Breakthrough Contest Winners Announced

I thought there may be interest in this:

The Breakthrough Contest Has Broken Cover!

For the past year, Richard Solomon and staff worked on creating the first ever Breakthrough Contest. The idea took shape while brainstorming last winter. All artists appreciate how hard it is to break through and succeed as a professional illustrator in today’s market; this is why we named the contest “Breakthrough”. We wanted to reach young artists and as such the rules stated that the entrant must be under 35 years old with less than 5 years professional experience from anywhere in the world.

The goal was to create a contest that would produce long term benefits for the winner since every young artist’s greatest concern is to have a successful career. Unlike other competitions which simply offer a cash prize or a scholarship, we have gone a step further. The winner would be brought to New York City, have their portfolio shown to top art/creative directors, be given the constructive criticism and advice by the industry’s top pros to succeed as a professional illustrator, and receive a cash prize.

In March of 2011, we opened the contest to submissions. Soon thereafter, we began to receive a diverse collection of portfolios from artists all over the world. We were soon flooded with an amazing number of very talented young contestants. At the end of 3 months, we closed the contest to submissions and began judging. Our panel consisted of 20 art/creative directors and top illustrators who scored the submissions online based on skill, professionalism, and potential commercial viability.

We can now proudly announce the winner: Michal Dziekan, a 26 year old illustrator from Warsaw, Poland; a true diamond in the rough. Since 2009 Michal has been working as a freelance illustrator on book covers, editorial/advertising illustration, t-shirt/character designs, and animation. You can see more of his work on his website michaldziekan.com. We look forward to bringing Michal to NYC in late October, introduce him to many art/design directors, and award him his prize.

Runners-Up

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New works!! CIO, Pacifists and Mormon missionaries

Portrait of Roland Lescure for aiCIO magazine. Mr Lescure is the Chief investment Officer for the US$152 billion Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, he talks about howdiversification as a good way to invest is merely an illusion. I love working with AD SooJin Buzelli, she seems to always pick my favorite idea!

(final art)

(sketch)

(layout)

A piece for the Progressive Magazine Calendar 2012 Cover and March image. The image is to remember the brave pacifists who set sail, intending to cross the restricted US military testing zone, protesting against nuclear weapon on March 24, 1958.

Big thanks to AD Nick Jehlen for the creative freedom and walking me through the duotone process!

(final art) (sketch)

(cover) (interior)

A full page and spot illustration for the Marriot alumni magazine. Former Associate Dean W. Steve Albrecht shares his experience as president of the Tokyo mission during the 2011 earthquake. Big thanks to AD Jon Woidka!

Thanks for reading!

End of Summer Illos - Jason Raish

My buddy Illustrator Marco Pardo in Barcelona asked me to take part in a project put together by Spanish illustrator Elenio Pico (who is a professor at Escola Massana in Barcelona). He got a group of artists together and printed their art on sails for small boats that float in fountains around Barcelona.



This one is my boat



cover of the travel section for the washington post about time shares and all the crap that rains down on you when you take part in them. Such as dealing with points, paperwork, incentives, and pitches



why oh why did i pitch an idea with so many intricate objects?



spot for Times Higher education in the UK about some education organization and how secretive they are about their testing methods. They are like ninjas. The deadline was super tight so i only had one shot at the ninja and had to leave everything the way it fell. or else i would have done it until i got it the way i wanted. Maybe i will revisit ninjas later on but for now they go back onto the pile of personal projects i have going on.



spot illustration for Emmy Magazine, which is the magazine that gets mailed to all the members of the Academy of Television Arts and Science (aka TV's Emmy Awards). Its about some guy who was on a game show and lost but came away with a borrowed shirt from the guy who played Carlton on the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire.



spot for Jazz Times magazine about Jazz musicians and the ear damage they receive.

My awkward years, immortalized in pencil.

I've been packing up my apartment to move from my current Brooklyn location to the hipster paradise of Williamsburg. My pants aren't nearly tight enough, and eyewear frames far too thin.

In the process, I found a sketchbook from middle school and early high school that somehow I've been hanging onto for.... 18 years? At the time I was taking weekly extracurricular cartooning classes in the backroom of a local Dick Blick. Being a very sedentary and sunlight-shy child/adolescent, my parents were quick to encourage anything that got me out of the house for an afternoon. I requested a bit of homework to add to the weekly comic pages (If I dig those up, I may show them as well) I was making, and this notebook was the result.

My instructor, who will remain nameless because he's since become an upstanding citizen, would make a list of complete ludicrous titles. My job would be to add a gag cartoon of some sort to each one. Here are a handful for your perusal (many were too blatantly vulgar to show. Trust)...

"The fat man with gigantic nipples standing on line for Star Wars on a cold night"

"Jerry and the Dog Sausage"

Top: "King Fatty Dumb Jackass in his castle eating gum" (apologies for the unintentional phallus) Bottom: "The animal kingdom bakes a cake for their friend, the loving manatee"

Top: "Giraff Whiplash" (sic) Bottom: "Morris the Cat arrested for beastiality" (sic)

Top: "Jerry the Gentile Giant" (sic) Bottom: "The Kitten Dog Fight"

"Exploding Robot Kittens"

Top: "The World's Fugliest Man Breaks Wind" Bottom: "Soil Trauser Aromatherapy" (sic)

Top: "Tina Tuna and Tom Terrific" Bottom: "Squirl Bread™" (sic)

Several things are instantly clear:
-my ability to draw animal anatomy was way more advanced than my human anatomy. Unfortunately, that isn't saying much.
-my love of Ren & Stimpy is very clear in the loving care I put into sausage and butt-acne textures
-the lists my instructor gave me were riddled with misspellings. I knew this at the time and thought they were funnier with the screwy spelling. I'm confident I am still right.
-while many are embarrassing, I'm pretty proud of a bunch of them. I will stand by the manatee, "giraff" and "squirl" any day.


And just to save my ego, here's some recent work.

Thanks for reading,
-S

The end of the world

I love to illustrate the dark passages, the mysterious and the strange. And lately I have been pretty lucky about that.
The first is the cover for the Spanish edition of Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich for Siruela Editorial. I love drawing and painting landscapes and it is rarely that working on Editorial you get to do a pure landscape piece so I was jumped at the opportunity with out thinking. The novel deals with tradition and heritage through the voices of a family of Native American from North Dakota.


I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do so I only presented sketches with variations on the same theme. I also had a back up sketch that I might actually do when I get some free time.






I wanted the piece to be moody so I emphasized that in the sketch, my sketches are usually less developed, altough for covers I aim for a very clear reading of what type of cover it will be even with rough art.

The piece is a combination of ink, liquid pencil (which is pretty fantastic) and digital.


This second piece was a full page spread for an article on School Library Journal about today's dystopian novels. Only thing I can say about this is that I had a total blast doing it.





This is the kind of sketches I scare AD with these days. A simple outlay of the composition and some hints on color, but that is basically it. Nobody has outspoken yet but I can tell they are afraid...

So I am looking forward to more of these in the future, but now back to making comics and books...