Boy, it's been forever since I put anything new up here. First I was crushed in the studio, then it was Christmas which, let's face it, is an unpaid second job for a month, and now I'm sick with some kind of chest cold. Ugh.

It's the week between Christmas and New Years, I have no work in the studio and this cold is making me sleep all the time, so I have absolutely no idea what day of the week it is.

Anyway, I'm nearly finished with a kids book about Broadway for Penguin Random House. Just a handful of illustration roughs I'm waiting to hear back on.

It's a really fun book and I'm really happy with how the illustrations look. Hopefully, I'll get to do  a couple more books in the new year.

Then I started working on our Holiday card in a blind panic. Couldn't really come up with an idea I was happy with, so started rendering this.

Then, in the middle of it, remembered a sketch I had done at an SCBWI conference a few years ago.

So, I shut down the Chris Moose card until later and banged this one out in a day so I could get them printed in time (thank you, VistaPrint).

You just never know when you'll have a better idea.

Then, I needed to get a piece of art done for my wife for a Christmas present. She is a HUGE Prince fan, so I did this scratchboard drawing and had it printed on a t-shirt (thanks again, VistaPrint) that she could wear to yoga.

Pretty damn happy with how it turned out and she loved the shirt, so all is good.

Happy New Year to all!

Wow, I went from being so slammed with work I couldn't sleep to having so little work I can't sleep. You'd think after 40 years of this I'd be used to the ups and downs, but, sadly, no.

Anyway, I have had some work in the studio to keep me out of mischief.

I got to do another in the series of posters for Eat N Park Hospitality Group. These are in-house safety posters using the department head VPs as the subjects. My client said they're so popular that people are vying to be on the next one each month.

This is a vector logo I drew for my friends' series of how-to classes. They make the best stuff out of what you would think is junk. Very cool stuff.

Capitalizing on the new technique I'm using for the safety posters, I drew (painted?) this sample to send to my publisher, Penguin Random House, to try to get to do the covers for the books I illustrate the interiors of. No dice. I've never seen anything as compartmentalized as the publishing world.

And, lastly, these are some of the finished illustrations for the bio of Nikola Tesla I'm working on. Can you tell I'm having big fun?

Busy busy busy

Wow, another unintentionally long hiatus from posting. Until recently, it has been chaos in the studio working as fast as I could on all kinds of fun, interesting projects. Now, it's quiet again and I'll have a few days before the panic sets in that I don't have any work. "Gee, that looks like a good dumpster to live out of."

Four months ago I was approached by Eat n Park Hospitality Group to do some safety posters for in-house use. They sent me some samples of the style they were looking for and asked if I could do it. The pieces they sent were all 80s airbrush work and it took me a while to figure out how to pull them off in Photoshop. The fun twist is that they wanted the faces of their various VPs on the posters. It's a fun series to work on and I can't wait to start the next one. They are so popular amongst their people that VPs are vying for their own poster.

Another fun project I'm still working on is another book for Penguin Random House, Who Was Nikola Tesla. Who doesn't love Nikola Tesla?

This comic book project was insanely fun. A lot of it had to be drawn so as to be animated, which made for quite a chore keeping layers labeled. Can't wait to see the animations and printed comic.

This was an oil painting commission for Christmas. The client wanted a portrait of their deceased dog in a copy of Wyeth's Christine's World. Quite a challenge since Christine's World is a very large egg-tempera painting and this is an 11x14" oil on paper. Still, I'm very happy with the finished painting. And so is the client, which is what matters.

I somehow found time to squeeze in this full-page illustration for a gardening magazine. Some stuff is just too fun to pass up.

And, finally, I attended a WPaSCBWI event on picture books and spent the day listening to interesting lectures and doodling. It's what I do.

Once again, I've derelict in my duties to put some new stuff up here. Let's see what I can find...

This was something I cooked up for promo purposes right about the same time the new Harry Potter book came out. Total coincidence. It's all digital. Photoshop actually.

Spent time working on a new book project for Penguin Random House. This is one of the sketches for Where Are The Galapagos Islands? These are also done in Photoshop.

I painted these 3 little, 5x7", oils for a one day art show, Art In The Garden. Originally they were done as a goof but they were a shitload of fun to paint. I may do more. Anyone want a pet portrait?

I was cruising some singletrack on my cross bike and this little guy came walking right up to me. Can't make this stuff up.

Got plenty of abuse from friends for this modeling job I did. Remember kids, rehab is for quitters.

My adventure friend and her husband pulled up stakes and moved to Tennessee. This was from our last outing, a trail run and then flooded creek float with beer and bourbon.

And, as always, trying to spend as much time as possible in the woods.

Up until 7 years ago I had a studio in downtown Pittsburgh for 18 years. Back then, when dinosaurs roamed freely and there was no internet, it paid to be close to my clients who were primarily located downtown. Unfortunately for my budget, my studio was in the Arrott Building right above Weldin's Office Supplies. For those who don't know, Weldin's is a real throwback. They had a map department, a custom stationery department and, worst of all for me, a fountain pen department. I wound up with over 100 fountain pens, some of my favorites pictured here. The price of the pens ranged anywhere from $20 to $250 for the wood Namiki at the bottom of the photo. Whenever I got in a job that required any pen and ink work I would justify a trip to Weldin's for a new fountain pen. Luckily for me, they were tax deductible. I still use them occasionally for my own projects but almost all of my commercial work is done digitally to make changes easier.

Some photos of the chaos that is my studio.

Looks like this is going to be an awesome show tomorrow night!

Ghost In The Shell, oil on 12" Compaq laptop.


Robot Hands, digital, 11x14".


1962 Unmanned Drones, oil on canvas, 12x24".

1956 Human-Gravity Hybrid, acrylic on canvas, 18x24"

These are the pieces I've entered into the 2011 Art+Technology art show.