Zaneandzali

Here's a sketchy portrait of Reagan I did in some free time I had this week. It's not published but more of a practice in pencil drawing.

I was recently contacted by the art director of Courrier International, a news magazine based in Paris about using an illustration I had drawn in 2008 of Sarah Palin. I wish I spoke French but from what I can make out it seems to be about her presidential aspirations. Here is a link to the article

This was actually my first sketch and then I changed my mind and went another direction. Last night I was looking at the sketch and decided to ink and color it and now I'm pretty happy with it. Remember Reagan...if you don't than this will make no sense!

I wasn't sure what to draw for this one. I was thinking of the Reagan years and how he approved the production of Neutron Bombs. I was also thinking of drawing a cat breathing fire. I even thought of Batman drinking a beer with a cartoon bomb(I don't why that came to mind, i guess I just saw the 60's Batman movie where he spends 10 minutes looking for a place to dispose of a giant novelty looking bomb). I ended up with an "end is near" sign wielding man with a corny play on words. With all this talk of civil discourse and the fact that my band will probably cause hearing loss at this show, I figured the wording would kind of make sense.

I should probably explain this one. The style of the illustration and font are not meant at all to trivialize what happened in Arizona. This is meant to critique some in the media who are making assumptions before knowing the whole story. Some on the right are quick to say he was just crazy and unmotivated by political rhetoric while some on the left are making connections to the Tea Party and several right wing sentiments. I personally think the rhetoric does need to be toned down regardless of what the motives were. That's not to say people shouldn't speak their mind but maybe think twice about demonizing someone for their beliefs. I also think there should be more awareness of mental illnesses and higher accessibility to treatment.

Here's an illustration for this week's City Paper for a well written piece by Bret McCabe on Sheril Kieshenbaum's new book The Scence of Kissing. it looks like a great book and if you want to read more about it, here's the article http://citypaper.com/arts/books/sheril-kirshenbaum-em-the-science-of-kissing-em-1.1085661/