Monday, July 30, 2012

The Power of Mom!



Right on the heels of my last piece are two more illustrations for this past weekend's Boston Globe magazine! This time I was honored to be illustrating the cover again, as well as an accompanying page inside.

The theme of both illustrations was the power that moms wield through online networking (the cover is focused on the power, and the inside illo is focused on the connectivity). It's easier than ever for moms to connect and share tips, info, advice, and warnings on a variety of sites, blogs, and forums that are catered to them. From the article, "While a mom’s opinions once only stretched so far — to her local play group or over the backyard fence — now they are amplified and shot around the world with a keystroke. And if you make a mom mad, the power of her network is a force to be reckoned with." You can read the rest of the article here!

The cover I made is a deliberate riff on Eugene Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. I remembered the painting from my college art history class partly because it was the first time I learned about triangular compositions!

The revolutionary spirit also seemed to fit the article, though the editorial staff didn't want any moms with mean faces, so my ladies are a little more lighthearted instead of murderous.

There was limited time for both illustrations so the inside illo is more simplified out of necessity, but because the colors for both are all in the same families I think they fit together, and I enjoyed working in both styles.
Thanks again to my great AD Ryan Huddle for the assignment, and the fun layout he created inside!

Sketches for the cover:

Sketches for the inside illo:

Monday, July 23, 2012

Swifter, Higher, Stronger...Sexier?


An illustration in this past weekend's Boston Globe Magazine about the uniforms for female Olympians. Some sport leaders want to create "a more female aesthetic", i.e. sex appeal, to draw in more crowds and attention for female sports--but this can come at the cost of athlete practicality and performance. This year boxing and badminton started requiring all female competitors to wear skirts, but later dropped the rule after bad press and complaints from athletes. Female beach volleyball players have always been required to wear bikinis (and some feel most comfortable in them), but the association recently changed their dress code to allow for shorts and t-shirts too.

Yes, aesthetics can have a powerful effect--drawing a bikini'd butt will almost certainly direct attention to the article-- but I think the article's writer, Shira Springer, sums up the issue nicely "The Games should showcase the world’s best athletes at the peak of their abilities, and that means team uniforms should be about practicality and performance, not eye candy."
Hear hear!

Sketches:




Thanks again to AD Ryan Huddle! You can read the rest of Shira's article here.