Internet in Your Eyeball

If you saw the movie Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, or the promo video for "Google Glasses" you are familiar with the concept behind augmented reality and "the bionic contact lens". One day, medical conditions may be monitored directly, in real time, non-intrusively through the eye, using the bionic contact lens to measure sugar levels, or hormone changes.

Or perhaps the word Facebook will become literal, as internet access will be embedded directly in your eyeball!

Babak Parviz is the genius, nanotechnologist, who is in the process of developing this amazing new technology. I was lucky to illustrate his portrait for the new research magazine PACIFIC STANDARD - designed and Art Directed by Craig Edwards, article by Vince Beiser. 

The parts are so tiny, they are designed to self assemble using amino acids as attractors, or something like that. Read the article.

Learning about cool stuff like this is one of the best parts about being an illustrator!

I illustrated tiny little portraits of the Publisher of PACIFIC STANDARD, Steven Ainsley, and the Editor, Maria Streshinsky. See the nano-portraits on the Letter From The Editor page each month!

editor: Maria Streshinsky

publisher: Steven Ainsley

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Prison Beating - How to Draw a Cover Illustration

Phoenix New Times - Illustration: Graham Smith

Art Directors Peter Storch and Zac McDonald, assigned me another scary and gruesome story to illustrate for the Phoenix New Times cover article.

Prisoner Alan DeLong was beaten mercilessly in the bathroom of Joe Arpaio's Arizona jail. His eye was knocked out at the hands of  the "Torpedo Man"- a gang enforcer, in a case of mistaken identity. The prison guard threw up when he saw the extensive injuries. 

The Phoenix New Times sent me the official court deposition and medical examiners photos as reference for the illustration, the article was not yet written when I began drawing the thumbnails.

I took a storyboard approach to the illustration assignment and thumbnailed key scenes from the attack in the prison bathroom. These thumbnails are tiny little drawing done very quickly, using a fountain pen, and colored with watercolor.

After review, the Art Director wanted a few ideas cleaned up, plus wanted to see the actual Punch-In-The-Face! I began to develop the thumbnails into pencil "franken-sketches" right away. 

Pencil sketches are more developed, 1/4 page size, and "franken-comped" quickly in Photoshop - using any means necessary to get the idea across. The blood red was emphasized at this stage, because something that gory would be a talking point on the client side.

Ambush

The Torpedo Man

Punch!

Found Alive

The Victim

Once the final direction is decided, I create the illustration, and create a few color comps offering different possible croppings and colors ways.

Magazines want their cover to be a different color than the week before, so be prepared to be flexible!

They also need a lot of negative space for the masthead, headline and other copy. Adding plenty of extra bleed to your cover illustration will give your Art Director some wiggle room when designing the cover.

See More:  Seized! The award winning cover illustration by Graham Smith and AD Peter Storch, for The Phoenix New Times.

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How to Paint a Portrait - Video

1. Wet the paper with clean water
2. Lay in the general pattern of light and dark shapes with a thin wash
3. Work thin to thick - thin wash to thick paint
4. Work light to dark - building the values and base colors with thin washes
5. Dry the wet layer - so you can paint on top
6. Get down with your paint for a while - pop the highlights, push the darks.
7. Peel the tape off - the funnest part!

I'm filling up Sketchbook 31 with a series of self portrait acrylic paint studies. I like to explore lots of different media and paper, and my new Kilamanjaro Watercolor Natural White Paintbook is just perfect for bashing about with paint!

Besides the paper itself, I like two things about this spiral bound watercolor pad. Number 1, it has paper fly sheets between each watercolor page. Number 2, it has a wide aspect ratio. Tall, in this case.

Below are a few self portraits from Sketchbook 31.

Acrylic paint self portrait studies by Graham Smith.

Paper: Kilamanjaro 140lb cold pressed watercolor paper.

Brush: 1 inch flat, #8 round nylon.

Color: Raw Sienna, Ultramarine blue, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Mars Black, Titanium White, I think one of them has Magenta, and there may be some Burnt Sienna in there somewhere, too.

Video: iPhone 4s, Stop Motion Recorder, iMovie.

Music: Moby - Extreme Ways - 18