A recent commission for a friend. The Cave of Caerbannog from Monte Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail.
Category: Private Commissions
Green Beans
Today I drew green beans for Hart McLeod.
Verrückt at Schlitterbahn Illustration
Here’s a spot illustration I did for the August issue of 435 Magazine. It was for an article about the new Verrückt water slide at the Schlitterbahn water park. The slide’s billed as the world’s tallest waterslide and the name means insane. They had to do a lot of testing and redesigning before they FINALLY got it so it worked right and could open it.
Unfortunately my illustration didn’t end up running. The bit in the article that mentioned this slide was cut. So, they didn’t need the illustration.
Just as well, because there are some problems with this illustration. It was drawn when they were still testing the slide and it wasn’t opened yet. When it opened, the rafts were different than all the reference materials I could find showed them. Originally, the rafts were supposed to hold four people, have lower seat backs, and lap belts only. The rafts they had when it opened had shoulder belts, higher backs, and only held three people. So… *sigh* it didn’t turn out as accurate as I wanted it.
Since it’s digital, it’ll be pretty easy to change, though. Just take out the derpy guy at the back and change a few details… I retained the copyright, so I might just correct it and put it up on iStock.
Drawing the splash was particularly fun.
Happy City Illustration
This is an illustration of several happy skyscrapers from the Kansas City skyline. It’s an illustration for the August issue of 435 Magazine. The buildings are cartoon versions of real buildings downtown. If you’re on the Liberty Memorial hill looking towards Union Station, you can see this view over Union Station’s roof. I needed tall, skinny towers grouped tightly together, which is why I chose this group of buildings. 
Plaza Art Fair Illustration
Here’s a spot illustration I did for the August issue of 435 Magazine. It goes with an article about an art fair at the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. The image in the frame is one of the iconic plaza buildings. 
Actually, I made two versions of this image. The one that they ran (above) was a version of this larger image (below).
Here’s the tear sheet:
Sly James Illustration
Here’s an illustration of Kansas City Mayor Sly James that I did for the August issue of 435 Magazine.
See, Talk
A couple of tiny spot illustrations for a 1st grade textbook for Hart McLeod.
Copyright © 2014
Hart McLeod Ltd.
Revised Illustrations
A couple of revised illustrations.
Dinosaur Bones
Here’s an illustration I made for a workbook for Hart McLeod.
I am somewhat concerned by the blatant workplace safety violations depicted in this illustration. 😉
Karate Contractions
I was supposed to make the apostrophe into a character and have him knocking out the letters to form these three contractions. I decided to make it a karate character so he could use karate moves. Kids like karate. The only thing I’m a little iffy on is making the character white. I made him fully white because a karate gee is all white. I actually tried drawing it in a bit more detail so that the shirt was fully defined, but that just didn’t look right. When I colored the “skin” of the apostrophe, it looked even worse. So, I decided all-white without much detail looked best. The black belt is the important bit, I think.
These are for a textbook project for Hart Mcleod.
Karen B. Jones - Illustrator 