tidings of comfort and joy
When December drives the shopping on demand, I find my fa la la gets fairly fried. There are seasonal moments, though, that do bring comfort and joy. Art, music, and lights. This illustration for Portland Stage Company’s A Christmas Carol is all serene, merely hinting at the drama within. We finally saw the show on Dec. 23, and Portland felt like a parallel universe, without the snow. The silhouette of architecture repeated inside the theater, with windows ablaze. Bear with me, we couldn’t resist getting in character. Silly, I know. Dickens’ classic replays well in...
Read Morewhat the dickens
Once again, Portland Stage Company debuts another season of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens’ holiday classic written over 170 years ago. I was thrilled to create the marketing visual, back in July 2014 when Christmas felt a century away. This is a return of post I made in November of that year. They are using the illustration again; some things bear repeating, right? At the time, a new look was at hand, allowing a half-circular space for illustration. I couldn’t get the idea of ornaments out of my head, and these preliminary sketches all played a part in the final image. In...
Read MoreVeils
In Jon Robin Baitz’s introduction to More McMullans, he writes: The poster for a play is a tricky thing. It has many functions, and in order to succeed, it must meet all of them equally. It is a hybrid between an advertisement for the thing you are going to see and a psychological announcement of the show’s raison d’etre. It is the promissory note for the emotions to be evoked by the play in question. As a huge fan of James McMullan’s poster work for Lincoln Center, it’s a thrill to tackle that “tricky thing” for Portland Stage Company. Creating a...
Read Morelove lives!
Happy Valentines Day all you hotties! This is the day I wait for, full of doilies and sugar and kisses. I’ve been making valentines with a frenzy and a glue stick. I have cohorts in this activity: a table-full of valentine vixens gathered recently at the home of Mary Anne Lloyd. Bliss is a clutter of paper scraps and chocolates. Here are a coupla quickies of mine, things go faster with vintage letraset! I also made valentines at the Sweet ‘Art pop-up shop, in the company of fine illustration students from Maine College of Art! That First Friday was chock-a-block with wonderful...
Read Moresweet MECA semester
The lights are bright at Maine College of Art, where the arctic vortex is no match for my intrepid illustration students. Here’s Molly Steinmetz, drawing BAREHANDED in zero degrees, for eager students from the Levy Day School during their outing to Monument Square for a story-telling flash mob. Many students are performing outside the classroom in other ways. This is Molly’s piece for an exhibit, Crytpo-Fauna, Chimera- Flora that opens this evening at Sanctuary Tattoo in Portland, a brave nod to warm spring thoughts amidst the chill. Liz Long’s piece, In Bloom, suggests...
Read Moreisabelle stops in
Summer in Maine is a fleeting yet spectacular thing. It helps, when you’re on a deadline, to have an island outside your studio, an island that draws others into your world unexpectedly. Recently, Isabelle Dervaux knocked on my door, a famously talented illustrator visiting our neighbors across the street! I was in the midst of working on a poster for Portland Stage Company, and she wanted to take photographs. Now a photo organizer, she enjoys creating visual narratives. I showed her some of my sketches for Words By: Ira Gershwin and the Great American Songbook, in which I tried...
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