I had a great time illustrating this upcoming article for Utah Adventure Journal on the appeal of entering mountain bike races just for the Burning Man type parties. I tried to include as many of the colorful characters from the article as I could, like the gorilla, the metal heads, and even a Taiko drummer. The Viking and hula hoop girls were my own contribution, just to add some variety.
Click on the images below to get a closer look at everybody.
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My family has never been a fan of the flowery, mushy greeting cards, preferring instead irreverence, silliness, or sarcasm. Even my wife, whose tastes lean a little more towards the flowery and sweet, understands my family well enough to know that those types of cards are totally inappropriate for us. Unfortunately, we’ve noticed an odd downward trend among greeting cards over the past several years. For some reason, they seem to have drifted away from cards that are actually funny in favor of uniform blandness. Every year it gets harder to find a good greeting card, but this year’s search for a Mother’s Day card was the worst. We went to three different stores and found nothing. My wife finally got fed up and told me I should just make one myself, so I did. I may not win any awards, or have greeting card companies beating down my door to hire me, but my mom had a good laugh and seemed to genuinely enjoy getting an original homemade card.
Did this fun little sketch awhile back of local donut shop, Spudnuts, with a few friends from the Charlottesville Urban Sketchers group. Little did I know that this local icon had been sold and was soon to shut its doors forever. For years, Spudnuts was a favorite among the locals and students at UVA. Happily, someone saw my sketch online and ordered a signed print. The original is part of my travel sketchbook and too small for framing, so I scanned it into Photoshop. I was able to enlarge it to 9×13 and give it a nice vignette. Thanks to T&N Printing for doing such a great job!
Featured prints of my illustration work are available in my shop. Prints of anything in my portfolio available upon request.
This illustration was for an article on the joys of collecting outdoor gear stickers to put all over your favorite outdoor vehicle. (In this case, the ever-popular Subaru Outback.) As much as I love stickers, I don’t think I could ever put one on my car! I like putting them on my sketchbook so I can tell them apart from each other, but that’s about as far as I’m willing to go.
My latest illustration for Ascent is about not treating one’s ski gear too preciously. You can check out the full article here.
Short Pump Bump was featured on local news in Richmond when author Angie Miles went to an elementary school for a class reading. It was the first of many school visits to come, I’m sure!
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In related news, Short Pump Bump was also mentioned in the winter edition of the SCBWI Mid-Atlantic newsletter, The Highlighter.
I had the wonderful opportunity to take things in a very different direction for this month’s Utah Adventure Journal. The article is about the apparent contrast between the author’s inner sci-fi nerd (guilty pleasures!) and his love for athletic outdoor activities like skiing, mountain biking, kayaking, etc. One of the things he narrates in the story is of how, when he was a teenager, he and his friend filmed their own sci-fi epic, Rusty Hoot. Since they had no budget for things like props or costumes, they just used things they had on hand- old ski gear, a rubber gorilla mask, a jester’s hat. I thought it would be really fun to imagine what the movie poster would look like if this were a big-budget movie from a major studio and that the cheesy costumes and props were somehow important to the story. The result reminds me of a cross between Planet of the Apes and Spaceballs.
Author Angie Miles is featured on the cover of this month’s issue of Fifty Plus for an article on the release of our new children’s book, Short Pump Bump. You can check out the article online at issue.com. Short Pump Bump is currently available online via amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and belleislebooks.com. School visits and other events can be arranged at shortpumpbump.com, where you can also purchase copies signed by the author. I am currently working on adding a shop to my site where you can purchase copies signed by me, along with a bookmark and art print of one of the poems from the book, Opportunity Time. Be sure to check back soon for updates!
Recent editorial illustration for Ascent Backcountry Snow Journal. This was for an article on the types of weather patterns that make for bad or even dangerous skiing. In it, the author fantasizes about founding a government agency that would spare no expense in making sure that winter mountains are brought to optimum skiing potential.
Recent illustration for Utah Adventure Journal. The article is about how most people who go to Utah for a job only plan on staying there for a few years before moving on. However, the ones who are into skiing usually end up staying for all the awesome skiing Utah has to offer.
