a work in progress...

Here's something I'm working on for the "waitress" theme currently being explored at the gum or mints blog. I'll post the progress here and the final piece there.

Old School...

This was a "dummy" of a magazine, created in May of '73 for a school assignment. At the time I was influenced by the art nouveau approach, Peter Max, Andy Warhol and everything else that floated by. And, of course The Beatles.

When I was given the assignment I immediately thought of creating a music magazine and plunged into the layout stage.

In those pre-Mac, dark days everything had to be created by hand and in position. Color prints were too costly, and color copiers didn't exist. So I worked on acetates, inking with rapidographs and painting color behind them for all of the article illustrations.

The cover was created on bond paper with rapidograph pen, color inks and Letraset rub-on type. The masthead was hand lettered.I can't remember how long this took, I'm thinking at least a week.

What I do remember is having a lot of fun producing it.

Something old, something blue...

Editorial sample, 1978. Ink, watercolor, paper & type.

Searching for a character...

There's a waitress at Billy's Deli in Glendale named Evelyn, she's amazingly funny and sweet, and she's from the Bronx. I've been trying to sketch her from memory, but it seems like the only thing I'm getting right is her dialogue.
I'll have to bring my sketchpad to Billy's and order a brisket sandwich.

Art from the Crypt...

These go way back to the early '70s. I was working a lot in pen & ink and color pencils on illustration board. I was also devouring any Will Eisner art I could find. Eisner's still a big influence on my work today.