St.Croix This Week – A Magazine Cover

So what if it’s published once every two months and calls itself St. Croix This Week.

Everyone knows time takes its time here.

A week can seem like two months when you’re trying to schedule a phone repair. Or tracking down the last ream of laser printer paper until the ship ” literally ” comes in. But I’ll not pick the nit of ceremony being stood on about it’s title.

It’s a great publication, generously heaped around the island at hotels, shops, offices, public places and our only airport. It’s free, glossy, informative and a favorite of tourists and residents.

Nice exposure, half a page on the inside for a personal blurb and photos of some of my current work. When the November issue comes out, it will have the same inside content but the cover will be the second one I did.

So follow along: this month you’re seeing the one I did for October, at the end of October the one I did for November will be out and at this rate, 2 months = 8 weeks=2 covers.

The theme for this cover was our Sunset Jazz Concerts one Friday of every month. I used gouache and pen and ink. Gouache has the best properties of water color and tempera. Thin or thick. Water-y or opaque. Was great fun and whimsy.

Any busier, and I’d be a…….

They’re busy too.

It’s called How to Conduct Successful Negotiations as a Domesticated House Pet.

I think the pup has more reading to do. The cat has long embraced ennui.

Work in Progress, But a Different Sort

I was invited to do the cover art for a Virgin Islands-centric publication that’s widely circulated in the territory. Two separate covers- one for October, one for November.

The editor had a general topic in mind  and left the execution to me. The subject incorporates our amazing stilt dancers called “ Mocko Jumbies ” known as our Guardians of Culture.

Pencil sketch for the angular poses and foreshortening I was looking for.

They loom 12 feet over the crowds on 5-6 foot stilts and parade down cobbled streets with agility the rest of us couldn’t know of in sneakers.

I’ll post the finished piece and the official cover after it goes to publication.

But I enjoyed the process of sketching out ideas, working out color placements, and experimenting with mediums and techniques that I haven’t used in years.

Watercolor sketch for color and perspective ideas…

Working out some scale and composition ideas. Exaggeration is good for eye appeal.

Gouache on canvas- a new combination of effects. Lots of experimenting on cotton canvas panels before going for the finished piece.

Now I’m starting on the second cover- different theme.

Aiming for productivity despite the cutest damn puppy ever:

AND, the looming threat of Tropical Storm Bill, churning up the Eastern Atlantic, moving towards, we hope, not us.