political illustrations

I'm delivering this one in the morning to Peter, owner of the Bipartisan, the newest cafe in my neighborhood. Peter came up to me while I was working on an illustration in his cafe over a year ago and hired me to do an illustration of famous leaders eating pie together. This is my second piece for the cafe, with a different subject: famous assassins. It's not my usual style, but I enjoyed working more realistically with cross-hatching, and the piece fits in perfectly with the propaganda and other political art that decorates the Bipartisan Cafe.

Great stumptown coffee, too, and pie, if you are ever in need of something sweet in the Mt. Tabor neighborhood, SE Portland.

koll guitars labels have arrived

This was a fun job that came up through an article written about my work in the Portland Tribune. Saul Koll builds guitars and was interested in changing the certificate pasted inside his instruments to something more akin to a limited edition print. We are doing three of these in all. Although there are things I really like about the color version, we ended up going with the neutral version because it was important for him to have it look like a certificate. The image depicts an anthropomorphic band saw cutting out a guitar.

metro site coming... soon

I've been working with Brad and Eli on the redesign of Metro's website. Looking at the work of Chris Silas Neil, I've been inspired to represent the figure more literally. This illustration captures something of the style the website is taking as we compile a series of spot illustrations the color of coffee.

Willamette Week

I just finished the Willamette Week cover for this week's issue, my first cover for them.
I thought I'd post some drafts of the issue since it is the second largest paper in Oregon, which is something. This one has a certain alt-weekly flair to it.

Without getting into the article itself, I'm including some drafts that speak to the process of review and working with an Art Director. Maggie is really great and fun to work with, so this was very enjoyable.

New Studio under Construction

Construction is expected to be final by the end of this summer on the Tinder Studio project. Basically, this has been the process of turning a free-standing structure from 1927 into a modern creative space. The picture above is my attempt to accurately measure what would become two triangle windows above the entrance.

The space at the moment now has plumbing, a loft, five new skylights and four windows, a three panel glass door, wall heating unit and wiring for two track lighting units. A fine space to make a mess in, certainly.

excess for eyes

My friend CK asked me to put together a flyer for his band's upcoming show. Their music reminds me of Fugazi in its dynamic sound shifting and ecstatic noise offering. This is basically a line drawing with ballpoint pen, based a little more closely on photos than I usually work. In the spirit of good illustration, my style changed to reflect the music it represents.

Bright Red Paper Demo

The design for the Bright Red Paper demo (2007) was based on the translucent office sticker sheet I found. The version shown is the unfolded version, which I'm including because it conveys the sense of color play better than just showing the cover would. The band used this for their invitation to the New Music West festival in Vancouver, B.C.