Dipping into the catalog… For about ten to fifteen years, between the late 1980s to the mid-2000s, I had a steady line of illustration assignments for magazines and newspapers. It seems like a simpler time but it dried up after 911 and a subsequent decline of print media advertising revenue and the rise of the internet as a publishing platform for almost any form of expression. Despite the downturn, I was able to turn more attention to personal artistic explorations which coalesced in paintings that seemed well-suited for children’s book illustration. With luck and persistence, I was able to follow this path. I still work on my own “personal artistic explorations” (ie: non-commissioned Art) which I’ve blogged about a lot and some of this has led to new illustration work. But I want to acquaint you with some of my editorial work from those bygone, pre-911 days. It may look quite different and I doubt I could resurrect the style, methods and passion, I still love it and it’s work I’m proud of.
One more important factor in the demise of this work, for me, was Adobe’s acquisition and subsequent killing off Adobe Illustrator’s main vector editing competitor Macromedia Freehand. That was a very long time ago. I still find Illustrator to be a cumbersome tool and I miss Freehand. Maybe another post sometime about that! A love letter perhaps.
