Virus Hunters

For the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The feature was on these two scientists that have created a method of seeking out and identifying viruses. I've attached a thumbnail that I used for this. I generally start at this loose state before tightening it up for the sketch, and final. The art director wanted it to feel a bit dark and moody, and had the headline, "Virus Hunters". I'm a little bit more biased towards the second sketch with the dots. But maybe I can still use that for something...

Beasts! pt. 2

Hello, long time no see.

The Nuckelavee (Nuckalavee) is my humble contribution to the Beasts book for Fantagraphics (along with Josh's Tritons). My first couple sketches were mostly about having fun with the description of the creature: resembles a centaur, amphibious, skinless, huge head, breathes the plague, hates freshwater... I would post them, but they're indeciferable to anyone but me.

After some scribbling, I traded my ballpoint pen for a brushpen and came up with this sketch, which I like for its energy and fat (phat) linework...


...but ended up working more with washes and textures for the final.


Here's a detail of the party in the background.

Radical Craft

Hello,

A couple of months ago I was asked to draw at Art Center College's annual design conference, Radical Craft. The conference featured great minds from all over the world and from different disciplines talking about their respective fields, which ranged from space exploration to industrial design to book publishing, and everything in-between. This is a selection of some of the sketches I did over the course of the three-day event. Some highlights of the event were chatting it up with Stefan Sagmeister, John Hockenberry, and watching the bizarre and wonderful creations of uber-genius Theo Jansen.



This is a sketchbook page from my seat during the openning of the conference. I tend to write a lot of notes to myself about what's going on rather than focus all my attention on the lines I'm putting down. The event was was quite well-attended and during the opening night, anxiety was high.





This is a page I tried to continuously update throughout the event. Each speaker was limited to 20 minutes of speaking time, and I would try first and foremost to capture a simplified likeness of his or her before attempting a more editorialized drawing of what was going on. I was unable to draw everyone who spoke, but managed to draw the vast majority of them. Speed was definitely an issue, and fatigue in my hand started up early in the event but the excitement of what was going on kept me enthusiastically turning through pages of my sketchbook.




The first day of the event, Art Center illustration chair Ann Field pulled me aside and started introducing me to some of the people giving talks and suggesting that I draw their portrait. The first person I did this with was famed actor and magician Ricky Jay. One of his many talents as a performance artist is throwing playing cards, which he demonstrated to the room of delighted conference-goers. The cartoon on the right depicts him thowing cards into the side of a watermelon, which really did happen. I suspect a degree of this feat is illusionistic, but his card-throwing skills are very real, and presumably very dangerous




Here is the second person who sat for a portrait, rock-star graphic designer Stefan "I'm a graphic designer" Sagmeister. I admit I wasn't very familiar with his work before I met him, but I quickly became acquainted with it soon after meeting him. What sets Stefan apart from other designers is his ideas, not the way he moves type around.

Stefan is one of the most interesting people I've ever met. One of the first things he told me when we met was "I've ran out of books to read," to which I bursted out laughing (you have to admit it's a funny statement to make). Later in the conference I debated with him briefly about what makes a great designer. I fancy myself right about most things, especially my opinions, but I would have to say that his thoughts were quite clear and ultimately the folly of logic in the matter was mine (you'll never get me to admit that again), though I must stipulate that it was due to a linguistical error on my part. I could write forever about this but I'll spare you the interesting details. Email me if you would like to hear about it.

The drawing on the right side was my in-the-moment interpretation of a statement made by one of the speakers about the future of automobiles leading into his thoughts on energy consumption.





This page heralds two portraits done towards the end of the conference. To the left is the MC of the event, John Hockenberry, who is one of the smartest, funniest, most eloquent people I've ever met. He was able to bring most of the speakers out of their shells if they were shy, and had a knack of being able to summarize what any particular speaker had said in a way that was easy for a layman to understand (I'll admit that most of rocket science goes over my head). I struggled with this potrait quite a bit, I think because I admired him too much to be able to really "see" him, which is a problem I'll come across occasionally with likeness.

To the right is Art Center president Richard Koshalek, who allowed me to draw his portrait while he took a break from shaking hands. He did a potrait of me while I did this one, but unfortunately I didn't get a copy of it.




These two drawings are of McSweeney's founder Dave Eggers, who's child-like creativity is as inspiring as it is fascinating. This drawing was done on the final day of the conference when I was beginning to lose the ability to hold a pencil, and the interest and focus on those talking was starting to oust my desire to document the event.




Soon I'll be posting more of those sketchbook pages that I did for the event, as well as giving a list of all those who spoke at the event. It really was a great honor to have been able to take part in.

--frank