Life post and A Drawing A Day

This summer seems to have been a busy one considering I really don't have any posts since May! Shame on me.  To summarize the past few months, here's a list of things that happened:

1. I went to my first ICON!!!! ICON is The Illustration Conference that's held every two years for illustrators.  It is also attended by art directors, sequential artists, designers of various sorts, and other creatives.  The conference also had a craft/trade fair/bazaar type event at which I had a table and exhibited my portfolio and had some goodies for sale.  It was a great experience: I learned a ton and met some awesome and inspirational folks, including Matt Groening, John Hendrix, and Marcellus Hall.  Here are pictures of my booth and the opening party with creature costumes by Big Nazo and music by the What Cheer? Brigade, and a drawing of the Big Nazo dudes, and a drawing (with notes) of John Hendrix (president of ICON7) and Jennifer Daniel 1/2 of the MCs (she's also a designer/director at Bloomberg).

2. I moved from the Garden State of New Jersey to the Empire State of New York.

3. In July I got hired by Trader Joe's as a crew member and sign artist.

4. I went to two back to back weddings, with one more to go in Sept, bringing the total to 5 attending weddings.  I also came to the realization that I have hit that age where many people I know are getting engaged or married. Being an illustrator/creative person makes giving gifts easy ;)

5. Completed an editorial illustration for Drew Magazine that will be published this fall.

6. Today I started a second job at Paper Source!

Having said all that, I did have time to draw, just not that much time to actually post any work to ye olde blog. I am working on a new promo piece so stay tuned. I also started a new mini daily project called A Drawing A Day, which was inspired by illustrator Veronica Lawlor's book One Drawing A Day.  The purpose of the daily drawing is to keep me drawing while life happens and when larger projects are slow to finish and I want instant gratification for having completed a drawing, even if it is only 2.5 by 2.3 inches big.

Here are the first two drawings.   Pen and ink on illustration board, 2.5 x 3.5 inches

Carlo Stanga

I'm really digging the work of Carlo Stanga.  He is an Italian illustrator based in Milan.  I love the cityscapes, the level of detail in his illustrations is insane but not in a bad way; it's sort of like Where's Waldo.  There's so much to look at and the colors work really well too.
Click here to visit his website.
These are three of my favorites.

Tom Gauld

I recently came across the work of Tom Gauld.  He is an illustrator and cartoonist based in London whose style reminds me a bit of Edward Gorey's - it's simple, quirky, the textures created are great and work is also hilarious, just like Gorey's.  While I was perusing his website, I came across this very amusing alphabet. 

Influence Map

1. Quentin Blake - His illustrations for all the Roald Dahl books are the first that I can remember connecting with as a kid. i was always drawn to the loose, almost frantic quality of his work.  and im pretty sure that he's the reason i draw the way i do.

2. Lynn Pauley - recent influence - she does reportage illustration.

3. Peter Reynolds - interning at his company, Fablevision in Boston, is where I realized I wanted to really pursue illustration.

4. Nicolas Marlet - Love the line work in his drawings: delicate, precise, but still loose.

5. Peter Arkle - relatively recent influence - also reportage illustrator.  It's fun to his his notes about the characters/places in his drawings - it adds some quirky bits of information otherwise lost to the viewer.

6. Paul Hogarth - One of the first illustrators to really make the reportage style acceptable in commercial work.  The level of detail in his illus is incredible.

7. Richard Scarry - loved the details in his work as a kid and still do.

8. Paul Madonna - reportage illustrator.

9. Egon Schiele - He was one of the first artists I was exposed to in high school whose work I really liked and whose style I thought I had some similarities.

10. Gary Larson - Larson's humor is just great and science related.  I love science; so what's not to love?! Some of my under grad attempts at comics have similar humor.

11. Bill Watterson - Calvin and Hobbes are super expressive, the content is hilarious, and Watterson's compositions on the larger comics or single frame images work really well and make good use of the assigned space.

12. Alexander Calder - quirky lines in his work. good stuff.