UNCLAIMED FREIGHT

Avant-Brunch / Happy New Year

2011-12-30T10:28:00.000-08:00

Here's the flier and menu designs for the inaugural "Avant Brunch" presented by old friends Christopher Weingarten and Seva Granik. The editioned 2 sided prints are swag for the event on Sunday, which i believe is sold out at this point. Werd, and Happy New Year!

Holiday Mixerrr / Holiday Party

2011-12-07T10:44:00.001-08:00

Holiday Mixer 2 by ted mcgrath

Once again, somehow, the holiday season is upon us. 2011 has breezed by at an unprecedented pace, the sense of temporal dislocation only heightened by todays weather of 70º and foggy... on December 6. In Brooklyn. Spooky? You bet.

But in lighter news, here's another round up of holiday sonic chestnuts for your seasonal entertainment - some are well-worn favorites, songs long canonized by the gods of pop culture and half-remembered office party slur-alongs, while others materialize warbly and weird like Dickensian ghosts of 45rpm crate diggers past. As with last year's offerings, i think they stand up to the "proper" work of the artists involved, and somehow balance holiday novelty and actual listenability quite well. The amateur edits and fades are back too, but hell, it's still better than that She & Him record. Just sayin.

ALSO: for those of you so inclined and in the NYC area, the cast and crew of The Pencil Factory Studios will be having our annual shin-dig at The Diamond in Greenpoint this very Friday, from 7PM-? Last year's party was a total blast and it'd be great to see any and all of you if you're around. The Diamond is located at 43 Franklin St. Brooklyn, NY 11222, G to Nassau/L to Bedford.

Happy Holidays Everyone! And here's to fantastic and Mayan Revenge-God free 2012!

-t.

New One For Draft Magazine...

2011-11-30T11:24:00.001-08:00

Here's a new one from my bi-monthly series for Draft Magazine, a story about an out of work writer who rides out some rough economic times by working at Upslope Brewing's cannery.

"Pro-Wrestling Cyclops, The Workplace And You": Undead Illustration #3

2011-11-16T09:53:00.001-08:00

Last month* i contributed two illustrations to Institutional Investor. Though the above sketch wasn't used (the finals will be posted as soon as the piece publishes), i just rediscovered it while cleaning up at my studio and felt it was worth a post. The story was on "Market Volatility Becoming The New Normal." Draw your own conclusions.

*Yes, this job was executed during the same period of prolonged fevery illness as this guy.

Animals for the New York Times, With A Quick Word On Researching Your Reference...

2011-11-08T11:04:00.000-08:00

Last month i completed the above illustration for The New York Times Travel section, about discounted safari vacation packages. Seemed simple and straight forward enough, i was super happy with the final, and actually arranged to trade the mandrill to a friend of mine for a piece of his own artwork to be decided at a later date. This assignment however, marked the first time i ever had to significantly alter an illustration based on poor photo reference research. It's been about 2 years since i've taught at an art school but were i in the classroom presently, this would be today's lesson. Here we go, do as i say, not as i did:

The brief for the piece was pretty simple: Safaris are being discounted more heavily than usual due to the depressed economy, and while still expensive, they are certainly significantly less so than they've been in a long while. The client's direction was essentially animals and discounts. Done. Above is the original sketch... i've used tigers A LOT in my illustrations in recent years (i've been trying to cut back) but this seemed as good a place as any to trot one out without it seeming like forced illustrator bullsh*t circumstances ("doesn't this guy do anything but paint tigers? c'mon...") as well as expand my usual cast of non-human players for possible allegorical usage later. A quick editorial tweak of the "language" in the piece and the below final ensued.

The problems begin here. A failure to glean from the article that it concerned only African safari tours allowed for the inclusion of the tiger, as my father, the son of a prominent veterinary pathologist succinctly pointed out much to my shame, "There are NO tigers in Africa," a sentiment echoed with increasing snark and indignation in the comments section of the piece on the Times' website (to be fair, i was in the throes of a sinister sinus infection and suffice it to say, "medicated"). Additionally, some intrepid commenters took issue with the bird, which, while there's no way i'll even pretend to describe it's specific phylum, was definitely culled from a Google image search for "safari bird." Ugh. A toucan it is not, but sometimes there's no accounting for taste, artistic license and so on. The last thing i wanted to do was embarrass a favorite and loyal client though, so the switcheroo from tiger to lion and "toucan" (ugh) to mandrill was made. A printed explanation later and all was well, minus my own embarrassment. Earlier sketches made with the mandrill in more provocative poses such that scrutinous viewers and safari enthusiasts would have absolutely no problem identifying the animal via its specifically tinted posterior have been consigned to my sketchbook and studio visits.

Moral of story, kids: read the damn article carefully, especially when under the influence of Thera-Flu. And make sure your photo reference corroborates - even if you're going waaaaaaay out on some weirdo limb, better to ground at least a toe or 2 in fact, especially when you're drawing for the world's largest news organization.

A happier ending: this week i made the below drawing for the Times Op-Ed section, applying some allegorical animal grist (vulture) to a modern Goya-worthy disaster (Arizona). Buried in the comments is praise for the draftsmanship in the illustration, which you'd correctly guess i seldom ever receive. Redemption? Sure, but at the end of the day it's just another lunatic buzzard screaming from a top a picked-clean bison skeleton in the Arizona desert.

Thanks for reading!

Margaret Mead

2011-10-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the recent formation of a band by her name (one day every combination of words will have at least a secondary meaning as a band name which will necessitate the creation of a whole new lingual lexicon, but i digress) i thought i'd post this portrait of legendary anthropologist Margaret Mead from back in the halcyon days of 05. I seldom get called for portraits as i've said before, but this is definitely as good as any i've ever done. It was commissioned by DOSE, the dearly departed Canadian alt-daily that launched more than a few illustration careers way back when, drawn straight into a sketchbook and scanned and emailed at kinkos while i was on vacation. Good times.

A Recent Sketch Book Drawing...

2011-09-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

Death By Audio Mural

2011-08-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

So this has been a hell of a summer - many things afoot over in would be sleepy Greenpoint as exemplified by the last 96 hours' metropolitan tremor and the first hurricane of the season that i'm watching drift in over the roofs of North Brooklyn as i type. So yeah, lots of action over the last 3 months in the art, music and miscellaneous departments, much of which will show up here with the attendant and typically verbose write up. Werd.

One of this summer's projects that i'm super excited to finally share is the mural i painted over 2 days at Brooklyn's Death By Audio, one of the all-time great DIY art and music venues. A few years ago, the fine folks who manage the place began commissioning artist friends, (mainly from bands who play there often) to paint murals on the walls inside the space, and i was invited to contribute something to the walls opposite the stage that adjoin the back room to the main performance space.

As a lot of the other pieces are relatively colorful, i knew right out of the gate that i wanted to do something stark and black and white. I was also keen to free-hand the piece with some India ink in the vein of some large pieces i'd completed almost 10 years ago at the tail end of art school but had seldom revisited since.

Content however, was a problem. I find that a lot of illustrators and designers (myself very much included) can get both very excited but also a little gun-shy when confronted with a piece that's not only well beyond the scale of your typical editorial illustration or book jacket and also not quite as disposable. And on an old-timey Catholic guilt level, friends of mine run and maintain the venue: i wanted to be sure i created something that they (more than anyone else) wouldn't be repulsed by, sick of in a few days etc. After hemming and hawing over ideas one of my friends who looks after the place remarked that he liked the Hokusai-derived waves i often incorporate in my work, which was the suggestion i was looking for. A lot of the other pieces have kind of a monstery quality to them and i definitely wanted to tap into that without getting contrived. Adding a subtle, sinister eyeball to the sketch below solved pretty much all issues.

From there it was just a matter of executing the final piece. I spent a day on each side, having to prime the wall first and let it dry, then going back in with some pretty thick Japanese brushes and some ink. Thanks again to Edan, Gavin and everyone else at Death By Audio for the gracious commission and the chance to contribute some art to my favorite music venue!

Notes: Death By Audio is far and away one of the best DIY music venues going. If you're a music fan and find yourself in the greater NYC area with a night to kill, i highly recommend it. It's one of the last great venues where on any given night you can be utterly clueless about any of the bands on the bill and probably see and hear something totally unexpected and amazing. It's located at 49 S2nd between Wythe and Kent in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Check out the calendar here.

Also, please pardon the lofi iPhone photos, it was all i had available at the time. Better shots coming soon, i swear! Thanks for reading!


			Priming the walls.

In progress, the fills were done with ink as well to keep the black consistent and give it a more painterly feel.


The finished piece.

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-18T14:50:00.000-07:00

Hey All - Happy Father's Day weekend. In the spirit of the event, here's a sketch book portrait of the old man (speaking figuratively) drawn back in 2007, dude's doing the crossword puzzle and holding still, uncharacteristically. Happy Father's Day to you and yours! Cheers!

David Sokol Feature For Bloomberg Business Week Or "Yes, I Will Make Your Magazine Feature Look Like My Zines, Sure."

2011-06-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

Once in a weird while you get called for what literally qualifies as a dream job - the kind of gig that you play out in your head every now and again that you know the odds of something like that actually going down are completely slim to nil. But once every election cycle or so (and i swear there must be a ancient and deeply uncool Aztec calendar for predicting this sort of thing somewhere in the seldom seen Stonecutters-esque subterranean vaults of the Society Of Illustrators), one of these assignments dings over your email and reminds you why you spent so many hours making endless revisions to that fascinating spot series about the evolution and mysterious disappearance of the spork for European mini mag Blaine Westway Presents: CUTLERY. That having been typed, somebody please, if you're out there, i'll draw yer sporks, actually sounds kinda cool...

Anyhow - in late April i received one such email from Richard Turley over at Bloomberg Business Week. Much and justifiably lauded since its relaunch last year, the new Bloomberg prefixed version of Business Week really is quite the wonder in this age of protracted panic about the future of print based media. Strictly from a design and illustration standpoint, they've been a complete joy to work for as i've seldom been hired for freelance projects where my role in the process and what i could bring to the table seemed so thoroughly and specifically considered. For this project, i was asked if i'd like to illustrate and embellish a feature story about David Sokol, the should've been heir to Warren Buffet currently suffering from a snowballing fall from grace that had finally started to captivate national news attention in spite of the best efforts of all parties involved not to make a scene. Richard had a copy of an older zine of mine called "Health & Science Center" and asked if i could apply a similar treatment to the pages pertaining to the Sokol story. Some images of the printed zine:

With this aesthetic in mind (black line on red background, hand lettered titles, xerox battered photos) i set about attacking sketches given the rough layouts and some photo options:

Originally the story was to be titled "The Latest Temptation of David Sokol" and the only real direction i was given was to avoid direct Biblical imagery to the best of my ability. Also, Buffet was to be shown as "protected" or "sheilding" himself from the fallout. Upon further reading of the story, Sokol was cast as a more ambiguous character than the initial headline suggested, portraying him as a generous philanthropist capable of ruthless and even bullying behavior in business deals, an honest and devoted family man very much in line with Buffet's own public persona but whose behind the scenes actions don't necessarily place him above a few minor crooked deals even though the actual financial gains would be a pittance to someone of his net worth.

Given all of this i started thinking about the work of Max Beckmann (a long time favorite of mine who often painted from a personalized mythological vocabulary) and Rauschenberg's "illustrations" of The Inferno, works that communicated universal weighty themes by reconfiguring and recombining, or updating mytho archetypes. Corrupting black cloud ripped from Japanese woodcuts is certainly obvious enough, but i was really happy to get the accidentally toppled trash can full of vipers through. As for Buffet, couldn't resist giving him Odin-esque lightning bolt eye-brows (and for the record Thor was a great, stupid popcorn movie, way to make those Kirby costumes look totally believable) as well as a brickwall, moat, and psychedelic forcefield. Ultimately the 70s muscle dude bouncer and the dog got cut, but there was a lot happening in that shot already. With sketches approved, it was off to a 12 hour scanning and drawing marathon that ultimately incorporated scans from my sketchbook to fill in the margins and add to the zine-like feel. Finals and print version below:

Thanks again to Richard and the rest of the gang at Bloomberg for what was definitely one of the most fun and rewarding projects i've ever worked on!

A Rock Show Poster That I Just Made.

2011-05-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

From The Desk Of... Interview

2011-05-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

The awesome Kate Donnelly was gracious enough to profile me on her "From The Desk Of..." Blog, a site devoted to the work spaces and working processes of artists, designers, writers, and other creative folks. There's a brief interview and some photos of recent work and my studio. Link below, and thanks again to Kate for including me in such distinguished company (there are pieces on some really terrific, super talented and in some cases downright legendary folks in the archive).

From The Desk Of... Ted McGrath

"Super Flu": Undead Illustration #2

2011-04-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

Last week i was contacted by The New York Times Magazine to do some illustrated type for a piece on fighting the super flu, a strain of the seasonal menace that's adaptable and resistant to conventional antibiotics. Over a few days i came up with 3 treatments, all of which i was pretty excited about and ultimately the client as well. Unfortunately, just as the art was approved the story ended up being cut altogether, so no ultra gross microscope type to ruin your Sunday brunch next week i'm afraid...
That said, it's always super fun to both flex the Ed Ruscha-worshiping part of my brain and work for the Sunday Magazine, as they're pretty much responsible for a large chunk of my career. Werd. Type treatments below, the bottom version is what would've appeared in the magazine.

Panda Bear's "Tom Boy" for NYLON

2011-04-08T11:14:00.000-07:00

Last month i got a call from NYLON magazine to do a full page illustration of Panda Bear from Animal Collective to accompany the review of his forthcoming solo album "Tom Boy." Not terribly accustomed to being called for portraits, i was thrilled that the direction was pretty open ended, the only real stipulation being that the piece feel "painterly." It having been a while since i sunk my teeth into some gouache, this was exciting.

I was very familiar with Mr. Bear's "Person Pitch" album from 2007 and was given a one-time use preview stream of "Tom Boy" to listen to while working on the illustration. From what i could assess from that one listen, the new record dialed up the melancholy undertones and slowed the tempos a little from the previous release. More than ever, the music reminded me of a bizarro world post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys, which in turn set me scrambling through my record collection for the Beach Boys comp "Endless Summer," one of my favorite illustrated LP covers ever. I've attached a jpg below - how cool/creepy are the weathered Wilsons hiding in a psychedelic surf jungle?

Using this as inspiration/homage i concocted the following sketch. The other conceit of this design was that it would grant maximum leeway in terms of nailing the portrait by obscuring a lot of the face with psychedelic flowers.

This was then translated to the final below:

Coming off the Fashion Week process and some design related work i've been up to, it felt really great to do something of the "hands dirty" painted approach again. Thanks for reading!

Where Have I Been You Ask? Fashion Week I Say.

2011-02-25T12:01:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back i had the distinct pleasure of working with some dear friends from way back in the Pratt days on a project for Pepsi and Simon Doonan in conjunction with Mercedes Benz Fashion Week here in New York. Pepsi was unveiling their brand-new "Skinny Can" Diet Pepsi can and commissioned Doonan to concept some giant display style props for both a gallery in Soho that would host a release party of sorts, as well as some booth displays at Lincoln Center where most of the Fashion Week action would be occurring.
We ended up having to build 1 gigantic Pepsi can out of Pepsi cans (complete with proportional straw), 4 gigantic stiletto heels built from Pepsi cans, some weird eyeball light fixtures that incorporated the company's logo, and create several "stages" from full soda cans upon which would sit the above, as well as some custom furniture and wallpaper from Jonathan Adler, and at the party, live models. While it was certainly hard work over long days that required a lot of precision, the very nature of the project and materials involved kept the mood light with a certain air of "I can't believe we're actually getting paid to build this stuff!" Good times.
My tasks pretty much entailed assembling a lot of empty cans into the shoes once we had settled on the design, meticulously hand painting a bunch of gigantic Pepsi logos, and figuring out the construction and assembly of the straw and wallpaper vignette.
While i'm certainly happy to be back in the confines of the fortress of solitude [ted's studio. which he actually shares with Kim. just sayin'.], and working on some rad new projects to boot, this was an awesome break from the usual illustration/design routine of draw, scan, rinse, repeat with a bunch of old friends that i don't see enough of, a fleeting moment of living out some "young Rauschenberg" fantasy (he got his start as a window designer ya know). Photos below!

Some shots of the "can based" props nearing completion in the Soho space.

Engineering and wrapping the straw with the Jonathan Adler Pepsi pattern at my studio.

The Adler pattern was printed on gigantic sheets of rag paper and installed "wallpaper" style with discreet tacks. Notice the "can floor" as well...i think it ended up being somewhere near 6 tons of Pepsi...

The finished installation, complete with models, at the launch party.

LOVE CITY

2011-02-14T10:09:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day folks! Above is the cover of the forthcoming "February is for Loverz" themed zine i hoped to have out this week, but due to an extraordinarily busy few weeks doing some weird/awesome Fashion Week stuff with dear friends at the behest of Pepsi (watch for a forthcoming post), this baby won't "hit the streets" til early next week. I figure as long as i beat the St. Patrick's Day decor in drug and convenience stores i'm ok. Anyway, how about that weather?

VIKING

2011-01-27T10:31:00.000-08:00

Nothing says snow day like Kojåcc the Viking.

Animation Time Waster

2011-01-21T09:54:00.000-08:00

My good friend graphic designer Anita Chacinska dropped by the studio late yesterday and we devoted another 30 mins to a super short animation of an ex-president being struck with a food stuff in an exotic location. #2 in our on-going series is Richard Nixon being struck with a pineapple at the pyramids. Enjoy!

ZONE

2011-01-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

During the last week of 2010 i had the distinct pleasure of ending the year with a favorite piece for a favorite client, The New York Times Book Review. The assignment was to illustrate the review of the novel Zone by Mattias Énard, a book comprised of an internal monologue presented as one gigantic run on sentence and containing only one period. Thematically the book uses this questionably reliable and fractured narrative voice to chronicle and embody the violence, confusion, suspicion and chaos of the 20th century's transition into the 21st. As such, the winding, circuitous "plot" covers and recovers a lot of ground and i immediately wanted nothing to do with a traditional "narrative illustration" approach for this assignment.

Flash back a day before receiving the call from the Times. Back at the ancestral home for the holiday, my dad, ever a classic movie buff, graciously DVR'd Busby Berkely's "The Gold Diggers Of 1935" to show me from Turner Classic Movies (thanks dad). A gorgeous piece of arty, outlandish, deco musical cinema, its "Lullabye Of Broadway" sequence is completely breath taking, obviously for the lighting and super elaborate set pieces and choreography, but especially for the striking long shot of the singer's face framed alone in a massive field of black. Check it out below, it's incredible:

Inspired (obviously and very much so, heh) by Berkely's film i was already eager to try both something that went after a powerful minimalism and/or a dense and more maximal solution. I started sketching and quickly realized that to attempt something visually busy and loaded with detail seemed not to do justice to the review or the described tone and content of the novel. Reviewing the layout, i settled on the following sketch using the lone magnified period as Berkely's black void with a small slightly out of focus skull drifting in the background. Knowing that the "period" would be sitting in the center of the page i thought it would have a bold initial impact while inviting a second or third glance as the review unfolded. Also, as a piece of exaggerated punctuation, it would hopefully co-opt the entire page to bolster the concept.

I also did the "safety sketch" below which is admittedly awful but kind of gets the same point across albeit in a far less interesting way. Blissfully the ADs were on board with the original idea.

From there the finish was a lot fun, mainly involving playing with textures that would feel like magnified print but also something evoking an abstract, out of focus sense of space. The final result was one of my favorite illustration pieces of last year. Thanks again to Nicholas, Catherine and Joon at the BR and Happy New Year!

4th Quarter Mood Board and Keeper Components

2010-12-21T15:43:00.000-08:00

For Fun, A Rock Show Flier...

2010-12-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you make some fast dumb stuff like this and it just makes you feel good for reasons you can't quite put to words.

Holiday Mix...

2010-12-08T12:18:00.000-08:00

Holiday Mixerrrr by ted mcgrath

With Holiday Party season upon us, and as a result the annual assault of "Holiday Music" i thought i'd throw together a few of my own seasonal favorites (with amateur playlist edits and fades, apologies in advance) in the hopes doing my part to combat, in some small way, the ongoing popularity of shrieking sonic turds like "Christmas Shoes" or the better part of the Manheim Steamroller oeuvre.

That said, some of the selections are well worn favorites in their own right and others off beat nuggets by established acts, while a few others are less well known on any level. It's my hopes that the majority of the tunes, in spite of their seasonal subject matter, are selections that hold up against the "proper" work of the artists involved and are enjoyable in their own right (Marvin Gaye's "Purple Snowflakes" is just top notch and James Brown's "Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year" is one of the man's most powerful and unhinged vocal turns and has been known to move me to the brink of tears, no lie). Listen or download above, hope you enjoy, and most of all Happy Holidays.

Animals of Finance...

2010-11-30T09:06:00.000-08:00

Ok, puns are pretty bad but i couldn't bring myself to title this post "Recent Projects I Am Excited About" or something like that, it just sounds so dry and joyless...and anyway, somewhere Miles Southan is smiling. Moving on...

Last month i had the privilege of working for two of my favorite clients, both business magazines with stellar art departments, Plan Sponsor and Bloomberg Business Week. Furthering the feel-good vibe of both projects was the fact that each called for a different aesthetic and problem solving approach.

For Plan Sponsor, i was asked to illustrate the concept of "sharing stories" for a piece about integrating blogging into your business plan. I turned in 2 sketches, the first with an Aesop's Fables direction, the second reviving the tiger-pelt clad weirdo from the abandoned "running shoe of the future" illustration from this past summer:

The client liked the first sketch (sorry again shoe-dude!), and it provided an opportunity to dig into some paint for the first time in a while, at least on for a commissioned piece. I was also super stoked that the eye-patched bear made it in.

For Bloomberg Business Week i was asked to do a photo illustration based on mounting cynicism surrounding the climate change conference in Cancun. The direction was an enhanced, slightly "defaced" post card, where some of the disasters and environmental issues would literally be imposed on (a consciously cheezy image of) the unspoiled and remote natural beauty of Cancun's beaches. Once the image was selected i turned in the following sketch:

Following a few compositional and layout i adjustments i proceeded to the following final image:

It was super fun getting to do both of these projects back to back as combined, they let me pretty much do everything i really enjoy about illustration with very little restriction or "toning down." Thanks again SooJin and Maayan!

From The Sketchbook.../Turkey Day

2010-11-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

A baboon skull study in ink, gouache and spray paint. Trying to get back into more consistent sketchbook work and this was a fun lead off. A few big posts next week after the holiday, but for now Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

"Illustration Week" Wrap / Glamour Heads

2010-11-15T12:57:00.000-08:00

I've been really excited lately to be doing a lot of assignments involving both some serious line work and that really demanded the drawing of people...neither of which is something i've been doing too much of in recent months. I have some tiny icons in the current issue of Glamour for their advice column of sorts. One had related to a letter about being comfortable with social taboos and the other attempting to curtail trash talk and "over-sharing." There's something deeply satisfying about spot jobs when they really come together, and i was super happy with the finish on these two. Sketches and finals below:

Finally, a big thanks from all of us to all of you for everybody who came out to the Pencil Factory's American Illustration After Party, especially Zach O'Hora who was gracious enough to school me on the 1's and 2's for the first time in a while, Jennifer Daniel for her always hilarious flier and Peggy Roalf for legitimizing our half-baked shin dig with some 11th hour press.

AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION AFTER PARTY

2010-11-08T11:08:00.000-08:00

The ladies and lads of the  Pencil Factory studios invite you back to their stomping grounds in  Greenpoint Brooklyn following that annual melee of drunken debauchery  and finger foods (skewers!) that is American Illustration...

In  honor of our esteemed colleague Sam Weber having landed this year's  cover, we're throwing the after party in the shadow of our humble  studios at Veronica People's Club, owned and operated by the same people  who brought you Heather's (so for the squeamish, it'll be just like being in Manhattan, but in  Brooklyn)... The venerable Zach O'Hora and less venerable Ted McGrath  will DJ timeless chestnuts and obscuro nuggets of the party variety til  the wee hours... join us, networking not required...

Directions: Hail a cab. Tell driver to go to Greenpoint and Franklin in Greenpoint. 

Via subway: L to Bedford Ave, G to Greenpoint, but just take a cab.

Click here to see VPC on google maps, or here if you need to see it on facebook for some reason. 

Flier by Jennifer Daniel.

New York Observer...

2010-11-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

This week i got to work on a fun piece for the New York Observer's Sex Column, illustrating a story that took an awkward morning after "ride of shame" scenario and used it as a jumping off point for a pretty witty survey of contemporary gender politics.

Lately i've been enjoying exploring this kind of direct narrative type of illustration as opposed to the collage-y "flat" stuff i usually do - with this piece it seemed more interesting to try to really get the annoyed, bored and sleep-deprived expression and feel of the girl blithely staring out the window of her date's car than come up with something more complicated or less direct.

Once the sketch was approved it was a pretty simple translation to the final.

See the finished piece in more detail here.

Shoe (Undead Illustration #1)

2010-10-28T07:48:00.001-07:00

A dead sketch for a piece commissioned over the summer about "the running shoe of the future"... though sacrificed on the altar of budget negotiations and misunderstood emails, i really loved this drawing. The idea was that you know, it being post-2012 and all, Quetzalcoatl is back and tearing things up with an army of various horrifying monsters and mankind's only real choice in foot wear, let alone running shoes, is a viscous black paste that congeals on the sole of the foot, shielding it temporarily from the jagged and unpredictable volcanic surface of the earth of the future. Somewhat unbelievably, the client was on board with all that, but shot the whole thing down when i attempted to renegotiate the $$$. These things happen.

Three Aztec Warriors/Saturday Afternoon Free Timez

2010-10-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

Killing time in the studio with Kim on Saturday afternoon with collaborative collages... "Three Aztec Warriors."

Vans On The Run

2010-10-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

In the last week of September I got a call from Alexandra Zsigmond from the New York Times Op-Ed desk with a (dare i say it) exciting job regarding the rise of semi-legal private transit services in the face of public transit cut backs across the city. As per usual with Op-Ed gigs, time was tight but thanks to the marvels of modern technology i was able to get most of the sketches done in a pocket sketchbook while waiting for Pavement to come on stage at Central Park.

Once i had a rough idea of how the piece was going to sit in the blissfully unconventional shape...

... it was then just a matter of populating it with buildings and vehicles...

...which were kept pretty clear and tame in the sketch phase. Once the sketch was approved however, the vehicles had room to get a little more interesting in terms of line and mark making.

I really, really used get bummed out when i had to draw cars or trucks. I lived in fear of having to draw machinery, a total drag... now however, i crave this stuff... Anyway, a slight tweak of the layout later and voila:

...one of my favorite pieces of 2010. The final piece is available in more detail here.

Almost Album Cover

2010-10-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I got a call from the folks over at the Decon Group to put together some comps for an upcoming record by Gangrene, the collaborative outfit of Oh No and The Alchemist. Their upcoming record is called "Gutter Water" and true to both the name of the group and the title of the album, the art gang at Decon wanted something appropriately dank and grimey. This presented a unique challenge in that, while I certainly trafficked in gritty and gross back in the halcyon days of 2002-2004, it had been a while since I visited scuzz country. A quick trip back through the external hard drive and some old sketchbooks produced some self-reference from the age of post-collegiate id:

Having been talked out of a Willem Dafoe-esque method approach that would've required consuming nothing but black coffee and keeping myself awake for at least 36 hours in an effort to recreate the mind (thanks darling), i supposed i was ready to start... contrary to popular belief i'd learned a thing or 2 about Photoshop in the ensuing years and set about creating a watery cluster-cuss of detailed line drawings in as close to a digitally faked glue and tape collage as possible. Some of the ingredients:

And the end result:

I also did a version based on this old Cyclops drawing that i thought deserved more exposure:

Sadly, as you may have guessed from the post title, neither comp made the cut. It was, however, an entertaining use of a few hours trying to channel some methods and ideas that i never in billion years thought anyone would ask for again. Shine on you crazy something something.

WELCOME BACK/FOR THE FIRST TIME...

2010-10-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

...er something like that... the Unclaimed Freight blog will LIVE AGAIN, with a new focus on process, pieces of interest that are unlikely to wind up in the general portfolio, experiments of note and whatever else I may have the time or inclination to write about. "Yeah, yeah, we've heard this before..." you say, skeptical reader, but i assure you, blogging as it were will be attacked with a renewed and improved vigor heretofore unseen in this corner of the cold and vast reaches of the internet...

Anyhow, thanks for reading and stay tuned...

RAWK SHOW POSTER REDUXXXE

2010-04-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

Once every few months i get to crank out a quick poster for my friend Seva Granik, a show booker/promoter for myopenbar.com and lately of Coco 66, an up and coming mid-size music venue across the street from my studio in Greenpoint. I was trying to get a sping-time appropos Norse wind thing happening here, but it ended up more classic Japanese monster face...

"Living The Dream" show at Fuse Gallery

2010-03-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Got some drawings in a show this Saturday - including Gary Panter (!?) among other talented folks - at Fuse Gallery in lower Manhattan town... click here for the gory details... below are some of the drawings i'll be hanging. They're all 11X14" in 16X20 frames, ink and pencil on paper. The text is culled from the websites of the "other" Ted McGrath, a motivational speaker/outsourcing guru. I've been getting more and more calls and emails mistaking me for him lately (i wonder if anyone ever rings him up for an illustration or design gig?) and i thought it'd be fun to illustrate some of his notable quotable moments from the interweb. Enjoy!

The LETTER T

2010-03-18T12:18:00.000-07:00

T by Kim Bost & Ted McGrath from Post Typography on Vimeo.

Back in October, Kim Bost and i were invited by our friends Post Typography to participate in "Fan Letter," the launch party event for their excellent new book Lettering & Type: Creating Letters And Designing Typefaces. For the presentation, 26 artists, designers, illustrators, musicians, film makers, etc were commissioned to create a short presentation about a beloved letter of the alphabet or typographic character. K having already been chosen, we ended up with T, bwahahaha. There were two "Fan Letter" events, one in Baltimore at MICA and one in NYC at Cooper Union, and we were flattered to have participated in both. The video above is from Baltimore: by far the rougher performance, but there's something about Kim's Dylan circa Bringing It All Back Home performance that i really loved, and unfortunately the giant silver T that i'm wearing didn't make it back to Brooklyn...

Thanks and congrats again to Bruce and Nolen at Post Typgraphy... you can check out more videos from Baltimore here: I highly recommend W by Shaun Flynn and D by Jennifer Daniel.

Cheers!

Super! Short! Video!

2010-02-23T09:46:00.000-08:00

Hey all - above is my contrubution to Super! Short! Video!, a group show of 5 second long films and animations opening tomorrow at Secret Project Robot in Williamsburg Brooklyn. I've been taking short video snapshots since the start of the year (the quality of the video on my low-mid range digital camera being surprisingly good) so it seemed like a perfectly logical outlet for some of these pieces. The result was a split screen of two super shorts of one of my studio mates "dancing" and the other my good friend Anthony Macbain recording vocals in my studio for his new band The Psyched. You can watch my contribution, "5 Seconds Of 2010" about 4 - 6 times in the amount of time it takes to read this probably unnecessarily long write up.

Talk Normal

2009-08-24T23:53:00.000-07:00

Dear friends of ours Talk Normal have a full length coming out on Rare Book Room records in October, and Pitchfork has posted a track (which is amazing, lazy review notwithstanding). You can also take a tiny peak at the album's art put together by the super talented Kim Bost and i and the band here...

JUR-Y DUDE-Y

2009-06-10T15:13:00.000-07:00

two quick drawings done over a mercifully short stint at the Brooklyn Supreme Court for Jury Duty that never really happened. Thanks to "Chee Cinncinnatus" for having the coolest name ever.

BEACH GETAWAY REDUXXXE

2009-06-09T14:48:00.001-07:00

drawings done over the first weekend excursions of the summer...

Illustrated Interview

2009-06-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

Sketbook survey and illustrated interview up at http://www.doodlersanonymous.com ... Thanks again to Jamie Tao for the super fun/flattering project!

FLYER

2009-06-01T17:34:00.000-07:00

by far my favorite fee - 50 buxxx and a case of Colt 45... BUT always happy to help out gentleman rock show maker happener Seva Granik, and my friend J plays in Acid Tiger...
and the beer will be used to furnish an open studio night, hopefully sometime next month... (i'll get some 'other' beer too, i promise...)

New Painting...

2009-06-01T10:58:00.001-07:00

Two views of The USS Monitor Menaced By The CSS Virginia March 9, 1862. Spray paint, guache, pencil, ink on paper, 6X4.5' . i was really happy with how this came out, although the paper crease issue has to be resolved before the next one...

Bloomberg

2009-04-13T13:14:00.001-07:00

Thunder

2009-04-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

I'M TOTALLY FLUNKING THIS I KNOW

2009-03-22T10:52:00.001-07:00

but here's some images of some giant paintings i just did being installed at a gallery anyway. each one is 4.5X6 ft!

Train To Baltimore

2009-02-18T14:11:00.001-08:00

faster crappier Zizmor

2009-02-18T13:59:00.001-08:00

the subway ad copy series continues - this is in no way a patch on the 2002 painting of the same subject, still missing in the canals of Pratt...

More Animation/Zine Fodder

2009-02-16T15:10:00.001-08:00

really digging the return to just black line and brushes...

Animation Mess Around #1

2009-02-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

Super short animation test based on some recent drawings, they're probably headed for a new zine... this is may or may not grow into something larger as i can't tell if it's elegant in its minimalism or minimal on elegance...

STILLLLLL MOOOOORRRRREEEE

2009-02-13T10:35:00.000-08:00

STILL MORE MASSIVE REDUXXXE ETC

2009-02-13T10:33:00.001-08:00

MASSIVE REDUXXXE OF DRAWINGS FOR ANIMATIONS AND ZINES AND FUN AND STUFF

2009-02-13T10:23:00.000-08:00

LAZY FASTO CLIPPER DRAWING

2009-01-31T15:15:00.001-08:00

Big Sketchbook Painting

2009-01-30T15:54:00.000-08:00

Big Sketchbook Painting

2009-01-30T15:45:00.000-08:00

FOODS

2009-01-28T15:26:00.000-08:00

this copy of an Amtrak food still life was inspired by the amazing artwork of Andrew Sturgess.

Old Hickory

2009-01-28T15:24:00.000-08:00

Waiting For Antibiotics

2009-01-28T15:23:00.002-08:00

John Rowland, Compensated Spokesperson

2009-01-28T15:23:00.001-08:00

I've Been Tired

2009-01-26T18:51:00.000-08:00

SOOO - massive upload of the last few days' drawings coming up - things have been slowed down by a perfect storm of:

A. My Grandmother's 90th birfday,

B. The Studio's internet disappearing much to the shock and dismay of not only ourselves but several Verizon dudes,

C. and some serious respiratory ailmentz.

All three have, however, afforded lots of time to make stuff and try to remember the moves for Mortal Kombat 3. Old school sick days kids, werd.

this will eventually stop...

2009-01-22T13:36:00.000-08:00

fer Mom

2009-01-22T11:22:00.000-08:00

in Baltimore

2009-01-20T21:26:00.000-08:00

i one day hope to fully re-engineer my 19 year old hairline...for now, i can only get it back as far as 27...

i'm counting this as 2, what's my defecit?

2009-01-19T22:01:00.000-08:00

big sketchbook painting

2009-01-19T21:14:00.000-08:00

METRO NORTH

2009-01-17T15:24:00.002-08:00

NEW LONDON CT WEEKEND REDUXXXE

2009-01-17T15:20:00.000-08:00

Marcia Cahill @ Sturgess House.

Andrew Sturgess in the ancestral home.

Attempted 15 Minute Jay Leno #2

2009-01-13T07:06:00.000-08:00

a better Leno - there's a story behind all the Leno, i swear...

sphinxist

2009-01-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

shot-down sketch for bweek - s'cool i felt like drawing a sphinx anyway, it had been a while...

Last Night's Napkins

2009-01-10T16:26:00.001-08:00

Attempted 15 Minute Jay Leno

2009-01-09T15:38:00.001-08:00

sinister football zeitgeist tribute ripoff y2k

2009-01-08T15:34:00.000-08:00

Completed Sousa Cab

2009-01-07T18:25:00.010-08:00

...and i'm already running behind...

2009-01-06T14:35:00.000-08:00

so, the object of the game is at least one new drawing a day for 2009, exercise more in quantity than quality...etc...anyhow, here's 3 from over the holiday fortnight with some catch-ups promised in the days ahead...happy new year! - t.