Illustrations for books, advertizing and magazines.

Many of the illustrations I have drawn were for a pen-collector's magazine.

Their readership, being kind of nerdy, were interested in seeing how pens work.

I start with rough sketches...working out the possibilities

So many of the illustrations had a technical look to them. Lots of cross-sections and cut-away diagrams.
Eventually I will come up with a version that fits the bill. Kind of dull, don't you think?

Let's make it exciting by changing the scale.

That's much better.

We still see the inner parts and how they work, but we can make the drawing FUN, too.

Another way of making drawing of pens fun is to animate them.

Here's an example:

The inner workings of the Sheaffer Snorkle pen were visible for all to see in their demonstarator models which had clear plastic barrels. They reminded me of those see-through tropical fish that so often floated on the surface of my parent's aquarium. So in this case I drew them as animated creatures, twisting about eel-like on the page.

In the final drawing for the magazine, I showed them at feeding time: swimming to the ink-filled octopus.
Other published illustrations have included the ones above drawn for a book about watches. Watches are relatively similar to one another in terms of scale and overall look. Showing only half of a particular watch is going to convey most of what you need to know about that given time-piece. Even a quarter of a watch will show pretty much all one needs to know about the entire design. So rather than drawing eight individual images, I drew two.
For a chapter about waterproof watches the image above was printed as a double-page spread. The copy was printed over the ocean below the waves. ("Titanic" had just come out on the big screen, so that was the trendy theme du jour.)
Including text within an image is one of my trademark devices.

This image was used in a one-page article about traveling with loaded inky fountain pens which oftem leak in airplanes.

The copy of the text was seen on the surface of the spilled ink.

Click on the image to see a closeup.

Enough of pens?

Let's move to "Paradise on Earth", shall we?

For a series of note-cards, one client asked me to capture on a tiny piece of paper the overwhelming beauty of her vast gardens.

(Panic attack)

I'm not much for growing things. The only thing growing at my place is something in the crisper drawer of my refrigerator, so I was rather at a loss to know how to illustrate something so foreign to me as a formal landscaped garden. Yet she felt confidant that I'd do fine.

I followed her about the landscape and listened to what she said about everything. Not just about this flower or that, but also about the physical work required to make that flower flourish. She was as interested in thel artful presentation of the finished garden as well as "art of gardening" (getting one's hands dirty).

That's all I needed to know do the first drawing!

The Tea House

Sitting in the quiet shade of the tea house I picked up the pencil. The two passions of which she spoke were represented right in front of me. In the corner of the tea house were a pair of potted plants upon pedestals. One a formal decorative pot (and plant), seeming almost on stage bowing to the audience. The other, waiting in the wings, was a terra-cotta "working" pot. Through one entrance you see the formal garden with a fountain and sculpture off in the distance, The other portal heads off into the much "wilder" looking rear of that garden. My pencil lines mimic the mood: they are more refined and gentle on the formal "side", more aggressive on the "wild side".

Residents of the tea house were some lucky sparrows. I included their nest in the drawing though artistic license allowed me to position it directly above the bronze sculpture in the distance. That was my little joke. The client mentioned that one of the jobs her husband had was keeping the statue clean of all bird droppings.

A different style of rendering was used in the illustration of her herb garden. Within a grid of paving stones were plots of land each containing an ingredient of a recipe.

Drawing the plants with a defined sharp line, rather than pencil, seemed more "spicy" to me. There was a texture I could "taste" in ink which I couldn't get in the pencil drawing.

Another view of one of her gardens was captured in this purple panorama.

Click on it to see a detail of the Japanese Iris.

Here's a few examples of instructional illustrations.
A selection of new wine labels is shown here.
Every year I draw the official portrait of my building's "Trash Queen" This year Polly, or treasurer, appeared on currency.
Corsets and dresses were drawn in soft pencil for a designer's fashion catalogue.
Famed author and mathematician, Colin Adams, asked me to illustrate his book of short stories which all were mathematically based. Each story was written in a different style, so I drew the illustrations in as many styles as I could. My favorite was the vase drawing above. A terra cotta Klein Bottle is shown as shape for the vase painting illustrating the story about Pathagoras discovering the theorem which bears his name.

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