Sketches | Chris Gash

Posts Tagged ‘Sketches’

July 10th, 2012

July roundup

I love the NYT Book Review. I love that I feel like I can try something simple and narrative and draw the whole thing in pencil and have it be OK. This was just in Sunday’s paper for a book called Beautiful Ruins:

This was a spot for Corporate Knights magazine, art directed by the inimitable Pete Ryan. I was so pleased to do this and be a part of the all-star illustrator lineup in this (and every) issue. The article was about preparedness, unpreparedness and resiliency with the effects of climate change. Here is the final and a few leftovers:

This was a quickie for The Wall Street Journal about executives who refuse to leave their post even when most of the board is voting against them:

Here is a tiny spot for Hanley Wood about sales reps acting as project managers:

This opener for American Medical News was about considering the office culture when hiring new staff:

Here is a half-page for Seattle Magazine for an article about genetically modified foods. The test tube image was what they chose and I also finished up one of the rejects just because I liked it:

And here are the past few weeks of NYTimes Biz Day columns – Business travelers want upgrades from crowded coach seats, the follow-up to upgrades column, air rage, and the debate about what to do when a family or couple asks you to move so they can sit together:

Here is a Science Times illustration from a few weeks ago about how cockroaches can fling themselves under a ledge so quickly that they seem to disappear:

You can see all the Science Times illustrations, the rejected sketches and spots from the 8 year archive at drawingscience.wordpress.com.

Thanks to Nicholas, Pete and Jack, Dan, Allison, Jennifer, Sue, Joe and Phyllis, and Peter!

November 7th, 2011

Thinking, Fast and Slow

I’m sure illustrators everywhere can relate to this title…

The AD at Bloomberg Businessweek said the book is basically about how our cognitive processes are flawed, or rather at odds, between the fast moving parts of our brain and the slow moving parts. Makes sense. And the job went along without a hitch, right up to the final:

That is, until the next day when I was on my way to the NYTimes to pick something up and I get a call that there is too much yellow on the page. That is always one of my biggest concerns about leaving the house. And I usually always confirm that everyone has signed off on the art before I head out. But this was the next day so I figured I was home free. Well, thanks to Soo-Jeong and Karen at the Times, who took a few moments to get me set up in a conference room where I could work, I was able to change it and get it back just in time. It was actually kind of exciting to work on the fly like that…

So here is the page that hit the newsstand today (although I think I still like the first one better):

And the rejects:

Thanks to Chandra!

September 21st, 2011

Some Biz Day picks

Here are a few of my picks from the past two months of the On the Road column in the NYTimes Biz Day…

Anger over new fees and taxes; New local taxes added to airfares and other travel costs (I was particularly happy with both of these):

Another attempt to get a ’secure traveler’ program going; Maps and apps to find food in airports:

This one was tricky. It was about TSA officers doing pat-downs on African American women with “big hair”. Any cultural issue like this is tough as an illustrator because sometimes clever can come off as flippant. Here is the final, along with two of the sketches that didn’t make it:

That concludes the Times roundup. Over the next two weeks I’ll be posting work from AARP, The Wall Street Journal, Popular Mechanics, Travel + Leisure, Inc., and a recent cover for the Miami Herald. Stay tuned!

August 2nd, 2011

Odds and Ends

Ever wonder, “Hey, what is tiptopgash?” Well, wonder no more. It’s where I post half-thunk ideas and anything that isn’t work-work, like this rejected sketch that I finished anyway:

Or this doodle-mation:

Click here if you’d like to check it out!

As a cover artist for the Dallas Observer, I was interviewed last week for their culture blog, which you can read here. It’s also a great magazine in general, so take a look.

And if you have a paranormal enthusiast nerd friend in the Garden State, perhaps they would like a print of this illustration from New Jersey Monthly, available now in my Imagekind shop:

June 1st, 2011

Newish work

I try to post work in a logical fashion, grouping certain jobs together in a way that makes sense – and some pieces I want to leave as top billing in the blog for more than a week, but that means some assignments end up sitting until they are off the newsstand or even downright dusty. So, before they get any older…

This was a piece for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine about the adjunct situation at most universities – overworked and underpaid. I wanted the figures to be almost identical except for their props since the idea is that these professors are equally qualified:

This spot for Golf Digest was for a column about how to calm your first tee jitters:

And this one for Remodeling Magazine was for an article on a builder who finishes projects in foreclosed homes:

This opener for American Medical News was for a feature about the vast information available to doctors via electronic medical records:

And one of my favorite art directors is at the Wall Street Journal now and I did this spot for her about trail apps for hikers (I included a couple of the rejects that I also liked):

And finally, here is a full page I did in September. Happily, I am not that far behind on posting but the job got held for nearly six months before ultimately getting killed. The story was about the benefits of Kegel exercises for women – needless to say I had to do a little dance on this one, but after all that the whole article went down anyway. Ah well…

May 17th, 2011

Painkiller foods

Dian at AARP is a real ace. At the beginning of this job, we had a nice chat about working with illustrators and how she likes to challenge an artist with hand-lettering or a portrait or anything they may not typically do to see if she can get something interesting and fresh. She really values the process and is a wonderful art director to work with.

The assignment was for a feature about foods with pain-killing properties – a full page opener, a typographic treatment for the hed, and seven bullet icons for each of the foods. The article was originally titled “Painkillers in Your Pantry”, here are the sketches I sent for the full-page and the illustrated headline:

I got the go-ahead on one of the sketches for the opener and the can labels for the headline. While working on the final for the full-page, the title of the article was changed to “Painkillers on Your Plate”, which nixed the idea of the cans and required new sketches by the next morning. After a little back and forth, we decided to illustrate “Plate” and use a typeface for the rest of the text. Here is the final art for “Plate”:

I should mention here that this feature was going in the 70+ edition and it was decided after everything was completed that it might be difficult to read (demographically speaking). The spread finally ran as follows:

That was a little bit of a letdown but Dian designed a really powerful opening spread and it looked great in print. And here are the icons:

This feature is in the current issue of AARP The Magazine.

Chris Gash

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