As if I didn’t have enough work this fall, I’ve also gotten back to my illustration after abandoning pausing it for a couple of months. The kick in the pants I needed was an email I got from the Directory of Illustration, informing me that the book I’ve been paying off since April will be shipping sometime in November, which got me both excited and panicked at the same time. I don’t have a whole lot of new work to show besides the stuff I published in the book (the Alphabet Project is great, but I need to show a lot of editorial work if I want any jobs) so I’m on a crash schedule for the rest of this month to crank out some new work. I’ve got about ten non-AP pieces ready, with two more concepts waiting in the wings, so I think I’m on track to have fifteen ready by November 1.

Part of the new assignment is to do an illustration for each of Naomi Wolf’s 10 Steps to Fascism, a subject I’ve been mulling over for the last couple of months. Finding the article was a gift. The first idea came to me in a burst of inspiration, and the next two appeared pretty quickly (even if I’m having a hard time making one of them work correctly). The goal here is to have at least three solid ideas for each new assignment by the end of the year—it’s a matter of training the brain to think conceptually again, which is a lot like learning how to write with your non-dominant hand.

I also installed a fresh copy of Movable Type 4.0 on my portfolio site, and I’m going to revamp things around there a bit to make that new weblog a more integral part of the site—I’ll use it for showcasing work in progress, illustration subjects and websites, and general art subjects that don’t fit here. That should be enough to keep me busy for a while: writing here, there, as well as developing websites and (hopefully) illustrating professionally again. yikes!

Pretty ambitious, huh? I may not have the whole thing up and running by 1 November, but I intend to have something new to share that Thursday. Keep your eyes open and your fingers crossed for me.

Date posted: October 19, 2007 | Filed under art/design | Comments Off on Full Plate.

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