august 30, 2012

an illustration for Chris Colin’s hilarious New York Times piece on debt, stalking and Miranda July (sort of.)


and chris, cause you missed it:

August 27, 2012

Now a limited edition print!



Maria Popova of Brainpickings and I got together to make a high-quality, large-scale print of Susan Sontag On Love, Illustrated quotes from Susan Sontag’s diaries. (originally published here.)
Signed, limited edition of 100 - available here.

August 26, 2012

A lesson in Pu-erh from tea guy Sebastian Beckwith.

August 22, 2012

August 22, 2012

Pen & Ink: Kyle Kinane.

August 16, 2012

drawn for peter orner’s essay in the new york times about housing and community in san francisco.

August 15, 2012

Opening tonight - Pier 70 in Its Own Words.




Here's a really nice preview of the show written by Anna Pulley:

Despite being one of the oldest San Francisco neighborhoods, Dogpatch, the half-residential, half-industrial enclave along the eastern waterfront, is also one that is perpetually undergoing transition. Escaping both the 1906 earthquake and fires that ravaged the city and the dot-com development boom, Dogpatch remains an enigmatic locale to most.

Forest City, creators of the 5M Project, and artist Wendy MacNaughton aim to change that on August 15 with "Pier 70: In Its Own Words," a visual telling of the Dogpatch's history, community, and identity. MacNaughton, despite living next door in Potrero Hill, said before undertaking the project that she knew little about the neighborhood's history, and how pivitol it had been in making S.F. what it is today. Her popular documentary series, Meanwhile, which visually and textually profiles different S.F. communities (and is being made into a book by Chronicle), is an intimate, touching, and witty unveiling of our city's beautifully fractured tendencies. Complementing MacNaughton's art are local wine and food from Dogpatch producers, as well as live music.

"Pier 70: In Its Own Words" starts August 15 at 6 p.m. (and continues through Sept. 9) at Dogpatch WineWorks, 2455 Third St. (at 22nd St.), S.F. Admission is free.

August 3, 2012. pt. 2

Maria Popova (@brainpicker) gathered some of Susan Sontag's thoughts on love from her diaries and asked me to hand-letter and illustrate them. It was a fun collaboration - make sure to read the accompanying piece that maria wrote on Brainpickings. (you can see the image larger there, too.)

August 3, 2012

Robin Sloan wrote a fantastic piece on The Wiggle for the New York Times and they asked me to draw something to go with it. instead of just posting the final image, i thought i'd share the process behind it.

1. i turned in three rough sketched concepts to the art director Alexandra Zsigmond (who's great) and we chose this one.


2. the editorial department nixed the middle finger so i replaced it with the raised "WTF" arms, and drew the whole thing out.


3. Alexandra thought the arms took away from the wiggle punch line, and the layout was too vertical, so we nixed the arms completely, added some color, and corrected my grammar.


and that's that.

you can see how it looks/reads in the layout here.
this series about SF in the NY Times will be running for the next month and i'm doing all the illustrations, so check back for more.

July 27, 2012

the Taiwanese art & design magazine DPI did a story on my work and featured drawings of some friends - i'm looking at you, isaac fitzgerald, thao nguyen, jad abumrad, black jet bakery, blue bottle & benders...





(drawings originally done for awesome pubs like edible sf, bold italic & the rumpus. photos by Klea McKenna for In The Make.)

July 24, 2012

The Seven Banal Sins. (a collaboration with @ohheygreat.)

July 13, 2012

Monday - Friday, 6am - 10am, Civic Center Bart. Robert and Ginger (who is usually lying on her back.) This and more installed at Interesection for the Arts. Story coming soon on the Rumpus.

July 12, 2012 (pt.2)

Working on a story about Street Musicians... coming soon.

July 12, 2012

a new pen and ink is up, starring the super dmitry samarov.

July 9, 2012

i'm in the process of moving this blog over to tumblr. i'll be double posting for a while but eventually i'll figure out how to reroute this to my tumblr - hopefully i will be able to carry over all the history. otherwise, it will be here as an archive and i'll just direct visitors here over there. but for now, here you go.

July 5, 2012

a new Pen & Ink is up today.

June 21, 2012

For a Forbes Magazine / DELL article on keeping your brain fit.

June 19, 2012

A new story is up on Pen & Ink.

June 18, 2012

June 14, 2012

I drew a road trip to Death Valley for AFAR magazine - and john givens made a soundscape of the journey. Check it all out here.

June 13, 2012

Nabisco wrote me back. Here's the original letter and package, and their response:

June 12, 2012

A new Pen & Ink.

June 11, 2012

The wonderful Klea and Nikki of In The Make came over for a studio visit. The result: lots of photos and oversharing.

June 5, 2012

Life cycle of a devil dog at Black Jet Baking Company.

May 31, 2012

a new story on Pen & Ink.

 

May 30, 2012

new tattoo/story up on Pen & Ink.
want to include yours? submit a photo and your story here.

May 28, 2012

Caroline evaded the coastguard under the Golden Gate Bridge and took this photo from her kayak.

May 25, 2012

Isaac Fitzgerald and i launched Pen & Ink - a collection of illustrated tattoos and the stories behind them. It's a collaboration between Isaac, myself and everyone who has a tattoo and a story - hopefully you.  Please check out the site and submit yours.

May 23, 2012

I made these pencils. If you would like one please email me your address and and I'll send it to you. They're free. Please note they have my name on them, but you can whittle that off if you like.

UPDATE: Sorry, i've run out of pencils.  If you asked for one before 9.03pmPST on March 24, 2012, you should get a pencil in the mail soon. If you didn't ask for one in time, don't worry. I'm sure there will be more.

May 21, 2012

May 18, 2012

Just turned in the final illustrations for Lost Cat, A True Story of Love, Desperation and GPS Technology, due out in 2013 from Bloomsbury, written by phenomenal author Caroline Paul, who i'm also lucky to call my partner.

May 17, 2012

Last week i was in new york for Behance's annual 99% Conference, an event that brings together some of today's sharpest minds to discuss how ideas become reality. I was commissioned to document/draw the conference and use the resulting text and images to create a story and a mount an exhibit at The Ace Hotel in new york.  The show is up at the Ace till June 6, so if you are in new york check it out.  and you can see the story here.

the whole thing was done in 9 days. 2 days to draw/document, 2 days to paint and scan, 3 days to install and 2 days to make the story.

here's what my hotel room looked like when i was creating work for the show:

here's what the show looks like: 

"Guts, Grit and Getting *&!# Done" 

An illustrated inventory of Making Ideas Happen from illustrator wendy macnaughton based on her observations, insights and takeaways from Behance's annual 99% conference.

(including quotes, tweets and eavesdroppings from conference speakers and attendees.)

the color side of the room - all the work it takes to make sh*t happen.

over the doorway - "the world is waiting for your gift. give it to them with both barrels." 

- james victore 

the black and white side of the room - three drawings - distillations of all the info - including one venn (guts), one drawing that took four pens to make (grit) and falling down = getting up upside down (life.)

 detail - paula scher: (photo by maria popova)

detail - alexis madrigal:

and again, you can see the story here.

Also, here is a little interview i did with 99%'s super duper director, Jocelyn Glei.