The Hobbit

Oh, well what do we have here...

They're rather old, but I'm not above dragging these out of the art school archive to cash in on whatever pop-culture relevance I can.

Chapter head illustrations for The Hobbit

The Wood-Sprite

Since all of my new client work is currently either in progress or under wraps for now, here's a sneak preview of a current side-project I'm working on.

The first in a series of illustrations based on the short stories of Vladimir Nabokov, this is 'The Wood-Sprite'.

Henry James

A few months ago I had the honor of participating in Coralie Bickford-Smith's Penguin English Library series. The series is a set of 100 paperback classics, each with an illustrated pattern on the cover, inspired by Coralie's template for the uber-successful clothbound classics.

Here are my two covers for the American-born Henry James and his aristocratic shenanigans:

Special thanks to Coralie for the ideal assignment and wonderful art direction.

Little Book of Lettering

Last year I was asked by Emily Gregory to contribute some lettering work for a new book project she was working on. Today she's announced The Little Book of Lettering is now available for pre-order from Chronicle Books. A lot of great contemporary artists contributed work, so it looks like this is going to be a pretty nifty little collection.

If you're in the UK, you can get it from Bloomsbury under the title Reinventing Lettering.

Storm Cats

Bleak Expectations

Constable & Robinson recently contacted me to design the upcoming hardcover adaptation of Mark Evans' Bleak Expectations – a Radio 4 comedy series which parodies the work of Charles Dickens. The story pokes fun at all the familiar stereotypes: asylum-ridden mothers, pitiful orphans, cruel headmasters, and so on.

Anyway, the book has plenty of material to work with, and the art director Sarah Castleton was very encouraging about making the cover both beautiful and funny. I did a few sketches utilizing classic motifs of victorian design, with a comedic twist and plenty of little details to look for:



The dark blue sketch was approved, with the decision to quiet down the gold decorations a bit.



And there you have it.

From the Vault

I was digging through my old files today, and found a few illustrations that were done 2-3 years ago.
None of them have ever seen the light of day...until now!
Enjoy:

Arabian Nights

I forgot to add this to yesterday's update: Tales of the Arabian Nights jacket for Castle Books.