Dear Kurt Vonnegut,

When I learned to laugh and cry at the same time it was because I was reading Kurt Vonnegut. One of my favorite contemporary satirists of all time; his dark humor and absurd disposition tickles my brain. Getting an assignment to illustrate the man was perfect. So here is an editorial illustration spot executed with the most lovingly agitated hand I could muster. Thank you Kurt, for the dark hours of my teenage angst, R.I.P..

I started with sketches of various Kurt expressions because I knew I wanted to communicate the Bipolar, hideous delight of what was said and the bitterness of it’s truth. So here are a few face sketches to warm me up.

Next was the daunting execution of the 1st comp: being expressive and fidgety without being sloppy and hesitant.

The art director wanted more depth, “more grit”, to remove the second set of hands, and to indicate more of an appropriate environment (i.e. a diner or coffee shop). So I went about a second comp, again, trying to fidget with the quill, brush and wash. The first one is a bit over worked in places and stiff but it’s uneasy and “off” in enough ways that I liked it.

The approved final is a bit darker, more “gritty” but higher contrast. The addition of chalk gives it a smokey diner quality. Laughing Kurt is more amused than the 1st comp, though maybe he should be hysterical, but mild amusement has it’s own bitter irony. It’s still agitated in application and just a little “off” so I dig it.

Aaaaand in keeping with “unsettling” and “off” here are a few quotes I have scrawled in sketchbooks strewn across my life. Enjoy and try just to laugh…

“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”

“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”

“Well, the telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful.”

“To whom it may concern: It is springtime. It is late afternoon.”

“Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.”

“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before… He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.”- Cats Cradle

“How nice–to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.” -Slaughterhouse-Five

“Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?”