2000 My Handmade High School Yearbook

Cover to my handmade yearbook 2000

I was not your average high school student: I never got my photo taken, didn't go to prom, didn't play sports, and didn't buy my yearbook. When my calligraphy & advertising teacher Mrs Jennifer Trettner asked us to do our final project in a calligraphy font of our own creation, I decided to make my own yearbook. Although the calligraphy font I created is ugly & illegible in places... and my layout skills left something to be desired... I love my handmade yearbook.

Teachers and students would write their messages/comments directly in the book (comments not featured here, those are mine!). Each page would have a yearbook-esque pic and a full drawing at the bottom, they would sign the opposite page. Here's a few memories from my yearbook...

 

My parting words for High School were borrowed from Roger Klotz, they are words of wisdom.

I'm thankful for my teacher Mrs Trettner. Her classes prepared me to be a professional in everything that I do. In the desert of Three Village, she had true passion & guts.

Sometimes I kick myself for not also buying an official yearbook, because it would've made the process of drawing autobiography "Secrets of Silent James" easier, but I'm proud to say my memory proved to be quite sharp! So... HA!

2007-2008 Creative Intuition

Where Calgary Nov/Dec 2007

The nature of freelance illustration is you end up working with many different types of art directors (if you're lucky). Some give you a detailed "grocery list" of everything they'd like to see in the image, and others leave you to your own devices and trust your creative intuition. I much prefer the latter and I believe it makes for better images. In 2007, I illustrated an article for Where Calgary magazine about these First Thursday art events. The composition was interesting because it was so thin and tall, I let my imagination run wild! Where Calgary was one of my favorite clients, the whole experience was always first rate!

Where Calgary Nov/Dec 2007

The accordion the girl is playing is a Titano "Ladies" accordion, it was a lemon that I bought in Nassau county. I foolishly bought it without playing it first, it had many sticky keys and the bellows wheezed. It looked very pretty tho. This was also one of the first illustrations I made with my set of Schmincke watercolors, which I still use to this day.

Where Calgary Jan/Feb 2009

Late next year in 2008, I was contacted by them again to create four illustrations about upcoming theatre productions involving food. These are some of my favorite (if not my favorite) commissions I have ever done as a freelance illustrator. 1) Frankenstein 2) Berlin 3) Gilgamesh 4) Circus

Where Calgary Jan/Feb 2009

These ran in their Feb 2009 issue, article written by Sally MacKinnon. I wish I could have attended the productions, they sound incredible!

Tapping the Essence of Box Wine the Rambler Jan/Feb 2008

The Rambler was another favorite client of mine. I really loved their magazine, not just the fact that I was in it- but the content itself. Jan 2008, I illustrated this short story called "Tapping Into the Essence of Box Wine" written by Eva Danielle Wolfberg. I painted the journalist flowing out of the box wine spout interviewing a "Bacchus" type man. One of the things I remember about this piece was that I painted a tiny Caravaggio in a frame in the background that is completely indistinguishable.

Summer of Skin the Rambler May/June 2008

In the May/June 2008 issue of the Rambler, I was sent a very emotional short story written by Chad Simpson called "Summer of Skin". It was about the estranged relationship of a father and son, permanence, tattoos. The characters remark about a tattoo of a flower that is done so well it looks like it is growing out of the woman it is on. I drew the child coming out of that trying to connect with the father, and the father holding his arm which had the beginnings of a tattoo on it.

Before both of these, my first illustration job for the Rambler was for a short story called "Of Mice and Man", alas I lost the painting and the tear sheet. I wish I could find a copy of it. More than that, I wish I could remember the names of the art directors I worked with on these projects. It was about 10 years ago, with all the moves I've done I've lost some lists of clients, illustrations, tear sheets etc. That's another reason I'm archiving all of my work here. Enjoy!
  

2006 Xbox Magazine

Dead Rising Save Point Illustration by Silent James 2006

I learned the most valuable lesson as an illustrator because of this early job for Xbox Magazine. The art director asked me how much I would charge for a full page illustration, I told her, then she told me "it's your lucky day" because their budget was pretty much double what I quoted. From then on, I would ask on calls with art directors how much their budget was. 75% of the time, it was higher than what I thought I could make doing the work. Do not sell yourself short & show no fear!

The idea was to highlight things in games that are frustrating for players. The above image was of the game Dead Rising and how annoying it was to find save points (which were in bathrooms), so the hero is shown doing a pee pee dance. I've never been crazy about zombies, but this was fun.

This image was about how some games had really bright flashes.

Originally, I was asked to create the Dead Rising one as a full page, the other as a quarter, but for some reason they ran them vice versa. I was not happy about that, since they blew up the bright image (they should have asked me for a bigger file, which I had), they also cropped the Dead Rising one. They did send me multiple copies, which was nice, and this was the first major publication I was printed in. I could go to any drug store and they'd have the issue. I remember they took a REALLY long time to pay me, we're talking months, telling me something about they didn't get the invoice. I finally got paid and they sent me this humongous Xbox shirt with it as a "thanks for waiting gift". Unfortunately, this same exact scenario happened to a friend of mine and they were given the same excuse (but no shirt!).

2010 Lecture at FIT on How I Got My First Illustration Job

On December 8, 2010 I joined artists Hope Gangloff and Kim Rosen to speak at the Fashion Institute of Technology about "How I Got My First Job". Heidi Younger contacted me and it was all very exciting. My lovely friends Esther, Matt, Woo, Luis, Monica, and Lavon showed up and Woo was nice enough to record it for me. Check out the above video clip, and here is the original flyer...

I talked about my first job which was an illustration of golfer Michelle Wie for NY Press in the summer of 2006. Here is the image:

Michelle Wie Illustration by Silent James

And here is the clipping from the newspaper:

I remember I was so excited, I told all of my friends to pick up a copy.

My favorite part of the lecture was getting to meet Hope Gangloff and Kim Rosen, they were such delightful people and we felt like a team. After performing in immersive theatre for 3 years and being a graphic recorder, I have definitely gotten better at public speaking since this video was shot, but I think I did a pretty good job. Years later I ran into SASHALYNILLO at a gallery show and she recognized me from the lecture and told me it was pretty entertaining. I would like to do more of these talks in the future!

There's more to the video where I discuss other projects, I'll share those in future posts.

1998 Comic: Triple Threat

Cover to the Triple Threat graphic novel, 1998

Triple Threat was comic about a gang... well, it was more like an army, of wholesome individuals I knew in the late 90's. I remember drawing the whole 1st issue on the coffee table in Luke's living room. He just kept feeding me and cheering me on. I photocopied them using the secret code for the teacher's photocopier, and passed them out in school. It all started with 3 friends: Adam, Luke, and I- but it grew into a huge community that I was very grateful for. It was a means to bring cheer to my friends, and make new friends. Still to this day, people bring Triple Threat up to me, which is great. I'm including the entire 1st issue here. Triple Threat!

My advice to artists in school is to follow my example: create a comic or zine and fill it with friends and people you admire, hand it out, and create your own communities. School was frustrating, but it would have been unbearable without the friends I made from this humble comic. And thanks to Luke for forcing the whole thing to happen in the first place. To read more about the origins of Triple Threat, stay tuned for my autobiography Secrets of Silent James. Lastly, I want to include a page from a later issue that I just love. The drawing style I believe was my best during that time, and it has a good collection of the cast.

1997 Art Lessons

Self Portrait, age 15

I had been drawing since age 3, but I had no fundamentals. I started taking art lessons with the extraordinary June Jermyn in 1997. She taught me form, composition, contrast, color, technique but most importantly: she taught me to see. The work I created during this time was not good, but it was necessary. The above self portrait is interesting because almost 20 years later... I haven't changed much.

I only have slides of the work from this time period, and they were a little scratched from countless moves. I did endless pencil renderings from photographs she took of ghost towns and factories.

I believe I gave the above drawing to my Mum, she hung it up in her cubicle at work and told me she received many compliments.

There's an Edward Hopper thing going on here, I like it. This one was my favorite of this series, I like the tone. I painted a lot of still life oil paintings during this time as well, but you don't want to see those.