I am archiving these just in time– the rubber cement (widely used back in pioneer days, the 1980′s) has been eating away at these originals. They are new to this blog.

As before, in my previous RD posts, these illustrations were included in a collectible series for philatelists, known as “First Day of Issue” covers.

My drawings were used in the GOAT section (Goings On About Town). The above announcing the appearance of “Animal Logic”, a musical group consisting of Deborah Holland, Stanley Clarke and Stewart Copeland.

Announcing an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, “Pompeii”.

I was playing with a more graphic treatment on this illustration. Aside from the stipple technique, I took some pains to introduce some linear penmanship. Now, here, I’m counting on my highly erudite readers to identify this image, from a Japanese film. Can you name this flick? The actors??

It’s Annual Report time, and I thought I’d share some work I’ve done over the years for various AR projects. Above, the New York Life Building. Following are a few of the Interior Illustrations of NYLife Exec’s…

The above was produced for an Annual Report of the ThermoElectron Corp. I had to incorporate some bugs and such into the art. Can you find them all? (I knew you could.)

The above for the cover of the GATX corporation’s annual report, some years back. I did a lot of work for them. Art Direction, Sandra DuBois of Dubois Design in Chicago.

An award for two exec’s at Kennametal in Pennsylvania.

Finally, an image I like quite a bit, with a funny story attached: Although the illustration was done in full-color, the client had assumed I was doing all work on a b&w basis! I could have saved a lot of time doing this in monochrome format!

So, as a welcome respite from drawing portraits, by way of flexing our artistic wings, my team and I would often engage in some serious brainstorming and interpreting of ideas to pictorialise the articles of import.

Here are some of my contributions…

A fairly generic portrayal of some archetypal businessmen, climbing and striving, to carve out a piece of their pie. Seems quaint all these years later, in the light of Enron and their ilk. But those were much more innocent times. (Perhaps it was I who was innocent!)

The concept: investment in NASA and space technology programs are creating benefits and profits down the road. Somewhat of a foreign concept in today’s politicized environment.

As I recall, this was for a story about the proliferation of paper documents in the age (just dawning) of electronic, digital record-keeping. My drawing style was fairly graphic here, but I produced this with the same tools I use for the wall street journal portraits, or hedcuts.

Now, here is a departure, stylistically. The story was about the dreariness and frustration of night school. I had fun drawing “out of the box”. My insignia is on display, bottom right.

In the interest of total disclosure, this was not a Wall Street Journal illustration. I created this image a couple of years after I resigned from my day job at the WSJ. It was commissioned for a medical/pharmaceutical newsletter dealing with freeing the patient from addiction.

One of my favorite illustrations, this was produced while I was at the Journal, for an article I can’t for the life of me recall.

It’s rather low on concept, but high in detail!

(If you click on each image, you can get more detail)

I was wild about fanciful and elaborate graphics back then, and it’s difficult to decipher the text even when confronted with the actual art board! My influences at this time were Art Nouveau, Pre-Raphaelites (William Morris), R. Crumb, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Mervyn Peake… (probably getting too serious about this!) And, of course, the psychedelic afterglow of the times– think Yellow Submarine.

Now, I’ll break the strip down into detailed bites, so the story can unfold…

“As a Nuclear Gastronomist, Dr. Fobbe was shunned and degraded by his colleagues for his soothly sorcerous and ‘overly ambitious’ theories”

“Within a fortnight, elaborate plans were drawn up for the construction of a mechanical mega-digestor whose name would soon be upon the terrified lips of every soul (were it royalty or peasantry) in the land”   (Blusterbile!)

“Three winters found Dr. Fobbe diligently at work upon his implement of digestion”

“Yet, now, NOW all was finally in GEAR!”  …”Late one night, Fobbe might have been seen to push (fool as he was) the fatal button that unleashed this world’s most diabolical esophageal weapon!”

“And so, Blusterbile (complete with whetten appetite) now began his long and infamous career”  to be cont’d.

…But, of course, it never was

I love trees. As a youth, I climbed many. From getting my hands thoroughly resined by an easy-to-climb giant fir in a neighbor’s yard, to later scaling an elegant maple in my own backyard to read a book or merely peer down upon the world and dream, trees have framed many fond impressions in my mind.

But, they’re terribly challenging to draw!

I recently got the go-ahead to illustrate a logo for a financial group. So many leaves, so little time!

The client made a special request for my signature, as you can see.

Some years back, I had to create an image for an orange-juice ad campaign. It was quite a to-do, as the end-use was a six-foot high cardboard prop for display in supermarkets. This assignment was a bit of a departure for me— To cope with the enormity of the situation, I broke out my acrylic paints and brushes, and got to work. Producing the art at one-half of final size was different. After painting in the colors, I “inked” the final details with a combination of black acrylic and Sharpie magic marker.

I once produced a raft of tree illustrations, five in all, for another financial company. These illustrations were incredibly detailed, and this work really took a chunk of time to complete. All images were in black-and-white, but I later took the liberty to “colorize” one of them, as you’ll see…

And now, something a little different: this image was produced for an annual report some years ago, and shows a more graphic approach to the depiction of our beloved fellow-traveler and benefactor, the tree.

I’m sending the original out tomorrow, so this is a sneak-peek.

I also just completed another duet for the Drury University Semi-Annual magazine. These are also in the realm of the full-figured portrait…

The work continues… I am currently producing the next round of Market Advisor images for Worth magazine’s volume 17. These are more figure portraits of a more executive type. I’ll share them with you soon.

I came across a sheet of sketches recently, and thought I’d share these with you. I don’t recall the client, but I imagine it was a guys’ magazine that commissioned the art. In any case, I thought these sketches elegant…

Looks a bit like a bowline hitch, but, probably isn’t… those bowline’s are kind of complicated.

Sailors have a special name for just about everything. The art of tying knots is known as “marlinspike seamanship” — go figure!

Can you identify this knot? It looks like a square knot, but may be a “granny” — i.e., a wrongly tied square knot!

Hope you enjoyed these little how-to spots. More exciting illustration in future posts is coming your way.

all illustrations, Kevin Sprouls

All right, everyone, gather ’round! I’m going to show you all how I create those iconic portraits, in the style I introduced to the Wall Street Journal, still seen around the world today.

The required tools include:

a soft pencil (I actually use a lead-holder, like the old draftsmen used back in the day, HB grade lead.)

Ink for the technical fountain pens (you can use a dip pen like this, but I wouldn’t recommend it— hard to control, and messy!)

and you’ll need one of these (pictured is an eraser known as a “pink pearl”— I prefer the kneaded rubber type, which is superior.) A fine, high-quality paintbrush and some white designer’s gouache will take care of any “adjustments” which might be necessary.

Many of my clients send photos to work with that, I must say, can be challenging. The following illustrates one case of a recently produced portrait. Step one, The Client sends me the photograph. It looks like this:

Not great, but it has just enough detail to work with. Step two, get the image into photoshop, and convert to grey, size image to my liking, and crop.

Step three, I print out the greyscale image, and transfer the photo’s information onto illustration board by tracing on the photo. The resulting contour drawing is like a map for me to follow, as I “ink” the finished product.

Everything’s done by hand, one mark of the pen at a time. Once the portrait is inked, the pencil lines get erased, and I’m ready to “touch up” any visual issues with the paint brush. And the final result…

This is a large image, to show detail. Below, the portrait as it might be used on the web or in print.

    I hope you enjoyed my tutorial. I understand that the folks over at the WSJ use a slightly different process to get their hedcuts into the paper, but the hallmark style remains the same, Picturing Business.

More on food, drink, and the illustrations pertaining to such. The above is an image I produced for Toth Design in Boston, as in Beantown. I spent a few years doing illustrations for a long series of Brooks Brothers ads which ran in major newspapers. Here is the image in situ…

Another of my clients was Thermador, the stove maker. I contributed quite a few pieces to their promotional vehicles. One of them, above. Below, a print ad, followed by a couple of the illustrations in detail…

I scanned these images from original photostats (Thermador holds the original art). Although the machinery and effort that went into making these photographic prints was a royal pain, modern-day computer technology can’t rival the depth that could be achieved with this antiquated process. I junked my camera years ago!

One of the favorite dishes at our house is artichokes. Ever eat one? On a trip to Sicily a few years back, my wife and I used to pass vendors on the street who presided over huge vats of simmering water— I think they were fueled by propane torches. Artichokes to go! We diffidently sidestepped these vedge-mongers, but we missed out. After creating this image for Runner’s World, I learned just how to prep and consume these succulent treats. The trick is in the dip. I make ours from olive oil, lemon juice and salt.

Turning to food’s significant other, I had some fun concocting work for the Glenlivet brand. Here’s an example from a print ad I did with Karen Barrows/Offsite Creative…

Looking back through my books, it seems I did other whiskey-related work with Karen. This image started its life as a black-and-white illustration. It was commissioned for a newspaper ad in the Canadian market. I thought the work had promise, so I added color…

…A shift of gear, and over to beer. A logo for a beer label— sorry, no specifics on this one. If anybody spots the image on a bottle at the local liquor store, give me a call! This would have been used in vector format, with the client dropping in color at his/her discretion.

All of the above may be small beer, but, I’m getting thirsty from my efforts. Time for refreshment!

     …..AAAAaaaahhhhhhh.