New Jersey Power List 2007

Over at PoliticsNJ, they've published their New Jersey Power List for 2007. I did the caricatures for the top 10 influential individuals on the list. According to the site:

"In developing our list, we eliminated anyone who currently holds elected office, as well as the Judiciary. We also eliminated the living former Governors, United States Senators, and Bill Gormley: we believe that all former statewide officeholders remain highly influential and well respected. This is an Insiders List. We looked at policy makers, party leaders, fundraisers, lobbyists, labor unions, businesses, and associations and have assembled the ultimate list of New Jerseyans with clout, with an impact on politics and government in the Garden State.."

Check out the power list here.

Wilderness Society illustration

This is an illustration in today's Philadelphia Inquirer that was part of the commentary by Thomas Gilbert about the eastern U.S. losing forests to development. Gilbert is the director of eastern forest conservation with the Wilderness Society. If you'd like to read the commentary, click here.

Smoking Ban Celebrates First Birthday

Here's an illustration I did for today's Philadelphia Inquirer that accompanied a commentary by Fred Jacobs, about the passing of the first year of New Jersey's smoking ban. Jacobs is the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. I would post a link to the story, but apparently it isn't on the Inquirer's website.

Here's the sketch:

Illustration in today's Philadelphia Inquirer

Here's an illustration I did to accompany a commentary in today's Philadelphia Inquirer by John Haigis, who serves on the Darby Borough Historical Commission and is the webmaster of The Darby History website.

The article is about the lessons we can learn about slavery from an archeological dig going on at the President's House in Philadelphia. It discusses one of Washington's slaves, named Hercules, who was considered a well-off slave. He was allowed to sell leftover food, earning about $200 a year. With that money he bought clothing, a watch, buckles for his shoes and even a cane.

If you're interested in reading the article, then go check it out here.

Here are some additional ideas I came up with before my editor went with the final one. Thought you might find them interesting:

Philadelphia Inquirer illustration

Here's an illustration of mine that's running alongside an editorial by Jonathan Meade, the executive director of the Highlands Coalition, in today's Philadelphia Inquirer.

If you're interesed in reading the article, then go check it out here.

Here's the sketch:

Illustration for at the Shore

Sorry for the delay in posting. This week has been really busy for me. Between everything that's going on with the Delaware Art Museum, the Delaware Press Association, plus all of my normal free-lance stuff, I'm fortunate that my head hasn't exploded!

So I thought I'd post something different. I've had a lot of illustration work recently that I'll get around to posting one of these days. This particular one is a cover for At the Shore, a New Jersey magazine around Atlantic and Ocean City. They wanted me to come up with a "New Yorker" style cover for their Spring issue, so here are some of my initial sketches.

My initial thought was to have a funny cover to show spring, like a bear that has just woken up from hibernation just chilling on the beach. I also thought of a Robin, and how funny it might be to have a family of them on the beach, since they're not beach dwellers. This led to the intial sketch that the editor liked, an out-of-place Robin on the beach with a bunch of shorebirds

I finalized the idea, which ended up being the Robin sitting on a shovel to help out the composition. The editor liked it, so I did a color rough...

...and finished it up for him. Below is the final artwork with the logo for the magazine. Let me know what you think.

American Sign Language illustration

I'll have some more stuff to post tomorrow, but for today here's an illustration I did to accompany a story written by Antonio Prado at the Community News. To view the layout of my hands, click here.

If you'd like to read Antonio's story, click here.

(Note: You much have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the newspaper. If you don't, download it here.