Forward in 2013

Heya blog readers,

I realize that it's been a while since I've posted any of the freelance work for the Forward's column, InsideOut.

There have been some excellent articles by the prolific, Judy Brown, in recent months. Some of them are tough reads but absolutely worth it. Judy covers it all, from larger themes about body image and fear and the pressure to bear children to the more personal childhood fear of dogs, buying bras, and the devastation of miscarriages.

It's been extremely satisfying to work on a series where every illustration is entirely different. Each month is a new challenge; sometimes the images are more narrative and others more editorial.

You can check out the most recent articles here:

From February: An Old Dog's New Tricks
From March: Cracks in a Holy Vessel
     (The March article sparked a heated debate, and Judy issued a response here.)
And from April: Are You There Hashem? It's Me, Judy.

I'm currently working on the illustration for May's article, which is going to print after Memorial Day.

Last InsideOut of 2012

Hey there blog readers,

The Forward's latest installment of the InsideOut series is up on the site. This was a hard article to illustrate and a harder article to read. In the wake of the Weberman trial and conviction, Judy examines abuse in the Hasidic community. It's worth a read and is, as always, well-written and thought-provoking. Check it out.

Stay tuned for further InsideOut pieces from Judy and illustrations from me in 2013!

Forward: InsideOut

Hey there blog readers,

The latest article in the InsideOut series is live!

It's been a rush-rush, busy week of work. Because of Sandy, this particular illustration ended up being a last minute, work-through-the-weekend sort of job. Despite the rush, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. After I sent in my first sketches, the art director liked the dichotomy of boys' world-girls' world, but he wanted to emphasize this difference even further. I love the idea of a cross-section of a house but was worried that the two pieces wouldn't come together. In order to better unify the piece, I brought some of the blues from the downstairs scene into the living room and some of the lighter living room colors down into the bookshelves of the basement.

Check out the whole article here.

Thanks to Naomi and Kurt for their art direction!

Forward

Hey there folks,

I just had an incredibly inspiring weekend out in California at the SCBWI Mentorship "Lost Weekend". It was an incredibly inspring four days spent with some of the most talented folks I have the privilege to know. I'll be doing a big ole post on the whole weekend, but not just yet. I hate to leave you all hanging, but this post deserves some quality time; I need to collect my thoughts, upload some photos, and scan a bunch of things.

But in the meantime, here's some reading to keep you busy. The latest article in the InsideOut series is up!

Forward-ing Work

Hey there everyone,

It's been a fun-filled, exciting sort of weekend. I hope that all of you on the East Coast are well-equipped with extra batteries for flashlights, candles, and water. Stay safe! As for me, I'm actually in Massachusetts right now... and for the next few days. I came up for the weekend, and as of yesterday, all trains and buses were cancelled due to Sandy-related weather. I'll be here for a bit longer, but that's fine by me. I have excellent company and plenty of sketchbook pages to fill.

In the meantime, if you need some extra reading, the latest article in the Forward's InsideOut series is live!

Check it out.

If you're looking for older articles, you can find the full list here.

This week's illustration involved populating a city block with a variety of characters. I really enjoy working with a wide variety of materials. Most of the time I use pencil and paint for my children's illustration, so it's nice to switch things up and play with ink for these pieces.

Thanks to Kurt and Naomi for their art direction.

Tease...

Halloo Internet friends,

Every now and then I get busy. I know, I know... everyone gets busy. But when I get busy, I seem to get extraordinarily-crazy-burning-both-candles-free-time?-what-free-time? sort of busy. It's like that old expression, "if you need something done, ask Lisa to do it".

It's true.

And I'm terrible at saying no to people.

In this case, much of the busy is (or has been) for jobs or volunteering or planning very exciting weekends with dear friends. Which is to say, none of it's bad... just plain, old no-time-to-update-the-blog style busy.

So here are some of the greatest hits...

The last weekend in September, I helped organize a Mountain Day weekend and reun-ed with nine of my dear college friends. (We made t-shirts, so I feel like this is a relevant to mention.)

The fourth article (and illustration) in the InsideOut series for the Forward came out last week, and I'm currently working on illustration number five. They're all good, but number four is a particularly excellent read.

I have eight - yes, I said eight - illustrations due for another job next week, and yet I believe I'm volunteering for the election this weekend. (I shouldn't even have to remind you to register to vote, but if you haven't, go do so.) I've also started volunteering for another stellar organization that I mention on here now and again.

I'm working on a project that requires lots of lovely doodley character sketches.

I visited my sister and helped her winter-proof her windows and hang curtains. (Again, project involved, so completely relevant...)

While we were busy hanging curtains, we ran into a couple of friends.

And took just a couple of photos...

And meanwhile, I've been ever-so-slowly working on a new piece just for me... it features this little fellow.

He's pretty cute, not to mention a bit of a tease... there's actually an entire ten-character extravaganza that you're missing out on.

But, alas, I seem to be a wee bit busy. I'm going to need more time before you get to see the rest of that one.

InsideOut: The Loss

Howdy folks,

The lastest installment of InsideOut is up on the Forward's website and is in this week's print issue of the paper.

This week's piece is about grieving the loss of one's entire community and leaving an old life behind as one starts anew. Judy uses some wonderful images, using colorblindness and seeing colors in a black and white world as metaphors.

I started out, as usual, with a whole bunch of sketches. I played with themes of loss and loneliness and Judy's imagery and color.

The folks at the Forward chose the last sketch, emphasizing her isolation and loneliness, even in the midst of new discovery.

In my mind, the most important part of this image would be the use of color. My initial idea was to only render the sky in color - a vibrant, popping blue.

 This didn't feel quite right to me. There wasn't enough emphasis on the main character. She's having this moment of discovery, so perhaps she ought to be rendered in color as well.

Better still, but something about it felt a bit cold... so I added a warm tone beneath the black ink of the street.

This is ultimately what we decided to go with, but I also went a bit further with the color at the request of the art director... just to see what would happen. 

If the trees were green...

 Or one tree was green...

 Or the whole world was rendered in color...

This was a neat article to illustrate. The piece itself was touching, and the visuals in the text, exceptional. It's especially exciting when the imagery in a written piece practically begs to be illustrated.

The Sun

Hey blog-readers,

The second article in the InsideOut series is live on the Forward's website! Check it out here.

InsideOut with The Forward

Hey there blog readers,

It's been a while. Apologies for the hiatus. Since returning from the conference, August has been an incredibly busy month. Ages ago, I hinted at a new project that I can finally talk about. I just started working with the Forward (or פֿאָרווערטס) on a new, bimonthly column called InsideOut. Penned by Judy Brown, the essays are wonderfully written pieces about life as a Hasidic woman and about Judy's very personal process of leaving the community. My work will appear alongside her pieces every two weeks - each month, one article in print and a second online.

The first piece appears in print this week, and I wanted to share a bit about my process. As with the last piece I did with the Forward, the medium and process are different from my children's work.

My favorite part of the process is the initial brainstorming. After reading the article, I sat down and worked my way through a stack of computer paper trying out ideas. Here are a handful that I sent in:

Each sketch dealt with similar ideas - being/looking/feeling different from or at odds with the surrounding crowd - but each had a slightly different emphasis. And, yes, I did send in that last "sketch" (I do use the term veeery loosely), but rest assured, I also sent in notes with those indecipherable chicken-scratch pencil lines.

After some discussion with the folks at the Forward, we agreed that the image that worked best was the  woman in front of the pantyhose display.

Once we settled on an image, I blew the rough sketch up to about 11x17, firmed up the sketch directly onto my good paper, and taped it to my board.

Final sketch

And then it was time to start adding ink...

Beginning ink

 Darker

Until I had something that I was satisfied with.

Once I was happy with the ink, I pulled the image off the board and scanned it into the computer. For this piece, I cheated a little bit... rather than handletter the packaging, writing "Beige" 64 times, I did it once and then copy and pasted it.

 Thank you Photoshop!

Next step, color! The most important color for this piece was clearly the beige of the stockings. It took me a while to find a tone that I liked, but after that, the rest was easy. 

Ta da!

The final piece

You can check out the article and the final illustration in this week's daily Forward or online here.

Many thanks to Naomi and Dan and all the excellent folks at the Forward and of course to Judy for such wonderfully written essays.

Freelance for the Forward

Hey there blog readers!

Exciting things. I recently did a job for the Forward (or פֿאָרווערטס , for the Yiddish speakers among you). Because it's the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, loads of news sources are running articles. The Jewish Daily Forward ran a bunch of interesting pieces, and one in particular about two passengers on the ship, Isidor and Ida Straus. Straus, a NY resident, was co-owner of Macy's department store. On the night the Titanic sank, both Isidor and his wife refused places in the lifeboats and were last seen sitting on the deck together. In addition to a place in Woodlawn cemetery, there's a memorial park dedicated to the couple on the Upper West.

My favorite part of the job was doing some outdoor sketching uptown at Straus Park. These are my two favorite sketches from the afternoon.

I also spent some of the afternoon following around older folks along Broadway.

Once I had some decent reference, I went home and started playing with possible compositions. These are five of the samples I sent in.

Once we settled on a sketch, I did a tightened version so the folks at the Forward had a place-holder as they worked out the section layout. 

Before starting in on the final illustration, I inked a small sample, just to play around and loosen up.

Ink!

And finally, color.

Exciting things, indeed.

You can check out the full article here.

Many thanks to Dan Friedman and Lil Swanson at the Forward and Liz Marcus for putting me in touch.