Night Of The Nick-Nacks

Here is my contribution to Gallery Meltdown's exhibition of art inspired by the movie Return to Oz. I've loved drawing pumpkins ever since I was a kid for some reason...

For more info on the show: Gallery Meltdown

A Message From The Management

My "official" website, richardsala.com, has been down since February 20th, due to some horrific accident at Westhost. It may continue to be down until the end of this week, which is not too big of a deal I know (it badly needs updating, which I would love to do -- but that's a long story, trust me), except that I do get a portion of my mail from that site. So, if you've sent me an email recently and haven't received a reply, that may be the reason. Thank you for your patience!

Above is a recent commission -- Alice's Mad Tea Party.

Down A Dark Alley, Through The Crooked Shadows...

Some black & white work from the early 1990s. Top to bottom:

"Sherri & The Girls" -- Illustration for a story by the great Josh Alan Friedman (published in an issue of BLAB), 1991.

"Babes On Broadway" -- Another drawing for the same story, same issue of BLAB, 1991.

"Out In The World" -- 1992. Just personal art, which I used for the inside back cover of the paperback version of my book Hypnotic Tales.

"Anxiety Maze" -- 1992. This was also printed in the paperback version of Hypnotic Tales. (Yes, I was working through some issues).

"Night Of The Canary" -- 1993. My love for vintage genre elements had pretty much moved to the foreground by this point. It's my favorite (visual) language... Also, cats and birds, cats and birds, always cats and birds for some reason...

Still wasn't entirely certain about any future doing comics at this point in my life, even though a comic I had self-published a few years earlier led to my "Invisible Hands" on MTV. That was encouraging, but it was only a one time thing. I mainly just liked making pictures. But I also liked writing. And I liked putting them together. So - before I knew it, there were a bunch of graphic novels with my name on them in bookstores...

Kids Stuff - Part 3

Here are some scans of the original art I created for Gallery Ghost (see previous post). I did small portraits of twenty-four artists whose work is in The National Gallery. I have sketches of a few others I did (like Albrecht Durer) who didn't make the final cut for one reason or another. As I mentioned in the previous post, I enjoyed drawing these portraits -- I hadn't really done anything like that before. I always tell clients I don't "do" likenesses -- I mean, I've done them, but it's just not my forte. "A man has to know his limitations" and all that. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed trying to capture the artists in a way that might appeal to kids (i.e. as friendly-looking & cheerful rather than as tormented, desperate or unhinged -- although I may have enjoyed drawing them that way even more!).

Kids Stuff - Part 2

I mentioned this project I illustrated - Gallery Ghost - in a previous post. It was a 9" x 12" hardcover book, but also a clever game, designed to get kids interested in looking at art. It was done in conjunction with the National Gallery and was sold there, I believe, as well as in other museum bookstores around the country. As I say, it was an illustration job and I pretty much just followed the instructions of the designer and publisher. I did enjoy drawing all the portraits of the artists, though. Here is a look at some of the interior pages.

Drawn & Quarterly

Here is a drawing I did for the cover of Drawn & Quarterly back in 1991, when it was known more for being a magazine - and not the quality publisher it has grown into. I don't know why that hard-edged box with the logo had to crop off the top of the drawing -- there was maybe another inch of art up there. I suppose I may have gotten the dimensions wrong. (Yet another of those annoying glitches that became a thing of the past once everyone started designing on computers). They did do a nice job of matching the color of the logo to the art.

Teen Stuff

Does Seventeen Magazine still publish fiction? Anyway, they did back in the 1990s when I did this full-page illustration (top) for a (what else?) coming-of-age story about a girl dealing with her divorced mom (who was romancing a shoe salesman) and her brother (who was benefitting financially from sucking up to their mom's new boyfriend). (See -- now it makes sense... right??).

I actually did a bunch of illustrations for Seventeen back in those days. Articles about embarrassing moms, articles about embarrassing dads, articles about getting busted by the cops (!). I also did work for Seventeen's then-big-rival Sassy. The one shown here is for a story about a Summer Camp romance.

The last picture in this group was for The Washington Post's Sunday Magazine. It was for an article following teens who were learning to drive. I thought it kind of fit the theme here...