new work & events

I'm moving!

2011-10-11T15:43:00.003-04:00

If we've been keeping up through this blog please come check out my new one at www.dougchayka.com. I'll be phasing out of Blogger and transferring some of these old posts to the new blog. Visit me there and subscribe to my RSS! I hope you enjoy my new website.

My Monster, My Self

2011-03-21T12:07:00.004-04:00

New illo in The Nation for an article titled "My Monster, My Self". Gary Greenberg writes: With our tiny screens and cellphones, we have become prosthetic gods, the whole world in our handhelds. Are we not also monsters?
I was thinking of the scene in Karloff's Frankenstein, where Frank has an emotional, introspective moment while admiring a flower given to him by a girl (who he then accidentally kills). Here, Frank skips the introspection and checks his email instead.

Fiction

2011-03-21T12:03:00.002-04:00

New portraits of Juan José Saer and Joanna Ruocco for fiction reviews in The Nation.

Human Trafficking

2011-02-13T10:02:00.006-05:00

New work for Teaching Tolerance Magazine, a publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The article is aimed at helping teachers raise awareness about human trafficking as a contemporary problem as well as its shape in the past. My idea was to use the opening illo to show a diverse group in a boat, rowing together, and use the second illo to show the kind of work that might be forced upon them. My aim was to suggest different time periods by changing the texture and treatment of each element. Great art direction by Valerie Downes.

South Carolina Broadcasters CD

2011-01-16T18:19:00.004-05:00

Cover art and design for "A Thousand Miles Away From Home", the new CD by the South Carolina Broadcasters. This new project and their previous self-titled CD are absolute must-have's for lovers of Old-Time, Bluegrass and Country. Their music is straight ahead and driving, powerfully rhythmic, with beautifully sung harmonies by Ivy Sheppard (fiddle), David Sheppard (guitar), and Grace Kennedy (banjo). I'm thrilled to have been asked to contribute to this project with my art.
Look for the CD at the end of January/early February 2011, more info about the band here.

Nation Fall Books

2010-12-04T10:50:00.003-05:00

Cover design for The Nation's 2010 fall books. This is my eighth cover illustration for their books and arts issue. Click here to see my covers from past fall and spring books issues. Editor: John Palattella.

Moonshine

2010-11-07T16:58:00.003-05:00

A new ad I made for Clawhammer Supply Moonshine Stills. I assembled this from scans of vintage typography books and elements of machinery prints, with a little of my own drawing.

Copyright

2010-10-28T14:32:00.003-04:00

This new illustration for the Nov. 15 issue of The Nation is the strangest and funnest thing I've done in a while. The article, The Pirate's Prophet, reviews the work of Lewis Hyde and asks "Is the Cultural Commons a viable alternative to the copyright regime or does it risk turning culture into a consumerist slum?". In the spirit "appropriation", I've ripped off Leonardo, Titian, N.C Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, D.C Comics, and Picasso. Sorry.

Alter Ego

2010-10-09T14:02:00.018-04:00

Last week I gave a linoleum cut "reduction" demo for the Materials and Techniques class I teach at SCAD, and thought I'd post the demo results. The assignment was to create an alter ego, so just about anything image would work. The point was to just have fun with the subject matter and get familiar with the process. If you've never tried this here is what you will need:
Various lino cut tips and a handle (usually they are sold together in a pack), two equal sized sheets of linoleum (from the art store, not the hardware store, this stuff is made for printing), a large heavyweight plastic spoon, printmaking paper or medium weight drawing paper, different colors of water-soluble block printing inks (I used speedball brand), a ink brayer (for rolling out the ink), and a disposable palette. Here are the carving tools and inks: The first step is to draw out your image on the linoleum. I find it helpful to lightly paint in solid shapes with the water soluble ink so I can see more clearly what I'm carving and what I'm not. Before printing just rinse off and clean your block before you apply new ink. Roll out a thin, evenly applied area of ink with the brayer on your palette,
Then roll the ink on to your block. Here's my block after it was cut and I rolled out the ink. Notice that the ink got into some of the areas I cut away. Just wipe off the ink with a rag before you print and it won't show up, although even that can add some happy accidents. When you are carving the block remember you only need to go deep enough so the brayer doesn't touch those areas when you are rolling out the ink.
Place a sheet of paper on the table and press the inked block down lightly so it sticks. Make sure to trace the corners of your block on to the paper with a pencil so you can "register" where the edge was. This is very important for the next steps!!
Then carefully flip the paper and block over, making sure they don't slip as you turn them, so that the block is on the table and the paper is up. Take your plastic spoon and burnish the back of the paper so that you get a good print. This is the low tech method, yes you could just run this through a press if you have one :)
Here is my first print. Print at least six so you can experiment with each as you continue to print. Plus it is good to play the odds that at least one will come out great by printing many.
Now things get interesting. Take your rinsed and dried block and carve back into it. Whatever you carve away will remain, and what stays will be printed a new color (kind of backwards thinking, but you'll see what I mean). You will want to have this in mind when you plan your design. Here is what was left after I carved and re-inked the plate with black ink.
Then repeat the printing, this time as you lay the block on the previous print you will line up the block with the registration marks that you made, so that your image lines up in the right spot. This is not an exact science and there are more precise ways to "register" your plates if you want to get into that. I actually think a little off-registration adds nice surprises to this technique. Here is the second state of the print after I burnished the back of the paper with my spoon again. Either print all six of your sheets, or print five and keep one unprinted so you have a record of the first "state" of the print.
I then carved a new block to add accessories to my alter ego. Make sure that your drawing goes down in the same spot it did on the first block, otherwise you will have registration problems. Here is what I carved away, knowing I wanted those areas to be unaffected by the new print.

Line up the block and print it.
Finally, I carved that block again, leaving only the background because I wanted the mask and shirt to stay blue. I inked up the cleaned plate with the final color and printed it again, using those handy registration marks to line things up again.

You don't have to limit yourself to two colors from one plate. In Berlin, where I first learned this, I saw examples of 8 or so layers from one block. The print gets pretty thick where the ink has been layered and there are beautiful textures and unexpected color variations. If you decide to go for the gold and print tons of layers I would recommend switching to oil printing ink, and use a press. You can see in my print that the yellow did not print very opaque over the blue. I like that effect from the two colors here, but you'll probably get mud if you do that with three or more colors using water soluble ink. Let each layer dry between printing, in any case. I hope you've enjoyed seeing this!

Trading Views

2010-09-28T12:35:00.004-04:00

Recent portraits of CEO's for the "Trading Views" page of Latin Trade Magazine.

49 Special

2010-08-25T21:20:00.003-04:00

I designed the CD art for 49 Special's debut album. All the tunes are originals and it sounds awesome. You can order the packaged CD from CD Baby, or get mp3's from itunes.

Danube

2010-07-16T14:11:00.002-04:00

This new illustration for The Nation was made for an article by Dimiter Kenarov titled "From Black to Black" about the mythical Danube River. I wanted to create a diverse image that captures the fairy tale quality of the Danube's past as well less idealistic imagery that evokes Europe's political complexity and environmental problems.
Editor: John Palattella

10 under 10

2010-06-14T15:03:00.000-04:00

A new piece for Latin Trade Magazine's feature on 10 businesses under 10 years old. The idea was to do simple, playful line drawings of each CEO and show them with an object that represented something about their company.
Art Director: Elizabeth Carlisle

Key of D

2010-05-25T21:26:00.004-04:00

I started a new blog called Key of D where I'm posting my attempts at fiddle tunes as well as sketchbook drawings and maybe other things I don't yet know of. Take a look/listen!

Spring Books

2010-05-20T16:39:00.006-04:00

Nation spring books is out this week, my seventh cover for the biannual books issue! It was an exciting change to be able to incorporate the simple line work into this piece, something I love to do, like in SPREE, but isn't always fitting (although another assignment I'll be posting next week is also in line). Below are my covers from past seasons.
Editor: John Palattella

Illustration Academy: Faculty

2010-05-13T08:53:00.007-04:00

Illustration Academy Faculty Announced!
The 2010 Illustration Academy is fast approaching - there are still spots available at both locations
- for more information and to apply, visit www.illustrationacademy.com.

Now you can APPLY ONLINE to The Illustration Academy! Go to the Application Page to make deposits and payments online.
VLP Members receive a $495.00 discount!

The full-time faculty and visiting artists for each location will be as listed below:
Kansas City
Faculty: John English, Mark English, Brent Watkinson, George Pratt
Visiting Artists: Gary Kelley, C.F. Payne, Anita Kunz, Jon Foster
Richmond
Faculty: Sterling Hundley, Doug Chayka, Josh George, Robert Meganck
Visiting Artists: Jon Foster, Anita Kunz, John English, and more to be announced.

Looking forward to seeing you this summer!
For FAQ's, visit the Ill Acad discussion thread.

Jim and Ernie

2010-05-04T20:12:00.004-04:00

There are two new things I highly recommend!
First, my brother Jim has a new music blog that is getting more and more content up on it every day. Check it out at jimchayka.com! I designed the banner for it.
Second, the Field Recorders Collective is an amazing site, not new but new to me, that sells CD's of exactly that: Field recordings of American Appalachian fiddle and banjo music, mostly from the 60's to now. I have three different collections from there- Buddy Thomas, Albert Hash, and Ernie Carpenter. The track I can't get enough of is Ernie's crooked "Mississippi Sawyer". I'd post his recording but it belongs to the FRC, so here's my attempt. Hope you like it.

Ernie's Mississippi Sawyer

Demo Nite

2010-04-27T20:38:00.004-04:00

I did this piece for "Demo Nite" at Ringling College of Art and Design. It was a great time, the students drifted around watching demos from the different illustration teachers at Ringling that participated: George Pratt, Joe Thiel, Don Brandes, Hodges Soileau, Gary Barker, and Fiore Custode. If your corner started to get empty, you had to turn on the heat and work fast to keep an audience!
My demo is acrylic and mixed media collage. You can see some process photos below.

I started out by toning my illustration board with a neutral tone that I mixed using gesso, yellow ochre and burnt umber, with a touch of sienna to warm it up.
Then I put down a light, sienna prismacolor pencil drawing of my figure shapes to establish the composition, with a little detail in the face to make the rendering in the face very simple.

Next, I blocked in the basic values and colors, starting with the white of the dress, really loose, and plugged colors into the hill and sky. I stuck my fingers in a few colors and fingerprinted the pattern on the dress.

I had prepared some black and white xerox copies (enlarged at different sized) of a guitar from an old sears catalog, and some photos of a house and barn, and a enlargements of a dog from a vintage etching I found, and collaged them next into the painting with gel medium, by coating the back of the cut-out copy, smoothing it down, and brushing more medium over the surface of the copy to seal it. I painted back into the dog and house and barn with color to make them look integrated into the painting, but left guitar as is for contrast (plus Thiel said "don't touch the guitar". Good call, Joe!).

Some students asked why I didn't draw those elements. It's not a matter of making a short cut. The drawing would have been simple enough to do, from reference or some other source, but I enjoy the contrast of marks that I get by using elements that don't look made by my hand. I've been eclectic in my approach to digital work, and I want to bring that back into more of my "traditional" paintings.
The main point I wanted to make was that a picture can hold together and look good (I hope!) with a very simple arrangement of shapes, with the right value structure, use of color and pattern, and some selective, well placed rendering. The entire painting took about 2 hours. Dimensions: 18" x 26"

Sketchy Ice Cream

2010-04-18T18:44:00.002-04:00

Illustration Academy 2010

2010-04-02T06:23:00.003-04:00

It's getting to be Academy time.
I'm excited to be teaching there again full-time this Summer, this time in Richmond, Virginia, along with Robert Meganck, Sterling Hundley and Josh George. The details are still coming into focus, but it looks like our visiting artists will be Anita Kunz, Gary Kelley, Jon Foster, and C.F. Payne. The program will run May 31st to June 25th. For more info soon, keep your eye on the TAD/RVA blog (The Art Department, Richmond) and the Illustration Academy site.

Yasmin's Hammer

2010-03-18T11:58:00.004-04:00

My sixth illustrated children's picture book, Yasmin's Hammer, written by Ann Malaspina, hits the stores this month! I just received an advance copy and I wanted to share a few spreads here.
The story is about two girls in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that need to work in a brickyard to save money for school. The setting is very diverse, including dense city scenes, slums, rural landscapes, and interiors, so it was a challenge to capture the different moods of those places, and also find a common texture that helps the images hang together and expresses something about the simple and rough conditions the family lives in. The editor, Emily Hazel, and the designer Christy Hale, were a pleasure to collaborate with on this. Hope you enjoy the work!

R.A.F.

2010-03-10T19:51:00.005-05:00

"Heroic Impatience", a new article in The Nation, takes a critical look at the R.A.F. (Red Army Faction) terror organization in Germany in the 70's. As stated in The Nation, "The past was one single catastrophe to the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and acts of violence the only perceived exit".
In this illustration I wanted to reference all the diverse imagery making up their mythical media image and contrast it with their "real" appearance in now-infamous wanted posters from the time.
To make this I scanned all kinds of drawings and vintage print media and layered things in photoshop.
Art Director: John Palattella

Copenhagen

2010-03-01T23:24:00.005-05:00

This new illustration was made for an article titled "Forward from Copenhagen", in Earth Island Journal, about the consolidation of new grassroots organizations during the climate talks. I intended the medieval boat to be a metaphor for exploration, a vehicle for the message of the grassroots groups and for navigating the politics of climate change.

A Fine Romance

2010-02-08T10:21:00.003-05:00

This illustration was made for a piece written by Miriam Markowitz in this week’s Nation titled "A Fine Romance" which poses the question: "If love has been exhausted as a literary theme, has it vanished from our experience of life as well?"

Sketchbook

2010-02-04T21:49:00.004-05:00

My sketchbook drawings lately have been fast vignettes, I try to keep them fluid. That usually means they are hit or miss, then I leave them alone and move on to something else. Each drawing might be a minute or two but not more. This wallpaper is a collage of my latest sketchbook. Just about each object/figure is its own page that I scanned separately and layered into one image. Thanks for asking about these, Ted.

Ville Detektiver

2010-01-16T17:00:00.003-05:00

An image I made for a review in The Nation of Roberto Bolaño's work was picked up by the Danish Book Club "Epp" for use on their cover this month. The portrait was only a fragment of the larger piece I had done, the complete image was also used inside. Thanks to Susanne Hedemann Hiorth for the opportunity and nice design work.

Nation Fall Books, Lapham's Quarterly

2009-12-01T21:34:00.003-05:00

Two illustrations on the newsstand this week: The cover illustration/design for The Nation's Fall Books issue, and an illustrated map of religious sites for Lapham's Quarterly. Both were done by combining drawings, photos, and layered paint textures in photoshop.

Vanderbilt

2009-11-16T21:44:00.003-05:00

This illustration for The Nation was done for an article about Cornelius Vanderbilt titled "The Misunderstood Robber Baron" written by Steve Frasier, which discusses the changing portrayal of Vanderbilt by his biographers over the last century. I chose to show him as both threatening and celebrated, and used a combination of vintage print material collaged with my own drawings so that the image would suggest both past and present points of view.
Editor: John Palattella

Hobbes

2009-10-01T22:32:00.004-04:00

This photo-collage appears in the Oct. 19, 09 issue of The Nation. It was made for an article written by Corey Robin titled "The First Counter-revolutionary", about the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. One of the points that interested me most was that Hobbes supported a strong central power, in his days that would be the king, but also believed that the central power should be an extension of the will of the people. So, his politics can be claimed by both modern left and right movements. Ché is about as left as you can get, while the crown and scepter represent the right. I put the illustration together from about 10 different sources, from historical paintings and different photos and textures. This was one that I thought worked best to just use collage and let the combination of source material express the concept without much traditional drawing.
As always with The Nation, I had great art direction from John Palattella on this illustration.

Sarasota

2009-09-06T11:25:00.004-04:00

I've moved! Last month I was offered the chance to teach illustration as a visiting full-time faculty member at Ringling College of Art and Design, in Sarasota, Florida. It was such an amazing opportunity that I pretty much just packed a suitcase and moved. After seven years in Brooklyn it will be a huge change. These photos of the sunset last night at Lido Beach, courtesy of George Pratt, are about as different from New York as it gets. I'm loving it.
I'll be staying with my friends Nikki and Dennis Heil until the the end of the month, then I'll be up in New York for a weekend to pack it all up and move back down with my wife, Nicola. As soon as we get settled I'll have a lot more to share about the move and everything that is happening at Ringling. Thanks for checking in!

The Secret Shofar of Barcelona

2009-07-27T01:35:00.013-04:00

I'm happy to announce that my 5th illustrated children's book, "The Secret Shofar of Barcelona", written by Jackie Greene, has hit the stores this month. I finished these paintings back in January and I've been anxious to see them become a real book. It has been published by Kar-Ben Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Lerner Books. My copy just arrived and I wanted to share some of the spreads from the book here.
The story is about a musician and his son who find a way to secretly celebrate their Jewish faith while living under the inquisition. The setting is 1500's Spain, so I looked to Renaissance and Baroque painters like Titian, Vermeer and Velazquez for inspiration. I wanted to have something of the mystery and moody, soft light that they have in their paintings. I looked at Piero Della Francesca as well, I love his simple forms and the spiritual quality they convey. When I'm working on a book I like to dive into old and new influences that I find relevant to the subject matter and which help me find colors, textures and shapes that evoke the mood and setting of the story. I hope you enjoy the results!

Illustration Academy 2009

2009-07-19T22:04:00.003-04:00

Illustration Academy 2009 held at Ringling College of Art in Sarasota, Florida has just come to a close. My head is still spinning from 7-weeks of non-stop action and amazing stuff done by the students and visiting artists there. I taught full-time again this year as a core instructor along with Jon Foster, George Pratt, John English and Brent Watkinson, and on top of that we had Mark English, Gary Kelley, Sterling Hundley, Anita Kunz, Robert Meganck, C.F. Payne, Barron Storey, Sam Weber, Jillian Tamaki, Francis Livingston, Natalie Ascencios, Terry Brown, Andrea Wicklund, Robin Eley, and Ed Kinsella all teach as visiting instructors. I'm not sure how to begin to describe the amount of information that was exchanged, for a great impression take a look at Academy Guy's podcasts, there is one for each week posted on you tube.
I miss everyone already!
But...there is a new academy website that was launched last week and it is an incredible tool. It is an unlimited-use subscription site that lets you stay connected to the instructors, member artists at large and fellow students through discussion forums, member galleries, and instructional videos. Take a look at the visual literacy program site if you'd like to get more information, or write me or any of the other artists on the site if you have any questions about it. There is already a ton of activity on the site, as the community grows it I think it will become an unparalleled online resource for artists and students.
Thanks to everyone who took part this summer! Below I've posted a few of the drawings I did along with the students during the 2 hour figure drawing session held twice each week.

The Nation, Spring Books

2009-05-21T13:14:00.005-04:00

The cover of The Nation's spring books issue doubles as an illustration for the lead story about "Literary Evolution" by William Deresiewicz. The editor and I decided that it would be good to poke some fun at the notion that reading, or art, is an extension of biological evolution. I wanted to give the illustration a vintage feel, as if this were something out of a science text book. I did the type by hand to loosen it up and make it less mechanical. Click on the image to get a closer look at the figures.
I also did a piece for an interior story of this issue called "The Kundera Conundrum" written by Jana Prikryl, which takes a look at the controversy around Milan Kundera's possible involvement in informing the Czech communist regime in the 60's about a suspicious fellow student.
Editor: John Palattella

Summer Sketchbooks

2009-05-08T23:51:00.003-04:00

I wrote a lengthy post on the Illustration Academy blog about keeping a sketchbook. If you'd like to read it, click here. Hope you enjoy it!

Sites Updated

2009-04-25T22:18:00.006-04:00

My editorial page is updated with a lot of new work and a tweaked design with larger images. I hope you enjoy looking around! Thanks again to Alec for helping me out.
ALSO! The illustration academy is only a month away, it gets going Monday, June 1. I'll be teaching there again full time this Summer with a line-up of great artists, including Mark English, John English, Jon Foster, Sterling Hundley, George Pratt, Brent Watkinson and MANY OTHERS (Gary Kelly, C.F. Payne, Anita Kunz, Robert Meganck, Natalie Ascensios, Barron Storey, Sam Weber, Ed Kinsella...plus scores of amazing, hard-working students. That about does it for the line-up!). It's not too late to sign up if you are looking for a heavy dose of inspiration and knowledge. Take a look at their new site, it was just launched a couple weeks ago. The academy blog is also now active, that will be one to keep up with.

True Crime

2009-03-19T15:46:00.003-04:00

This was done for a review in The Nation titled "There will Always Be Blood" which discusses the book "True Crime: An American Anthology". Like the last post, this one also needed diverse sources to reflect the range of material in the anthology. The idea was to use different distinct styles to evoke separate time periods. If they had mugshots in the 15th-18th centuries, maybe they would have looked like this. Each is pieced together with my own drawings and different print material, except the last shot- that man was executed for murder in the 70's, in Indiana. For the bloody fingerprints I dipped my finger in oil paint and colorized them digitally.
Editor: John Palattella

Lincoln Anthology

2009-03-12T15:11:00.003-04:00

This one for The Nation accompanies a review of the new “Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy From 1860 to Now.” The book is huge at over a 1000 pages, representing Lincoln through many different lenses. The idea for the illustration was to create a single composite image from many sources to reflect the diversity of the anthology. I tried to use as many different styles in the piece as possible, photo, line, paint, graphic shapes, 3D, anything that would add to the impression of diversity.

Kafka(esque)

2009-02-13T20:40:00.007-05:00

This article written by Alexander Provan in The Nation, takes a look at the Kafkaesque mystique of Franz Kafka. Most of us have an impression of the Kafkaesque (futility, overwhelming burocracy, impotence, a bit of the surreal, the fantastic, the mysterious). Actually, it's vague. Kafka's biography often plays a large role in how his work is interpreted. Even Kafka's face seems to be a stand in for his work. Our prejudices of his work form a large obstacle to reading him. Here in the illustration I've included many of Kafka's best known characters- Gregor Samsa climbing the curtain, the hunger artist in his cage, the talking chimp, horses from "A Country Doctor," Liberty with her sword instead of a torch. I wanted to make the picture weird enough to qualify as Kafkaesque, but it also needed to illustrate the term in a deliberate way. It's kind of a curtain call for all things "Kafkaesque".
Editor: John Palattella

The Nation: Back Talk

2009-01-29T13:52:00.003-05:00

This small illo is for the Back Talk interview in the Feb. 16, 2009 issue of The Nation. In the interview, Christine Smallwood talks with Artist/Curator Nato Thompson about "Experimental Geography", including his recent production of Waiting for Godot in the still-desolate Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

R.I.T.

2009-01-25T17:55:00.003-05:00

I'll be talking to Bob Dorsey's illustration class at Rochester Institute of Technology on Thursday, Feb. 12. Bob was my professor back when I studied at R.I.T.and he runs a great class. If you are in the area it would be a pleasure to have visitors.

Children's Book for '09

2009-01-07T19:46:00.004-05:00

Over the holidays I finished up the paintings for my 5th children's picture book, which will be published by Lerner Books in August this year. I'll post some of those paintings when the publication date gets closer, but in the meantime here's just a little fragment from one of the illustrations.
Happy New Year to you!

Society of Illustrators

2008-12-07T18:11:00.004-05:00

These three were accepted into the Society of Illustrators annual exhibition this year. The first two, "Labyrinth" and "Ajax" will be in the editorial and book show, and the third, the Neer's cd cover, will be in the advertising and institutional show. When I did each one of these I experimented quite a bit to get to the final, so it is especially nice to get recognition for work that is new territory for me.

Handmade Portfolios

2008-12-01T11:36:00.003-05:00

Over the last month or so I've slowly been making these handmade portfolios with huge help from Cat Glennon over at Booklyn. I finally finished up the slipcases over the weekend. The drawings and my name on the cover were done by printing on to the fabric first, using a letterpress, then glued down after the box and binder were built.
I've also got a bunch of new work updated on the editorial page thanks to Alec Longstreth's web assistance. Have you seen Alec's work?

Signale aus der Bleeker Street

2008-11-30T12:54:00.002-05:00

Signale aus der Bleeker Street (Signals from Bleeker Street) is the third volume of texts by young German speaking writers to be published with the support of New York University's Deutsches Haus and edited by Bernd Hueppauf. This latest edition came out this month and includes three of my drawings from the SPREE exhibition I had at NYU last December.

The Nation, Fall Books

2008-11-20T15:12:00.005-05:00

The Fall Books issue of The Nation is out! The idea for the cover was to do a Macy's parade kind-of-thing, with just a bit of strangeness thrown in. I did it as a pencil drawing and colored it digitally. I haven't done a plain ol' pencil drawing in a long time, and it was great fun. The composition went through a few rounds of revisions before we hit on the right feel. Below is a small cast of characters that didn't make the cut.
Editor: John Palattella

City Wide

2008-10-23T23:06:00.000-04:00

These are just a few from a journal project I've been working on the last few months. I've got a box full of drawings from the last year that I've been scanning when there is time. Its a big box, about 1000 drawings. I like to stockpile like that then just throw out the junk later. The drawings are mainly of random city stuff and street scenes from around New York, so for now I'm calling it CITY WIDE. It's kind of like SPREE but with some color and with fewer pictures of people drinking beer.

Ne'er Do Evers, End Up Records

2008-10-12T12:51:00.000-04:00

Ne'er Do Evers, led by my friend Chris Buckridge, has a new record out on End Up called 100% Wrong. It rocks. End Up has a great list of Brooklyn talent including Balthrop Alabama, Caithlin De Marrais, and Kyle Fisher. I also did Kyle's cover art last year for Black Milk.
The Ne'ers describe their music as "fifty percent heavy thoughts and fifty percent knee-jerk reactions with a sound best described as full-on in-your-face visceral mooning, a distillation of art, alcohol and attitude—not only intoxicating but mind-numbing in a good way". I put on the rough mixes, started drawing, and this is what I came up with for the cover art.

No Exit

2008-10-02T18:19:00.000-04:00

"No Exit", an article by Daniel Lazare in the Oct. 1 issue of The Nation, begins by asking "What does the constitution mean?". This review discusses Laurence Tribe's new book and considers which rights, if any, are specifically guaranteed by the constitution. We are left to wonder if the constitution is anything more than a vague labyrinth in which any meaning can be found.
Rather than "draw" something, a more graphic approach seemed right this time.
Editor: John Palattella

The Nation: Cold War Comics

2008-09-12T10:32:00.000-04:00

I had the chance to take a shot at a comic strip for an article in The Nation this week (Sept. 29 issue) titled "An Inky, Well-Paneled Place" about the development of comics during the Cold War. The author reviews two books that discuss the development of comics in relation to cultural fears and anxieties. The concept was to mix comic icons and Cold War imagery in a strip, like Superman saving the day from Russian Nukes and the fear of Communism, or the connection between the Space Race and the fascination and fear of U.F.O's during that time. I also did the title type by hand to give it more of a pulp look.

Fletcher Hanks

2008-08-21T00:44:00.000-04:00

There is a book out on the strange, raw comic artist Fletcher Hanks. I had never heard of him until I saw the book at Strand but his stuff is great. It sounds as if his work has been rescued from obscurity by editor/artist Paul Karasik.
This panel is from a story in the book called "Big Red McLane, King of the Northwoods." The drawings are bold and simple and he sure doesn't waste many words telling the stories. Apart from Big Red there is also "Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle" and "Stardust the Super Wizard".

Faces of Bob

2008-08-11T21:13:00.000-04:00

I started off playing around with doing a portrait of Bob Dylan and it turned into four. Each one has the same face, but the rest changes to capture a different period or record. Here I've got "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", "Highway 61 revisited", "Blonde on Blonde", and "Blood on the Tracks". The Todd Haynes movie about Dylan's music, "I'm Not There", covers those periods too, they are some of the best. Dylan fans will know this well, but if you haven't seen the documentaries "Don't Look Back" and "No Direction Home" they are great.

POP Jochen

2008-08-07T22:34:00.000-04:00

This is a little experiment to prepare for a current illustration assignment, featuring my buddy Jochen who lives in Berlin. The project deals with cold war comics so I've been diving into the work of a lot of older comic artists, especially Milton Caniff, Jack Kirby, and Will Eisner.

Illustration Academy

2008-07-22T16:26:00.000-04:00

This summer I taught as one of 5 full-time instructors at the 7 week Illustration Academy program held at Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida. It was an amazing group of artists and students that came together this year, and a privilege to be working with the other full-time faculty John English, George Pratt, Sterling Hundley and Brent Watkinson. In addition to the five faculty, a different guest instructor was invited each week to give an assignment, media demonstrations, and critique the students on their process. The guests were some of the most successful illustrators working today: Mark English, Gary Kelley, Anita Kunz, Chris Payne, John Foster, Natalie Ascencios, Scott Anderson, and Robin Eley. It was such a pleasure to work closely with this group of students and follow their tremendous progress. We awarded Charlie Griak with best of show, and most improved to Dave Rutheford (send me your link, Dave). Take a look at the academy link to see more student work and the incredible program they offer. I attended the program myself 13 years ago and I believe it is the best and most intensive illustration program out there.
Here are just a few action shots above (clockwise from top left: Mark English gives a demo and lays in the tar, Chris Payne on caracature, Gary Kelley pulls a monotype, Justin Runfola and Dustin d'Arnault flash the secret sign, and bottom left is George Pratt's paint box his and beautiful wet-into wet oil demo.

I also gave a very classical oil painting demo. The process is shown here below. It is a way of working that lets you hang on to your drawing when you are learning to paint. First, do a graphite drawing and spray it with workable fixative so it doesn't disappear when the oils hit it. Then lay down a transparent wash of burnt sienna and burnt umber, wiping away light shapes with a rag and building up darks with more umber, so that you establish a monochrome value structure before going in with color. The drawing can still be seen at this point, so if it's not going well you can wipe it all out and start over and your drawing will still be there. Once you've built up the lights and darks you can slowly bring local color into the paintings and build up the opacity of the paint. Working this way at the beginning can really help you get a grasp of the medium and makes you sensitive to subtle color and value relationships. The second painting was done the same way, but with brighter color and thicker paint.

Out of Place

2008-07-03T22:55:00.001-04:00

Two new pieces for The Nation.
Bright Oblivion, by Emily Wilson, reviews John Tipton's chilling new translation of Sophocles' Ajax. This new version modernizes the language of the play and makes a clear connection to the Vietnam and Iraq wars.
Out of Place, by Corey Robin, is an article about "how the Conservatives have turned a sense of exclusion into a powerful philosophy of self-styled truancy". I chose to illustrate the moment where the "party" of the privileged comes to an end.
Editors: John Palattella and Christine Smallwood.

Spring Books

2008-05-22T20:11:00.000-04:00

Nation editors John Palattella and Christine Smallwood thought something involving seeds might work for this new spring books 08 cover, so after sketching some things out we eventually arrived at the idea of giving each contributor their own seed packet. The hot peppers were reserved for the most critical of all the pieces.
Like many of the last illustrations I've done, this was made by combining layers of paintings and textures in photoshop. The lettering was also done by hand and scanned in, still pretty close in appearance to a design font but I think doing it by hand warmed it up a little. The rendering of the fruits and vegetables needed to be a little more realistic than the rest, I thought, to contrast the big graphic shapes and provide areas that hold your attention a little longer.

Boxed In

2008-05-15T14:24:00.000-04:00

New illustration for The Nation's June 2, 2008 issue.
The article, titled "Boxed In" and written by Peter C. Baker, deals with voting reform and questions the fairness of the voting process.
This was done mostly by collaging layers of different layers of watercolor, ink drawings (my own), and fragments of old etchings (found). I put it all together in photoshop.
Editors: John Palattella and Christine Smallwood

A Deeper Black

2008-05-01T17:24:00.000-04:00

This image of Barack Obama was done for the May 19th, 2008 issue of The Nation, for an article titled "A Deeper Black" written by Ta-Nahesi Coates.
The piece deals with race, and argues that Obama's essential power has made old notions of identity and race obsolete. In the illustration, I was thinking about how the color itself could shift and blur beyond the form, to show that the colors of the portrait only vaguely define his likeness.

Seven Things

2008-04-17T18:55:00.000-04:00

Coloredsocks has put out the call to list seven things that inspire you, that you are working on, or whatever you want, so I'm answering the call. Mine are pretty diverse:

I started taking bluegrass/old-time fiddle lessons a couple months ago, it's been amazing fun. There is an old expression that goes "the devil rides a fiddle stick" and I'm starting to understand what it means. Forty-nine special also has a new website in progress.

There is a book called "The Circus in America" by Country Beautiful publishers that I found at Strand that has tons of great old circus posters in it. I love the weird palette and the line work combined with the texture of the "bad" reproductions.

I've been going back to the renaissance painters for research and inspiration for a picture book that I am working on that is set in the 1500's. Titian is my favorite, he's all heart. His figures feel like actual individuals while also having an iconic, universal weight.

This is one of a series of Bible story illustrations I just finished for a children's school textbook. The research on renaissance painters came out here too, a bit.

I did this drawing for the CD cover of Kyle Fisher's new record "Black Milk". His solo stuff is awesome, and you should also know his old band Rainer Maria. They were loved!

Tintin is better than the movies. I broke down a while back and got them all. "Explorers on the Moon" is my favorite. Great outer-space drawings and Captain Haddock and the T(h)ompsons are at their craziest. Just started reading that one again last night.

Philip Guston has it all, his paint is infinite, somehow both clumsy and bold AND subtle. He has that Morandi magic where the paint seems to stand for something else. I'm always inspired by his work.

Moon of the Sugar Ants

2008-03-26T20:24:00.000-04:00

In this short essay "Moon of the Sugar Ants" by Phyllis Florin, the author uses the Northern California experience of invading sugar ants as a point of departure for musings about her life experiences. It will run this Sunday (March 30, 2008) on the "My Word" page of the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine. In the illustration I wanted to show that the narrator has become "O.K" with the ants in her life. That linoleum pattern, the sugar trail, and all the little ants were a lot of fun to do. The art director, Dorothy Yule, did a really nice job on the page layout and scattered a bunch of the little guys beyond the illustration border and down the page. The story is here.

A Garden of Monsters

2008-03-14T19:55:00.000-04:00

The current issue of The Nation (March 31, 2008) devoted their entire Books and Arts section to reviewing the work of Roberto Bolaño, the Chilean born poet and writer who died in 2003 at the age of 50. Much of his work has an undertone of violence and bad deeds, without being explicitly brutal, owing much to his experiencing the events of Pinochet's coup in 1974. For a time, he was jailed as a political dissident but then freed by chance by a prison guard who happened to be a former high-school classmate. The articles are a great introduction to this literary force, and you can read them on-line at the link above.
This illustration is for the lead article titled "A Garden of Monsters", a review of his book "Nazi Literature In the Americas". The idea was to create an image that could be dissected into smaller parts and used for the other two articles as well. So this one got fun. The section of the library at night was used for the article "Windows Into the Night", and the portrait was isolated for the last article "Un Lio Bestial" (translated: a crazy confusion). This main image refers to Bolaño's own metaphor of Chile as a kind of corridor where bad things can happen. Here, his refuge is the "garden" of his library, and it is populated by imaginary military monsters and other nasty influences. In Bolaño's words: "A real writer's only nation is his library".
Editors: John Palattella and Christine Smallwood

New Site Design

2008-02-20T11:02:00.000-05:00

If you've been here before you'll notice that the site has been redesigned and updated with new work and with some new categories. The menu bar on the left is also active here in blogger so you can get from here to any page on my site. Alec Longstreth did a great job of getting the site up and working smooth. Alec's link is also on the left, his comics and illustrations are terrific.
Here is a piece from a series I did for Cricket Magazine a couple months back and appears in the next issue (March 2008). The story is called "The Mummy Tent". If you click on Children's you can see the entire series. I hope you like browsing around!

Lives on the Ground

2008-02-03T20:20:00.000-05:00

New work for The Nation (issue 2/18/08) .
This illustration was done for an article by Adina Hoffman titled "Lives on the Ground", a review of Israeli and Palestinian memoirs. Hoffman has chosen to discuss "The stories of individual people who live and breathe the sweeping political choices made by prime ministers and presidents" in order to provide a human dimension to the abstract political debates over Holy Land politics. I tried to echo this sentiment in the illustration by contrasting the scarred, abstract map with a scene suggesting diverse everyday street life.
I wanted to make different styles work together in this piece. For the map I painted watercolor and acrylic layers, working back and forth with collaged type. The magnifying glass is also handled in a more graphic way to set up a contrast to the warmer, more atmospheric street scene.
Editors: John Palattella and Christine Smallwood

7-Imp and a bluegrass tune

2008-01-21T11:22:00.000-05:00

Two avid literature and children's books lovers, Julie Danielson and Eisha Prather, write a blog called "Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast". Its one to bookmark since they are really active and post tons of great stuff. So I was really flattered that they asked if they could do a little piece about "Four Feet, Two Sandals" and anything else I wanted to show. The article is here. Its part of a weekly feature feature called "7-Imp Kicks" where they feature an illustrator and talk about their latest projects. Those guys are also part of a group of bloggers that have a list called the "Cybil's" where they vote for their favorite young adult and picture books of the year, and "Four Feet" made the cut. Thanks to Julie and Eisha for sharing my work with their readers!
Also, my twin brother Jim Chayka was back home for Christmas and we got together to do this little recording at our friend Tom Carlyle's. If you didn't know, you'll hear that Jim plays a mean banjo. He's in a couple bands out in San Franscisco, one of 'em is called 49 Special. This tune is called "Gold Rush", an old bluegrass tune, and that's me on guitar filling up the space for him.

Western Promises

2008-01-07T21:50:00.000-05:00

This illustration is my latest for The Nation (Jan 7/14, 2008). I don't usually get asked to work with dark themes like this so it was a welcome challenge. The article is titled Western Promises, written by Marc Perelman, and is a review of Florence Hartmann's new book "Peace and Punishment: The Secret Wars of Politics and International Justice". In short, the book deals with the West's inability, or even unwillingness, to prevent atrocities like the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia, and questions the ability of international courts to bring justice to those responsible.
This one was done mostly the old-fashioned way with watercolor and acrylic but on two different layers, one for the statue and one for the background. I wanted to have a lot of contrast in texture and tone between the white of the statue and the inky, dark cloud, so I combined the two paintings digitally.
Editors: John Palattella and Christine Smallwood

SPREE Party

2007-12-13T13:31:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everyone who came out in the cold to my opening for "SPREE" on December 1. Deutsches Haus at NYU put on a great party, complete with bratwurst and lots of Becks.
Here are a few pictures from the evening.
In the entrance I did a wallpaper installation of some of the pages from SPREE to try to bring the same feeling of abundance to the show that you get (I think) from looking through the book. The silkscreens start on the stairs and lead up to the gallery. There are 20 different silkscreens in the show, and I printed each in an edition of 15.
If any of you out-of-towners are coming through New York over the holidays, let me know and ill meet you there for a little tour (this goes for the in-towners too, if you haven't seen the show)
The exhibit will be up through January 4th.

Nicola Behrmann (on the right), my veeery close contact at NYU, gave me a nice introduction

Kevin Parr and Adam Gustavson keeping track of inventory

Billy Rauscher did a great job with the music and helped bring the Berlin vibes.

Josh George, Katy Resch, and me trying to act natural.

Lecker! (that's "Yum!" in German)

Ski Season

2007-12-02T23:49:00.000-05:00

The last few editorial projects I've done have all had something to do with nature or the outdoors, and even though the ideas are all completely different they kind of turned out like a little series. This piece was done for the travel section of the New York Times, about changing your ski reservations to another resort when they have better conditions.
Art Director: Rodrigo Honeywell

The Nation, Fall Books Issue

2007-11-24T01:29:00.000-05:00

I was really excited to be asked to do these two interrelated pieces for the fall books issue of The Nation. The challenge was to come up with a cover concept that could have a feeling of excitement and anticipation, and also contain imagery that might be appropriate for the interior illustration. After a few rounds of sketches I hit on the idea of a high wire performer balanced by books. The circus imagery seemed to have a lot of possibilities for the interior article, "Deal Breakers" by Kim Phillips-Fein, about the derailing of democratic activism (donkeys) by the conservative movement (elephants). I had a lot of fun doing both of these. I painted both in a bunch of different layers and media, then assembled them digitally to get some vibrant juxtapositions in color and texture.
Editors: John Palattella and Christine Smallwood

A.R.T. and Nature

2007-11-15T00:16:00.000-05:00

This piece was done for an article in The Nation titled "ART in America" about artificial reproductive technology (ART), written by Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow. I wanted to do something playful that would combine the tale of the birds and bees with lab equipment, so I mixed all the imagery together with different styles to make something not quite natural looking.
Click here to read the article
Art Directors: John Palattella and Christine Smallwood

This short article in the New York Times travel section says that fall is typically a good time to apply for a passport or renew your old one. It was fun to just try to get the atmosphere right in this piece. To keep the colors and different textures sharp and clear, I painted a bunch of separate watercolors, drew template shapes, then assembled everything in photoshop.
Art Director: Rodrigo Honeywell

New York Times "Week in Review"

2007-10-28T16:53:00.000-04:00

This article in the New York Times points out that with newly elected leaders in France and Britain, U.S. relations to those countries seem to have been turned upside down. Could it be that France is much more comfortable with an incompetent America led by George W. Bush, while the British are repelled for the same reason? Click here to read the article.
Art Director: Aviva Michaelov

"Big Red Checkbook" and "Planning for Growth"

2007-10-22T21:28:00.000-04:00

Two new illustrations for The Nation and IBM Magazine. The Nation piece is for an article titled "Big Red Checkbook" by John Feffer in the Nov. 5 issue. In Feffer's words: "Now that the Big Red Checkbook has replaced the Little Red Book, China has expanded its reach into far-flung regions".
Editor: John Palattella

This piece for the November issue of IBM magazine is a full page feature for an article about growing business work loads and which hardware is needed for an increase in production. The concept is "Planning for Growth".
Art Director: David Sather

Swimmers

2007-10-14T21:11:00.000-04:00

These two drawings are from "SPREE" and are also part of the edition of silkscreens I'll be exhibiting in December at NYU's Deutsches Haus.

Printing for "SPREE" Exhibition at NYU

2007-09-28T19:26:00.000-04:00

In December I'll be exhibiting my new self-published book of drawings,"SPREE", as well as a series of silkscreen prints from the book at New York University's Deutsches Haus. The opening is Dec. 1st from 6 - 8 p.m. SPREE is a 300 page collection of drawings I made during the three months I spent in Berlin, Germany in the summer of 2006, a free-flow of images that captures the hi's, low's and in-betweens of my experience there. Click here to see some more images from this book.
From 2000 to 2002 I studied painting and printmaking on a Fulbright scholarship at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin. The summer of 2006 was the first time I was able to get back and spend a longer period of time there. I made about 1000 drawings over three months, then spent the winter back in Brooklyn editing and combining them into "SPREE". The Spree river is one of two rivers that run through Berlin.
Below is the silkscreen table in my studio and one of the first print editions for the exhibit.

Bluegrass in San francisco

2007-09-25T22:21:00.000-04:00

The Folkslayers of Yore play Amnesia in San Fransisco on October 1st.
Click here for an MP3 clip.

Folkslayers are:
Jim Chayka, banjo
Dave Zimmerman, guitar/mando/vocals
Adam Roszkiewicz, guitar
Joe Kenny, mando/guitar/vocals
Liz Wrone, fiddle/vocals
Dave Walker, bass

New York Times Illustrations

2007-09-20T16:44:00.000-04:00

Two new illustrations for the travel section of the New York Times. The article related to the top piece is about hotels that offer extras and luxury therapies for business travelers, including a "blackberry acupressure massage" for a mere $150. The other article is about a cruise line offering an audio tour detailing destinations and areas of the ship itself.
Look for the "therapy" piece in this Sunday's paper (9/23).
Art Director: Rodrigo Honeywell.

Four Feet, Two Sandals

2007-09-20T16:07:00.000-04:00

My most recent picture book project, Four Feet, Two Sandals, was published this month by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers.
Written by Karen Williams and Khadra Mohammed.
Art Director: Gayle Brown

Coney Island Drawings

2007-09-16T20:33:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my new blog. I'll use this to post my most recent work, experiments, and any events that are coming up.
These drawings from Coney Island are just a few of the many that have piled up this Summer from different parts of New York. Astroland closed for the season last weekend, maybe for good.
Click on the image to get a closer look.