Magazine Illustrations
all illustrations, c. Kevin Sprouls
Above, an illustration of some stock certificates. The image was published in Newsweek. I give you, Mr. Jobs, and Mr. Gates:
I love getting magazine illustration assignments. When my work gets published in a magazine, I know my audience is quite large. Over the years, I’ve had lots of illustrations published. One incident that comes to mind concerns an illustration that wasn’t.
TIME magazine called upon me to do a cover illustration… like, WOW! I spent a long weekend creating this piece of art:
illustration for TIME magazine
I shipped the art via Fed-Ex, from my studio in New Jersey to New York City, priority overnight. Turns out, they fumbled the shipment. The package went missing for hours when it was needed in minutes. I confess I was pretty wigged out about it! When I received word that the art was finally delivered, the Art Director informed me that their cover-story was ‘bumped’ by a current event that was then unfolding. So, this illustration was never published.
One illustration that was published as a cover image was my close-cropped portrait of President Obama, in Harper’s magazine:
President Obama
I had been a frequent reader of Harper’s, and was grateful to them for the assignment.
For a very long time, I have been an admirer of Stephen Colbert. So, when GQ hired me to do his portrait, in the form of a currency design for a tattoo photo-shoot for a cover, I jumped right in!
The cover looked like this:
GQ cover photo
Sports Illustrated commissioned another currency-styled image of the golfer Tiger Woods.
I am often hired to imitate currency engravings. It’s tedious work, but not as difficult as the steel-engraver’s craft! Here is the image as published:
Next, a rather large illustration of a garden design, likely created for the Rodale Press. It was produced with mainly watercolors and colored pencils, along with a dash of my trademark pen-and-ink technique:
Lastly, an illustration created during my time working for The New Yorker magazine. This image is exceptional, in my view. The technical handling of the drawing is top-notch, and the subject matter is dramatic. One of my favorites:
