I recently completed this batch of fun illustrations for Orange Coast Magazine out in Orange County, California. These were for the magazine’s summer beach guide, and the series of articles offered lots of tips for how to achieve “Beach Bliss”, such as:

• proper surfing etiquette
• how to score a fire pit
• how to ensure parking karma
• how to change at your car
• how to deal with dirty beach bathrooms

The lifeguard drawing ran with an open letter from a lifeguard to parents about some of the things to keep in mind when bringing your kids to the beach. Art direction by Mindy Benham.

This illustration ran in The New York Times on Sunday, February 21, 2010. The article (written by Steven McElroy ) describes various strategies that theater directors are employing to try and curb the persistent problem of audience members' cellphones ringing during performances.

This article by Jason A. Heidemann was part of a package looking back at the history of Chicago's Second City legendary comedy ensemble as it celebrates it's 50th anniversary this year. While many of the group's alumni have gone on to become legends of comedy, just as many went on to live less famous lives. Art direction by Mike Novak.

This illustration ran in The New York Times on October 25th on the cover of the Metro section (New York edition). The essay by Alana Joblin Ain describes her experience being suspended from shopping at the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn, NY after falling behind on her required work requirement. The Co-op has a reputation for high quality local organic foods, at great prices. However the author of this essay highlights some of the difficulties in keeping up your end of the membership bargain, and the shameful consequences that follow. See the accompanying spot illustrations here.

These illustrations ran in The New York Times on October 25th on the cover story for the Metro section (New York edition). The essay by Alana Joblin Ain describes her experience being suspended from shopping at the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn, NY after falling behind on her required work requirement. The Co-op has a reputation for high quality local organic foods, at great prices. However the author of this essay highlights some of the difficulties in keeping up your end of the membership bargain, and the shameful consequences that follow. These spots capture some of the scenes around the co-op, and an anecdote mentioned the essay. See the cover image here.

Here's an illo for The New York Times that I busted out last week for their Sunday regional section. Since I recently became a huge fan of "Top Chef", I was excited to illustrate Jodi Rudoren's fun essay on how there ought to be a "Home Cooks" edition of the popular cooking show. Quickfire and elimination challenges that would make the TV contestants wither go on every day in a house full of hungry family members. Note the Dad playing the part of the poor-man's Tom Colicchio at the dinner table. Art direction by the always-pleasant Richard Weigand.

As another new year begins, a grandmother reflects upon her past New Years Eves and how they changed as her family grew.

This is an illo for The New York Times' "The City" section. Eric Anthamatten's essay is about the frequent and common disorientation than every New Yorker has felt when emerging from the subway, perhaps at an unfamiliar station, and not being able to situate themselves on the city grid. Art direction by Richard Weigand.

This is my first illo for the Miami Herald, which ran on the cover of the Business Monday section. Apparently the usually brisk furniture market in Miami has been hit by the spate of home foreclosures, and is reeling from the downturn. I always enjoy cramming a variety of colorful objects across a page. Art direction by Chris Melchiondo. Click to see a larger version

This is a piece I did for The New York Times this week. It is running in Sunday's "The City" section (of the New York edition). The author Thomas R. Pryor waxes nostalgic about a day in 1961 when his father and uncles took him to see the Yankees play the Red Sox. One of his uncles knew Luis Arroyo, the pitcher, and the author got lifted over the fence to hang out in the bullpen, and was awestruck by the pinstriped giants. Art direction by the always agreeable Richard Weigand.

This is from a series of illos for a feature in Time Out Chicago called "Worst Case Scenarios" . The editors came up with a list of harrowing situations, and asked various Chicago-based experts their advice on how to keep your cool and survive these stressful calamities. This drawing was for the advice on what to do when you are fired.

This is from a series of illos for a feature in Time Out Chicago called "Worst Case Scenarios" . The editors came up with a list of harrowing situations, and asked various Chicago-based experts their advice on how to keep your cool and survive these stressful calamities. This drawing was for the advice on what to do when your brakes fail.

This is from a series of illos for a feature in Time Out Chicago called "Worst Case Scenarios" . The editors came up with a list of harrowing situations, and asked various Chicago-based experts their advice on how to keep your cool and survive these stressful calamities. This drawing was for the advice for the readers who occasionally enjoy the herb, and are surprised with a drug test at work.

This is from a series of illos for a feature in Time Out Chicago called "Worst Case Scenarios" . The editors came up with a list of harrowing situations, and asked various Chicago-based experts their advice on how to keep your cool and survive these stressful calamities. This drawing was for the advice on what to do when the ATM eats your bank card.

These are from a series of illos for a feature in Time Out Chicago called "Worst Case Scenarios" . The editors came up with a list of harrowing situations, and asked various Chicago-based experts their advice on how to keep your cool and survive these stressful calamities. Clockwise from upper-left: "A bat was trapped in my house", "I got doored on my bike", "My apartment was burgled" and "The condom broke".

I recently had the pleasure of collaborating with the musical duo Rara Avis (Terri Hron and Robbert van Hulzen) on the illustration and design for their new album, One Fell Swoop. They are based in Amsterdam, and make strange, mysterious music that spans many centuries and many cultures. You will hear dissonant medieval sounds coming from a hand-carved recorder, traditional South Indian passages, a home made toobophone and electronic rhythms to complete the collage. The title of their album is from a great line in MacBeth: "All the pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop?" So I ran with that dark imagery for the cover. I also had the fun task of designing the whole package for the CD case. Here's a picture of the finished CD.

This is a poster I did for the band Your Vegas. They originally hail from Leeds, UK and recently settled in NYC. Universal Records (their label) sent them out for their first gig in L.A. this week. To commemorate the show, the sharp marketing folks at Uni (thanks Frank!) decided to commission a limited edition poster. Anytime I get to go nuts with glowing lights and a dusky sky, counts as a fun project.

This is another illo for Publisher's Weekly 'Soapbox' column. The author, Mary Murphy writes about Jessica Seinfeld's book, "Deceptively Delicious". Seinfeld's book gives tips for busy parents on how to sneak pureed veggies into kid-friendly dishes, without them detecting the spinach you've surreptitiously included in the brownies. Murphy writes about how the culinary deception wasn't so successful with her kids.

Drawn while watching "Chocolat" on TV.

This fun story story was about Blackberry etiquette, for Las Vegas Life magazine. The writer outlined some of the various rules of when it's socially acceptable to be checking your Blackberry, and when it definitely is not.

This is a cover for the The American Society for Engineering Education's flagship magazine PRISM. The ASEE is trying to parse all of the positions of the various '08 presidential candidates to determine their commitment to furthering science, technology, engineering and math in education. At this point, it appears to be a bit of a chance game.

This is a full-page interior illo for the The American Society for Engineering Education's flagship magazine PRISM. The ASEE is trying to parse all of the positions of the various '08 presidential candidates to determine their commitment to furthering science, technology, engineering and math in education. At this point, it appears to be a bit of a chance game.

Here's a bunch of drawings that I had fun doing for a new client, Read Magazine (published by Reader's Digest). The story, titled "Twist of Fate" by Steven Frank is about a teenage girl that ends up spending a weekend in the library's rare books room reading a dusty old first edition of Dickens' "Oliver Twist", to avoid flunking a class. She snoozes off and finds herself magically transported into the story, and interacting with all of the characters. The only way home is to write herself out of the story, Dickens himself tells her. The sequence of the drawings is clockwise from the top left image. Click here for a larger version.

The story for this month's Soapbox in Publisher's Weekly was a pretty fascinating one. Ben Cheever (son of John Cheever) writes about two seemingly unrelated topics: running and seeking the truth. Yet they come together in a most interesting way in his life. Having just written a book about running ("Strides"), Cheever talks about how in his family of runners, running together lead to moments of surprising honesty because "the brain doesn't get enough oxygen to support a falsehood". I was struck by the mention of his family's deepest secret, his father's bisexuality (thus the closet imagery) which lead to the idea for the illustration.

This is another illo for the "Soapbox" column in Publisher's Weekly. Author Steve Weinberg laments the fact that once you are a bona fide published writer, you immediately become besieged by people looking to get their manuscripts (of varying degrees of quality) published. He writes: "When my telephone rings, I almost always check the caller ID before I answer. If the number and name look unfamiliar, I assume that the caller probably is (a) a prison inmate, or (b) a would-be author seeking advice about publishing a book."

This illo for Publisher's Weekly was for a story about a book with a tricky title. Robert I. Sutton's "The No Asshole Rule" proved difficult to discuss on public airwaves, and the way the interviewers approached the title varied greatly. An NPR producer killed the interview after a producer got squeamish, and anything-goes satellite radio actually asked him to mention the title frequently as they figured their audience would enjoy hearing it on their radios.

One of my favorite things about the contributing to my collaborative drawing site invisibleman, is that when it's my day to post, and I don't have anything lying around that's obviously post-worthy, it forces me into the lab to play around and experiment...I don't do it enough, but it always leads to interesting things (though not necessarily this piece).

This illustration is the opener for the annual 'Paying for College' package, and the team at the magazine picked a fun "Texas Hold 'em" theme for this year's section. Kids have many factors to 'gamble' when trying to figure out how to pay for college.

This illustration was part of the annual 'Paying for College' package. Following rampant scandalous problems in the school loan industry, colleges are now telling students that they are on their own when choosing a lender.

This was part of U.S. News & World Report annual 'Saving for College' package. The story focused on 529 savings plans that allow you to tuck away money for your kid when they are still in diapers.