Even Clowns Get Depressed... who knew?

I recently launched my updated web site look, and in so doing dropped some older sample images out and added in some never seen before samples.

The image posted above is of a book cover design employing my simple ink drawing of a depressed circus clown sitting on the edge of the Big Top circus ring. It really is nothing more than a minimal pen doodle with a couple dots of pink watercolor on the cheeks. (I cannot find the info on which publishing client it was originally created for) I remember it was a final stage comp using my art, but the project was terminated because it was decided in the final hour that the title was not going to be published... So, I am sure the author of circus blues became quite blue, too.

Recession Drawings #34 & #35 (...And the Beating Goes On)

Hmmmm...Did VP Joe Biden say: "The Summer of Recovery" a short while back? Was he talking about this summer? Maybe he meant to say: "The Summer of Drudgery?" or possibly, "A Bummer of a Recovery?"

I was just wondering, because things are slow all over and getting slower... housing sales and prices continue to drop. Construction is down. New jobs are not materializing, salaries are stagnant, etc... Some summer. Gee, maybe the "Fall of Fabulousness" is next!

So, I came up with the doodle of the globe as a snail, barely chugging along through the summer of recovery. Also an image of a red chair with a shadow of four legs, but the chair has one leg missing. -a loose concept suggesting stability is not what it used to be, and we are trying to perceive that things are as they used to be before. In other words, 4 is the new 3. Click here to see some previous "recession" doodles. And here...

My Web Site Has a New Look -check out stevensalerno.com

from "vector/characters" portfolio

from "the good life" portfolio section

view of the home page

detail from site background and logo

If you have not been to my main illustration web site, stevensalerno.com in a while, take a look... you'll notice a big change. It seems every four years I really want to make a significant renovation to my sites, and I usually do, developing the design myself and hiring a designer/programmer to implement the site. This time it took about six years though before I got around to it!

And it was not a renovation but a complete change: I switched over to a design/hosting company, livebooks.com, and this time I did not create a new site design per se, but worked within a customization of one of their multitude of template variations.This site conveniently has an internal editing administration feature so I can simple drag & drop in new items, take old images out, rename portfolios, modify image descriptions and menu words, etc... all in a blink. Very convenient for a non-code writing guy who is simply too busy making images all the time. (I had used livebooks.com to develop my golf art prints web site, sasgolf.com -which is how I came to decide to also use them for my illustration web site as well. 

This new site design is very simple, less bells & whistles compared to my previous all-flash site... but it gets the job done of simply displaying my illustration samples quite nicely.

Quick, What Color is the Elephant? (answer below)

A: The elephant is blue. 

A while ago I had completed another project for Mudpuppy, the terrific-stuff-for-kids web site, for everything from books to puzzles, games, and more. The project I worked with them on was a First Puzzle item, and then this most recent project was Flash Cards for helping tots learn colors and shapes.

I finally received my complimentary shipment of the designed, boxed product... and as usual with Mudpuppy, it looks great. See an earlier post about this same project here.

Mathlete or Maestro? Pick Your (Brain) Side!

See all my portfolio samples at stevensalerno.com

Recently I worked with art director Chuck Beard of Pittsburgh Magazine on a spread image for an article about which side a person's core personality is wired, the right-side or left-side of the brain. This specific article is a guide to the various majors offered by colleges and universities ...and where these areas of study fall within the brain-side spectrum.

With this illustration I moved a bit away from my usual whimsy-based style... mostly because of the manner I rendered the large head in the image, which is more traditionally structured in an academic sense, plus because of the photographic-based little icons seen within the brain halves. Mixing photographic elements within my illustration is a tact I never use, but it seemed called for here because of the quasi-serious nature of the article, so I just went with it. I posted the basic image without the icons (bottom) and the full version with the icons and other graphic elements I created in position, which is how the art director used it in his page design (top).

The image was created with black (and white) gouache and brush on a gray paper, then all the color and various little graphic elements were created in Photoshop in layers. All the icons with the brain are object photo vignettes also enhanced within Photoshop.

I guess for all those who are left AND right brained equally combined in one personality, they would have to enter through the mouth in this illustration!

Move Over Mr. Clean

See all my portfolio samples at stevensalerno.com                                                                                   
I have completed a couple of projects for a certain client, who was also testing out the possibility of a new business venture, and hired me to play around with a new logo concept for it.

The character I created was, of course, derived from the name of the animal in the company name, OX... so it was just a matter of executing it in a graphic manner that seemed to match the tone that was expressed to me by the client. I was looking to be very simple yet provide enough detail in the line expression to give the character some life and animation. In fact, the logo will animate if the project sees the light of day... shaking his horns, stomping the ground with his hooves and snorting steam!

Since there is not yet any font treatment associated with the new business logo, for the purposes of placing my art, I also created the dummy type treatment seen here, so the art could begin to mesh with the logo in total... though my vision of the font's look is just temporary.

This image was created in Adobe Illustrator (vector-based) and just a matter of drawing the black line defining the ox character, then filling in a simple color wash. It seems the client liked the red version, but I prefer the blue version as I feel it better relates to the "steam" aspect within the service.
Who knows, maybe someday we'll all see this tough little ox being promoted on TV.

Want a BIG apartment in Manhattan? (bring your Brinks truck)

See all my portfolio samples at stevensalerno.com 

I created a large 1/2 page illustration for the cover page of the New York Times Sunday Real Estate section (6/27/10 issue date) ... depicting a baby in a buggy, and along the side of the buggy is a blueprint floor plan of a large 4 bedroom apartment. 

(see top image of the printed newspaper page. Below that is the final illustration art as submitted to the art director.... and the bottom image is a shot of the piece in progress on my drawing table. The line drawing of the baby and the buggy and the little characters at the bottom were done with brush and black gouache on watercolor paper. The interior blue color of the buggy was also gouache and painted separately, then layered in with Photoshop. The background light blue building shapes were also created in Photoshop, as well and the white lines of the apartment diagram on the side of the buggy.) 

The article comments on the fact that in recent years there's been a surge of 3 to 7 bedroom apartments making their way into the domain marketplace, to keep up with the growing demand for large apartments from the people with children and who no longer want to relocate to the suburbs once their family size calls for more space. I gave the baby a pleased countenance, no doubt from having a very big apartment to romp around in... Maybe I should have also placed a silver spoon in the baby's mouth, as 3 to 7 bedroom apartments range from $2.5 million to $7 million (and up!) Can you say, "Holy Foyer, Batman!?"

I had worked with the Real Estate section art director, Carol Dietz, years ago, but in a different section of the newspaper... I am so glad she called me for this fun assignment. I had not worked for the NYTimes in quite awhile, so it's "good to be back"...

I first began creating drawings for The New York Times back in 1980 (yes, before fax machines, before personal computers, before e-mail...) back in the days when the art director paraphrased the assignment's article to you over the phone so you could get started on the sketch stage. Then you actually went to their office at the (old) Times Building in Times Square on West 45th Street, was screened through security, and first showed your sketch to the art director who then disappeared for a while to show the sketch to the editors... Then the same process was repeated again when you came back a day or two later delivering the completed final art, and handing it over so they could make a photostat of it and paste a B&W print of the art onto the layout mechanical... yes, with glue! When I look back on it, I now realize why I could eat countless cheeseburgers and pizza and never gain an ounce over 135 lbs.... because I was running all over the city delivering sketches and final art every day of the week!

In 1980 I was a skinny kid just out of art school one year, a graduate of Parsons School of Design in NYC, where I had studied under J.C. Suares. J.C. (who had previously been the NYTimes Op Ed page art director and was currently the AD at New York Magazine) gave me my first illustration assignments at New York Magazine the week after I graduated from design school. He then also introduced me to Jerelle Kraus who was the reigning AD of the Op Ed page. She liked my work and I somehow managed to regularly contribute drawings to the Op Ed page and Letters to the Editor page from 1980 through about 1985. A couple years ago in 2008, Jerelle released her book, "All the Art That's Fit to Print, And Some That Wasn't" recounting her many years as the Op Ed page art director, including all the run-ins with the editors, as well as showcasing many of the artists who contributed to the page... including the likes of Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers, Brad Holland, etc... and me! (see my previous post on Jerelle's book) 

During those early years and in subsequent years I created drawings for the Op Ed page, but also created illustrations appearing in many of the NY Times other sections, too. The Book Review, Business page, Sunday Magazine, etc... but by the end of the 1990's I was only doing maybe one illustration a year for the NYTimes. From about 2000 through 2007 my major newspaper client was The Wall Street Journal, as I was the regular illustrator for their Finicky Traveler column. 

For the past few years I have been busy with my usual projects in advertising, children's books, magazines, packaging, and some animation character imaging for the web, etc... but have not really had a consistent gig with a major newspaper... so this recent New York Times Sunday Real Estate project hopefully will begin a renewed contact with the newspaper again! I am looking forward to the possibility.