Some New Work
Before I lose momentum
Sorry for disappearing for 2 weeks, I was extremely late on my second deadline for my graphic novel and am still a couple of days away from hitting it. However, I’m letting myself out of graphic novel jail to share a few new pieces with you + some older work that was published recently.
Fee: $1000
Sketches due: December 11th (2023)
Finals: December 22nd.
This was for 2 images for Yankee Magazine’s March/April issue for a piece about Mud season which I had never heard of (being from the land of everything is a little wet all the time). The fee was for 2 illustrations, a lede and an inline. The inline was possibly going to be a spot so I included a sketch that was spot-illustrationy (the boots).
All the specific bugs are mentioned in the story. They picked the sketch with the reflection in the gross puddle and the muddy boots outside the warmly lit cabin. The latter might appear in another edition of “Not Getting Past the Ugly Phase”.
This is how the finals turned out, delivered a few days late on December 26th.
Fee: $825
Sketches due: December 7th
Finals: December 15th.
This was my last job of 2023 and I was operating on maximum burnout. The piece was about crying in front of your kids which sounds like a rich topic but I feel like I was really really trying to come up with absolutely any concept that had any genuine charm. I actually really like the image of the woman crying behind the door and might try to use it in the future, though it solves the problem of this specific piece best.
click to see sketches in full
my art director Jennifer picked the image of the little girl between the two big eyes (the image with the door was my favourite!).
This is what the final looked like, I was trying something different because I was sick of how my work looked like.
Fee: $500
Sketches due: March 6th
Finals: March 15th.
This was for the next installment of Nina’s column and was about her love of poetry and reading and how it was connected to her daughters’ love of their surroundings. The piece was a lot about Nina’s love of romantic poetry and I was very tempted to draw on some pre-raphaelite imagery of said poems. + Obviously wanted to include an option of Nina reading since drawing people reading is my #1 favourite subject matter.
My art director Bear liked the image with the stars best. I have drawn Nina with her daughters a lot so that image, though not my favorite, fits into the set of pieces for the column best. This is what the final looked like:
Washington Post: Child Labour
Fee: $800
Sketches due: Monday, March 25 by 5pm EST
Finals: March 28 by 5pm EST
Are you surprised by how long it took to get to a topic about children going through something terrible? I am! This piece was about how various states are taking another look at their child labour laws. These were my sketches:
Only the first image, with the boy sweeping the stairs, references the “lawmaking” aspect of the story at all so I was surprised it didn’t get picked (it was my favorite) but the art director said the one with the shadow of the kids was the quickest read! This is what my final looked like:
Business Insider
Fee: $750
Sketches due: Feb 7th
Finals: Feb 14th Mid-Day
Rebecca is my favourite art director to work with. This piece was about the “death of snow” and they wanted something moody/reflective. Weirdly I had done an illustration for a version of this topic as a personal, unpublished piece but decided not to pitch it. The angle of that was more about appreciating winters and snow while they last where as this was about noticing weather patterns that had already changed. Sketches + Old finished piece below.
Rebecca picked the sketch with the little boy in the window + photograph. This is what the final looked like!
Thanks for reading this week! This coming Sunday marks the return of my books-I-have-read content! Yikes!
