Saturday, August 06, 2011

Some time away...

July was a crazy month with clients, but I did get to take a 10-day vacation. However, as most self-employed people can attest, vacations often mean working to get ahead, (I left town with my eyes barely able to remain open, needing many late nights to meet deadlines), and then afterward, working long hours to catch up. But as always, it was all well worth it.

We arrived home from our vacation to Kiawah Island, South Carolina, two weeks ago today. It was fabulous; we all had fun at the incredible beach and resort, and and we had a wonderful celebration of my parents' 50th anniversary. My family flew into Charleston, meeting my brother and his family, along with my parents, (all coming from Illinois.) We danced, partied, had a mini replica wedding cake made, and also presented them with a 24" X 36" drawing I created, (a humorous take of their honeymoon at Niagara Falls, surrounded by congratulatory messages from many of their oldest friends.) --All in all, a great time spent with family, and much-needed break.

My parents, celebrating on their anniversary.






My niece, daughter and nephew clowning around with me in Kiawah Island...





Now, back to regular life & work. There still remains a great deal of corporate client work and two children's books to illustrate over this coming month. 

A sampling of things recently on the drawing board: (Click to enlarge)




A birthday commission for a Georgetown University professor and (semi-retired) psychologist

A cartoon about Google CEO's battles with Facebook -- for Hubspot's blog

Monthly cartoon for Inductive Automation, a California IT firm

A political cartoon commission for a newspaper in Texas--about the debt crisis.

A monthly cartoon for the Michigan Association of Secondary Schools

One of several financial/political cartoons done for Merk Funds recently.


A couple of marketing cartoons for CGNet, a pioneer in cloud computing.

One of many B&W first drafts for a current book illustration job.

One of three advertising pieces for Tony Pelusi, a family counseling expert in Boston.

3 comments:

  1. I love the look of the watercolor on the illustration for the family counselor. Funny too!

    I noticed the name "Zwolinsky" next to your signature in the Michigan schools cartoon. Who is that?

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  2. You have a sharp eye! That is actually "CR Zwolinski", a NY-based writer whom I have had the pleasure of working with in several capacities.

    I write the concepts and humor for the majority of my cartoons...but when it simply gets too busy to keep up, or when there are special needs, CR has helped me enormously with her gifted writing abilities. In this case, CR researches issues and keeps up on the Michigan State government and policies affecting schools, while writing subject-specific humor.

    I first worked with her nearly five years ago when she hired me to illustrate two children's cartoon features that she was writing for newspapers sent to elementary and middle schools nationally. A while after that ended, I hired her to help me with the monthly Michigan Schools Assoc. feature.

    Recently she has also assisted with other projects, including concepts & art for a greeting card company, lending her poetic flair to those cards requiring a more feminine or softer tone.

    In addition to being very talented colleague, she has also become also a good friend.

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  3. I am so envious of your artistic / cartooning talent. I'm a wanna be cartoonist that can do a couple of things but not on the same caliber as yourself. I guess I should keep my day job... Oh wait, I'm retired... :D

    Have you ever done cartoon work for someone's book before? Technical manuals using cartoons to explain how to do things?

    Stay safe,

    Mike Schlags
    Santa Barbara, CA
    mschlags@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete

Let me know if I can answer a question.