↑ The New Yorker's Review of the film, Spotlight.
↑ Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, and Brian d’Arcy James play Boston Globe reporters in Tom McCarthy’s film.
Art Direction: Chris Curry.
Mission Impossible
↑ The New Yorker's Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation film review.
↑ Unused Sketches.
Art direction: Chris Curry.
Zadie Smith Fiction
This week, the drawing below accompanied Zadie Smith's new fiction, "Permission to enter" in the New Yorker. As a fan of hers, this was a joy to work on.
The final art as it was printed.
One of many alternate concept sketches.
Art Direction: Chris Curry
"The Proxy Marriage"
I recently had the pleasure of working on an illustration to accompany a lovely short fiction by Maile Meloy in the New Yorker.
The editor, Chris Curry, sent me the layout above and suggested a dyptic with two separate scenes.
I typically sketch until I have two or three decent concepts or until the sun is rising and I can't keep my eyes open. The three sketches above begun as very loose pencil sketches which I scanned and further developed in photoshop with a wacom tablet. After submitting these concepts, Chris suggested trying an eight-panel composition...
Sketch approved! One minor tweak to the first panel...
I usually do a quick digital color study before I jump into the final.
At this point, I turn the black lines of my color sketch faint yellow and print out the sketch on a tabloid sized piece of bristol board. The yellow ink, barley visible in the photo above, serves as my "pencils." I still use traditional media for inking: real brushes, nibs, and India ink. As you can see above, a fair amount of editing takes place during this stage as well.
Next, the color gets added back in digitally, and, presto.
New Yorker "Spots"
Regular readers of the New Yorker will be familiar with the weekly "spots:" a series of small, usually black and white illustrations scattered throughout the text of the entire issue. This has always been one of my favorite features of the magazine, so I was honored to when editor Françoise Mouly asked me to take a stab at it. She suggested the theme of hoodies in memory of Trayvon Martin.
