many like hybrids, too."

--"There’s a shortage of watchmakers and watch repairers in the U.S. Rolex, which has been supporting training programs for years, has just given $1 million to Oklahoma State U. for a program to train more future watch technicians.. And the American Watch Guild has just announced the Watchmaker and Technician Training Program –scholarships and apprecenticeships for disabled and other veterans."

"The Ridiculous Race" interior illos

I finished 2 more chapter headers for "The Ridiculous Race". Only 2 more to go and they'll be done..

"200 BEST ILLUSTRATORS" pages

The Lüerzer's Archive book "200 Best Illustrators Worldwide" 07/08 is now available. I got these 4 illustrations in (not including that awesome cover piece, which was done by Hanoch Piven). There's a lot of other killer work in there as well, so check it out at your local bookstore or you can buy one here.