Un-Blogged in 2011

'Boxer 1'  (Linoleum Block Print)

TOM - As 2011 comes to a close, I thought this would be a good opportunity to post some stuff that I haven't gotten a chance to post here on the blog. So often, I'm posting new work and process pics on my Facebook and Twitter, that I don't get the chance to post everything here. So, here's a quick look at some pieces that were un-blogged in 2011, hope you dig 'em!

'Boxer 2'  (Linoleum Block Print)

                                             Illustration for Bicycle Times

                                              Cover for Philadelphia City Paper

                                   Illustration about Mayweather/Ortiz fight. 

                                 'Sonny Rollins' (Linoleum Block Print w/ Photoshop)

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True Story

TOM - I recently created a short, three page comic about a family I encountered riding the train a couple years ago. We never spoke, and I never saw them again, but for some reason, I never forgot them. It was one of those unexpected and positive experiences that sort of catch you off guard. Just from simply sitting across from them and observing, they changed the way I viewed parenthood and family life. Read the full comic here.

The original art from this comic is now up at LaunchPad in Brooklyn, NY, along with some very talented cartoonists work. Check it out if you're in the area. Thanks for reading!

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Some Stuff From My Sketchbook

TOM - I haven't posted any sketchbook stuff in a long time, so before the year is out, here's a small look at my current sketchbook. Hope you dig it!

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New Print And New Art Show!

TOM- Things have been really busy around here lately and I'm lovin' it! I've been cooking up a ton of new images for my upcoming art show entitled, 'We From Here'. The show is going to be a multi-media event, with all artwork provided by me and a musical component provided by my friends, Brian Bonz and Mike Strandberg. It's going to be a celebration of being Brooklyn natives as well as artists.

Last week I had a great time in the silkscreen studio, printing up a brand new image for the show. It's a five color print and it measures roughly 19x26ish. I'm really happy with the way this turned out, I think it really embodies an overall vibe of Brooklyn, at least through my eyes. Gotta love the hoop earrings!
 

Here are some detail shots of the print. These will be for sale( along with many other new prints) the night of the show, Dec. 2nd in Brooklyn. If you're not in the NY area, or can't make the night of the show, I am selling these online. If you're interested, please contact me at contact@thomaspitilli.com

If you are in NY on Dec. 2nd, then you should come to this, it's going to be a blast! All the info is on the flyer above. Hope to see you there, I think I'm going to wear a tie!

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OC Weekly Cover

TOM - Last month, I was contacted by Laila over at OC Weekly to illustrate a cover for them. I always enjoy working with OC Weekly and I was super excited to do my first cover for their paper. The story was a sad one, about a mother being deported back to Mexico, leaving her teenaged children to live alone in the United States and their journey through that experience.

There was a lot of emotion in this story and I knew I wanted to depict that sense of separation and longing as best I could through my illustration. Laila and I discussed some ideas over the phone, then I hit the drawing board and sketched some stuff up, here's what I came up with:

I was really excited to take any one of these to finals, felt pretty strongly about all of them actually. I liked the idea of somehow representing 'America' somehow as a character in the image, so I tried several attempts at that which I think forced me into a more graphic approach. Pretty obvious as to which one they chose:

And here's a look at the final art. I'm super happy with the way it came out, hope you are too!

I've been real busy lately, cookin' up a lot of new work, be sure to follow me on twitter and facebook for all the up to date happenings!

Thanks for reading!

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MoogFest 2011 Print

"Moog Mountain"
18x24 Three-Color Screen Print (Including Metallic Silver)
Edition of 75. Signed & Numbered

 JAMES - I was psyched to once again be asked to create a screenprint for the SYNTH art show, as part of this past weekend's MoogFest here in Asheville. My piece, titled "Moog Mountain", is a 3-color screen print, featuring Metallic Silver ink and is now available on my website for $25 each: www.jamesflames.com/store/MoogMountain.html 

Here's a shot of the print on display at the SYNTH art show:

And here are a few more photos:

Detail Photo

Detail Photo

Get one now - $25 each: www.jamesflames.com/store/MoogMountain.html

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Dallas Observer Cover

TOM - A couple weeks ago, I was contacted by Alexander Flores of Dallas Observer to illustrate a cover for them featuring a whole bunch of accomplished Dallas musicians, including Erykah Badu and Rhett Miller of the Old 97's. It was a super cool gig and I was glad to finally get to work with Alex. Unfortunately, during the  production of this cover, my computer crashed! Thankfully though, I was able to borrow a friends computer for the scanning and coloring of the final image and everything went to press right on time, whew!

Here's a look at some of the process that went into making this cover.

This is an early sketch idea. The cover called for pretty much, just a group shot, so placement and composition became my main focus. I wanted to have Erykah up front, she's probably the most well known of the bunch and also the most visually interesting ( I was really looking forward to drawing her fro!)

Then we decided on this one, I really liked the idea of having Erykah's hair somehow incorporated in the logo itself, as if the logo were etched out of it. After a few failed attempts on Erykahs likeness, I had to scrap that angle all together  it and try again. I think a big part of growing as an illustrator is being able to admit  when something just isn't working and being able to scrap it and start again, no matter how much time you already put in. If it's not working, it's not working.

I was simultaneously working on some interior illustrations of all the musicians and thought that version of Erykah would work much better on the cover. A bit more iconic and less of a full frontal shot. It worked!

Got to work on all the other characters and the assembly begun!

Trough several revisions and a broken computer, I'm very happy with the way it all came together.

Here's a quick look at another interior illustration I did of singer/songwriter, Sarah Jaffe.

Thanks for reading, more covers on the way!

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Jet Propulsion - San Diego's Night & Day Magazine Cover

JAMES - I was asked to illustrate another cover for the San Diego Union Tribune's "Night & Day" magazine. It's always great working with their talented art director Peter Nguyen, and when he mentioned the lead story was about the upcoming air show, my imagination started to soar - both figuratively and literally.

The main attraction at the air show are the Blue Angels of the U.S. Navy, who have some of the damn coolest looking jets of all time. So along with the cool paint jobs, I wanted to just convey speed - lots and lots of speed. So I started sketching like a wild man, sitting there making "shhoooommm" and "whoooossshhh" noises like a five year old. Serious fun.

Here's a close-up of the final cover artwork:

And here's a look at the final printed cover put together by the design team over at Night & Day. It's still available for the next couple of days in San Diego.

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Dia de los Muertos

TOM - Here is my contribution to a group show I was asked to be a part of, the theme being 'Dia De Los Muertos'. This piece along with several other artists work will be on display in Portland, OR at The Screaming Sky Gallery September 29 - October 23rd. If you're in the area, go check out the opening this Thursday!

Here's a quick look at my process for creating this piece. As always, it started off with a pretty rough sketch. I knew I wanted some sort of graffiti theme and after skateboarding all summer, I wanted to incorporate a skateboard in the mix somehow. Anyway, there was enough info in this sketch for me to get excited and want to add to more to it.

I brought it to a level of detail that I was happy with in the inking stage. I had fun trying to mimic the 'spray paint' look of the skull. I used dry brush to long continuous strokes, much like someone who's actually spray painting might approach it. The pattern on her sweater was inspired by patterns I've seen in an old Mexican pin-up book, Mexican art continues to blow my mind and inspire me.

Above is the flyer for the show with some of the details. If you're interested, the color print of this piece will be for sale at the gallery and the original black and white drawing will also be for sale(just not on display).

Thanks for reading!

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Seattle Met Fall Arts Preview

TOM- I recently got a chance to work together again with Seattle Met for their September issue. I was asked to illustrate the full page opening for their Fall Arts Preview. It was a really cool gig and fun to work on. The AD, Chris left it really open and gave me pretty much free reign on coming up with an idea, which I was really excited about. The motive was to somehow incorporate all the areas of the arts that the preview would cover; dance, fine arts, music, literature.

They originally had a rough concept of a ballerina, which I thought was pretty interesting and decided to try and play with that idea in my sketching process. Above is some of my brainstorming, trying to keep it as feminine as possible, but also graphic and exciting enough for a full page opener.

They decided to go with the third sketch, which I was pretty excited to draw. Here's a look at that idea a little more fleshed out, brought to a rough pencil stage.

I tightened the pencils up a bit more and inked it with a #2 synthetic brush on Bristol.  My old and trusty electric guitar served as my model for this particular guitar (and most electric guitars that I draw).

And here's a look at how it all came together in the end. Chris hooked it up with a nice type treatment and the print version came out looking really great. Always great working with Seattle Met.

Don't let this post fool you, Fall is not here yet! We still got a couple weeks left of summer, enjoy it! As always, thanks for reading.

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OC Weekly

TOM - Last week I was contacted by OC Weekly to illustrate their feature story about the city council's layoff of nearly one third of the city employees. It's causing a bit of a stir in Costa Mesa and the Orange County Employees Association has called the move drastic and unnecessary.
In the sketching process, I wanted to try and capture the emotion and tension between the two sides. Two of the sketches also play with the 'pink slip' metaphor, I thought that might be a nice graphic and symbolic approach. In the end, both the art director and I were leaning towards the second sketch and the last, we ultimately went with the last one.

I was hoping that the idea of the council man trying to flick the city workers off of his agenda gets the sentiment across. Above is the ink drawing on bristol which I used a #2 brush to ink with. I knew I wanted to play around with color and mood, so I kept the drawing pretty open.

And here's the final image. After much trial and error with the coloring, I finally settled on this one, hoping that it get's the right mood and drama across.
And here's a little spot I did to accompany the article. You can read the article here. Thanks to Laila for the assignment, always fun working with the OC Weekly.

Thanks for reading. I know I've been a bit silent on the blog lately, but it's been a very eventful summer and there's a bunch of new things I can't wait to share, so stay tuned!

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Juxtapoz!

TOM- Super psyched to see a little write up about my work on Juxtapoz! Check it out here: http://www.juxtapoz.chttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifom/Illustration/monday-mornings

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Willamette Week Cover

TOM - Here's a cover I illustrated for this week's issue of Willamette Week in Portland. The cover story is about this crazy, rich dude who, to make a long story short, has a record of assaulting people and wound up terrorizing his next door neighbor with all sorts of dramatic displays of aggression. The article included accounts of him erecting a large fence, flashing bright lights into his neighbors window while blasting conservative talk radio and chopping down his pool house to then set fire to it. This shit would never fly in New York, just sayin'.

I decided to try and get all those things across in the sketches, feeling that fire, chainsaws and fences were all good elements to making a really dramatic cover. Although the art director and myself were excited about them, the editor felt in might be a little too over the top and 'comicy'. We settled on something a little more simple, while trying to keep it menacing; a creepy neighbor peering over his fence with a suggestion of flashing lights in the background.

Here's a little look at the drawing process and the progression into the colors. I drew the figure and the fence separately so that I could have the option of where to place the fence in the final.

This is what the final art looked like before the logo and text were added.

We also used a variation as an interior opening for the story.

If you're in Portland, go pick up a copy! Thanks for reading!

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