Wiki definition: A head badge is a manufacturer’s logo affixed to the head tube of a bicycle.[1][2]

For Joseph Ahearne, one of the Pacific Northwest’s finest bicycle frame builders, a badge means much more than a logo. An Ahearne custom frame (not to mention custom forks, stems and racks) is a labor of love. The badge tells the story of the bike and its maker.

HAND BUILT WITH LOVE AND FURY

Joseph Ahearne is complicated and intense – a perfectionist working in a profession steeped in historical tradition, yet his designs are inventive and progressive. Each custom frame involves hundreds of choices, some structural, some aesthetic, some personal. Though no two are the same, his hand is evident in every frame he builds.

Joseph wanted to distill several major themes into his head tube badge: his philosophy on frame building, his interests in Eastern religions and yoga, his shop and his city. He wanted to pull them together in a sort of emblematic crest or coat of arms.

Here are my notes from our initial meeting. We developed a list of the elements he felt were most important to represent both his frames and his philosophy. This began a correspondence over a series of months.

Early in the process, Joseph wrote, ”I really like old head tube badges; ones with fancy, regal, squiggly, crest-like designs. Amazing how they once were such an important part of the bike. The designs were so fabulous and ornate, or simple and blocky, but they really tried to show something about the aesthetic sense of the company, the builder, whatever. I want to harken back to that, to some degree. I would like to see some sort of Celtic theme, knots or what-not, and, beside the Ahearne logo it should say somewhere, ‘Hand built with love and fury. Portland, Oregon.’ The rest is open.”

This was to be a collaborative creative project. However, as in all my commissions, the goal of the client was my top priority.

Here are some initial sketches to illustrate the “process of process”.  As a starting point, I presented Joseph with this series of drawings. It was a way to suggest some options and establish directions to pursue or reject.

The badge began to evolve. We threw out some early ideas and symbols and focused increasingly on those that survived each round of reviews.

The monkey represents the Hindu god Hanuman. The salmon is not only native to the Pacific Northwest, but it is a fish that Joseph pursued as a onetime professional fisherman. The lotus reflects his interest in yoga, and the vice is his most cherished tool in his shop.

Once we nailed down all the iconic elements, we started working on ways to integrate them with his initial, A for Ahearne, the winged wheel and his motto, ‘Hand built with love and fury. Portland, Or’.

Over many months of trial and error, we finally came up with a solution that worked. Delivering the artwork is only half the process of producing a cast head tube badge. There was much more work ahead of us.

Luckily, a company in Rhode Island, hookfast.com, and its representative Dan Gorriaran, were up to the challenge of taking my two dimensional drawing and converting it into a three dimensional miniature bas relief!

Hookfast cast a proof of the head badge in lead. Joseph and I made some minor tweaks to the proof and . . . then the final prototype.

After nearly two years of a back and forth process, the badge was completed, “With love and fury, in Portland, OR!”

Check out Joseph Ahearne’s website to read more about the new badge and his beautiful bicycles.

http://www.ahearnecycles.com/

The owners of Southern California dental clinic approached me with a challenge. They wanted new graphics to promote their family practice that provides dental and orthodontic services – something fun, family oriented and colorful.

 So, the obvious came to mind:

Toothy families.

Toothy animals.

And toothy teeth.

Well, as soon as you begin to show cartoons of people with and without braces, the number of combinations becomes overwhelming.

I persuaded the client it was too much.

How about the animals?  I like doing cartoon animals, so that things like race, age and gender don’t complicate things.

Toothy teeth are just plain weird, so that idea was dropped.

So, I sketched out some animals and added braces just for fun to see how they looked.  I wanted a Southern California beachy feeling, hence the shirts, surfboards and cool shades.

How about hippos???

Hippos have families. Hippos have teeth. Hippos might need dental work.

Hippos are great, but the client decided to focus on grinning faces of a variety of creatures with a range of unfortunate malocclusions and overbites.

After much discussion, we decided on nine animals, some with braces and all in bright beach attire.

Here is the initial line art. The client was happy with seven, but two had to go. They told me the shark was wayyyy toooo scary.

“Even with glasses?”

“Yes,” was the reply.

Evidently, scary sharks might upset little kids getting their teeth drilled. The customer is always right. Right?

The squirrel was also a no go.

So, I got rid of the squirrel and the shark. (I didn’t ask if the squirrel might frighten a small child.)

As the “Evolution” came to a close, we decided to assemble the drawings in a grid to be used on t-shirts, the web site and any other way the dental practice cared to use the art.  I delivered the final art in a grid, but also provided each of the nine individual squares, so they could be used as singular, spot images.

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution proves the notion of survival of the fittest – also known as natural selection.

What does Edwards’ Theory of Evolution of Illustrations for a Dental Clinic prove?

That sharks, even with glasses, are just too scary.

We just completed the first book in the “Squawk” series. Apropos of summertime, it is a book about water safety called “Trouble at the Lake”. Jean and her co-author Lori Walker wrote the book using many of the same mouse character types I created earlier this year for some Yell and Tell classroom teaching materials. “Trouble at the Lake” is a hardcover picture book to be distributed to schools across the country.

I utilized this first color drawing as my color palette template for each of the 24 illustrations. The individual mouse characters, Molly, Marco and Sam, each have distinct fur and eye color treatments. I’d keep this art on my screen and use the wonderful Eye-dropper tool to make sure Molly’s green eyes were the same shade of green throughout the book. Not rocket science, but a technique most illustrators use to keep the characters straight in the minds of the readers. First graders are astonishingly observant. One mistake might get you fired. :^)

In this book, I introduced a fish character to reinforce or echo the water safety lesson and play up the drama.

I wanted to share a few of the initial sketches and the final illustrations. Unlike the Yell and Tell project discussed in a previous post which used tinted pen and ink drawings , the final art for “Trouble at the Lake” was done in Photoshop with a WACOM tablet.

Jean Davidson plans for “Trouble at the Lake” to go to press this month in time for distribution in late August or September, at the beginning of the new school year. She and I hope to get to work on the next volumes in the Squawk Adventure Series sooner than later.

Dozens of children’s lives have been saved by using Jean’s Yell and Tell curriculum. Jean created Yell and Tell following the loss of her four year-old grandson, Ryder Davidson, in a drowning accident. Her desire to spare others the tragedy she experienced has proven a great success.

For more information about the Yell and Tell Foundation or to pre-order “Trouble at the Lake” for your local schools, go to www.yellandtell.com.

For the past couple of years, I have been involved with a wonderful charity called Yell and Tell. It was developed by Jean Davidson, the granddaughter of Walter Davidson, one of the four founders and first president of the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Company. Rather than join the family business, Jean chose to dedicate her life to teaching children.

Jean’s four year old grandson, Ryder, died in a tragic accident that might have been prevented if only his playmate standing nearby had known how to react.

Ryder was playing with two neighbor boys who were four and eight years old near a ditch filled with water. Both of the four year old boys fell in. The eight year old boy didn’t yell, HELP!, but became paralyzed with fear, knowing they had disobeyed their parents’ rules to stay away from the irrigation ditch. He got scared and ran home. If he would have yelled HELP!, Ryder’s father, who was close by, would have heard him and could have saved both the little boys.

In her grief, Jean learned of other families who experienced other similar preventable tragedies. Drawing on her years of teaching in elementary schools, Jean decided to do something that might make a difference. She developed a program for young children called Yell and Tell. It is her vision that all young children learn how to be responsible and proactive if they perceive a dangerous situation.

To date, the Yell and Tell program has reached over 200,000 children in 45 states and 4 countries. As of today, over 40 children are known to have used Yell and Tell to save a life or prevent a dangerous situation from becoming worse.

Jean built her teaching curriculum around a character named Squawk. Squawk is a parrot who is the Yell and Tell spokesman. My work with Jean began when she needed to come up with a parrot character in the poses that represented the core skills of Yell and Tell: See it. Feel it. Yell, and Tell!

Using the Squawk character, Jean devised a series of Yell and Tell educational teaching plans with children’s activity books and instructive classroom posters using the Yell and Tell characters. She also wrote a comprehensive Teacher Resource Manual packaged with a companion interactive teaching DVD.

The first lesson is about water safety. It addresses the drowning issue that so impacted the Davidson family and inspired Jean to dedicate herself to teaching child safety through Yell and Tell.

Jean and I agreed animals would best teach young children the lesson of Yell and Tell.  These are some of the initial pencil sketches of the mouse characters featured in the water safety module in the Yell and Tell series.

These sketches are the basis for a simple and easy to understand lesson strip.

Over the years, Yell and Tell has expanded the scope of its child safety education to include potential threats involving swimming pools, fire, poison, guns and child enticement.

Please visit the Yell and Tell website, share the link with friends and families with small children, and donate what you can to this most worthy cause.

www.yellandtell.com

Jean spends most of the year on the road visiting classrooms and youth groups around the globe to teach children to Yell and Tell. It is her goal to establish Yell and Tell as part of the early childhood curriculum in all schools and youth organizations, empowering young kids with skills to protect themselves and their peers and potentially save lives.

There are two things I really like: illustrating kid’s books and restoring bicycles.  I’ve designed graphics for many custom bike frames. Here are a couple of examples of my original designs.

I’ve also illustrated stories about bugs riding bikes. This is a dummy for a book I presented at a children’s book conference sponsored by the Oregon branch of SCBWI in 2009.

But I never actually used the bicycle frame as a vehicle to tell a story. Until now.

Why not illustrate a children’s book on a bike?

First, you need a blank canvas. Years ago, I came upon an old, beat-up bicycle frame at a local secondhand bicycle shop. It was close to my size and cheap. Although rusty and badly scratched, it had some nice shapes and features that I liked. I later learned the frame is indeed of fine quality. It is a hand-built frame by Holdsworth, a famous English maker.

But back to the main point. I had an idea for a new way to tell a story. This was my process:

I sanded off the rust and primed the steel frame with gesso as I would a canvas.

Next step was to sand the gesso so it would accept a pencil line.

Once the gesso dried, I began to sketch very simple cartoon insects interacting with one another in a variety of vignettes: climbing, flying, crawling and basically scurrying over the bike surface, through grasses and vegetation and up into the sky and clouds within an environment I created. Stories naturally unfolded as I drew.

The plot thickens!

After the pencil work was done, I colored it with watercolor, just as I would an illustration on paper.

Once I finished the art, I paid a professional bicycle frame painter to spray a protective clear coat over the surface. I was assured the clear coat would provide some necessary UV protection, because exposure to sunlight will cause watercolor to fade. The surface of the bike feels and looks much like porcelain, with an incredibly smooth, glassy surface and clear, vivid colors.

The interactions of these bugs lays out a story. The loose organization of the characters enables the viewer to invent their own story line.

There are the love-crossed snails, busy ants, the co-dependent bees and the evil spider hanging below the headtube!

Most bikes bear a makers’ badge on the headtube underneath the handlebars. Since I discovered the bike was indeed a Holdsworth, I created a Holdsworth badge in keeping with the rest of the design.  It is held in position by a pair of hovering bees, hence combining the tangible, steel framed bicycle with my cartoon characters. Everything is mixed up, and yet integrated.

I sent photos of the project to my good friend and respected bicycle restorer, Bob Jameson. He apparently felt bike was somehow lacking. Not long after, an oblong box arrived in the mail containing a hand-fabricated fumigator pump to secure to the top tube. This unexpected gift adds another layer of whimsy and fun to the project.

Here are some of details of the story of love and intrigue, fear and suspense and whatever else you care to read into the narrative.

Finally, what to call it? The Insecticycle!

Here’s an example of functional, rideable art. The Insecticycle is a book on a bike. It is a book AND a bike. Just as mobile as a Kindle or an iPad, but perhaps a tad more functional! Can you ride your iPad around town? Bet not.

There’s nothing new under the sun. I recently came across this website about kamishibai, a form of Japanese street theatre that dates to the 9th century. The literal translation of kamishibai is “paper-theater”. In the 1920s, Japanese storytellers affixed story panels to bicycles and traveled from town to town. The stories were serials and the storyteller would ride his bicycle back to town each week bearing the latest installment.

A good friend forwarded this announcement from the Froelick Gallery here in Portland:

EQUINE
Juried Group Exhibit: Equine theme
June 01 – July 16, 2011

“Across cultural boundaries and throughout history, few animals have carried as much symbolic weight as the horse. They can stand for unrestrained freedom and independence, loyalty, luxury and nobility, erotic potency. At the same time they can also be reminders of domestication and the bearing of heavy burdens; they can portend death and the ravages of time. The wounded horse in Picasso’s Guernica is an enduring symbol of agony and injustice.

People form deeply impassioned relationships with horses. While the dynamic between rider and steed can be powerful-inspirational, romantic, healing-there is also power in an implied absence of that relationship. Consider the riderless horse in a funeral cortege.

Froelick Gallery invites you to join the many artists who have taken the horse as their subject.”

Coincidently, I had kept this grainy photo of two draft horses because I liked the composition and felt it had great potential. Here was my opportunity to take this strong image and do something with it. The main challenge: I learned about the juried show on Wednesday, and the deadline for submissions was Friday. No time to waste!

I did some research and found lots of great shots of draft horses.

At the same time, I recalled from my childhood the wonderful line drawings of the Hungarian born illustrator, Willy Pogany (1882 – 1955).

I’ve loved his work since I was a kid and his influence is clear in “Two Horsepower”, the title of the piece I planned to enter in the juried show.

My thought was to generate the line art in pen and ink much in the same way I approached the Pedersen: King of Bicycles poster featured in an earlier post. I would then color it digitally on the Mac. As a fan of both Pogany and turn-of-the-nineteenth-century posters, I wanted the composition to feature a graphically bold main image supported by distinctive type.

Here is a section of the horse in the background. I’ve shown both the line and the color layer, similar to traditional animation cells.

Above is a detail of the application of color over the line art.

Once completed, the piece had some nice visual things going, but to make the piece more fitting a sophisticated fine art gallery, I wanted to add something to make the viewer think as well as see.

I found this rather powerful quote from the Executive Vice President of the American Humane Society:

“Every year, more than 90,000 American horses are slaughtered for human consumption abroad in countries such as France, Belgium, and Japan. These magnificent creatures have been part of the fabric of American life for centuries. They faithfully plowed our fields & carried our loads. The House and Senate have both stated decisively that horses deserve better than to be hoisted by a rear leg, cut with a long blade, and bled out for the purpose of being served to foreign gourmands.”

– Michael Markarian, Executive Vice President, Humane Society of the United States. 2012.

As of today’s posting, I do not know if this 34 x 44″ mixed media digital print will be accepted for the show.

Here is my artist statement included with the submission:

“For the past 35 years, I have made my living as an illustrator doing humorous characters, realistic animal portraiture and children’s books. I like the strong graphics of turn-of-the-nineteenth century advertising posters – especially those which combine an esthetically compelling visual image with the printed word to create a third meaning.

In my poster, 2 HP, strength and nobility of the draft horse is what strikes the viewer initially. The accompanying text brings into focus a brutal reality that challenges that romantic concept.

What should be done with 1,500 pounds of flesh when it no longer serves the purpose to haul heavy loads or plow fields?

Where does one draw the line between pragmatism and ethical treatment of animals?”

Title:  2 HP  (Two Horsepower)

Date: March 10, 2011

Media: Pen + ink with digital color. Archival ink on heavy stock.

Size: 34 x 44″

Limited edition digital print, series of ten.

Update: “2HP” was not accepted into “Equine”, the Froelick Gallery 2011  juried show. A disappointment.

When I was scheduling a date to take photos to use as reference to paint his portrait, Vonnie, his owner, wrote, “Can we meet at a park? That’s usually where he has that big, ear-to-ear smile going which I love so much!”

We met on a Sunday morning at an off-leash dog park along the Willamette River. I took over 100 photos. Jake sitting. Jake running. Jake chasing his ball. Jake looking bored. Jake jumping in the river to get his tennis ball.

That’s Jake with Vonnie (his mom) and his pal Jessie.

I went through all the photos, and tossed out most of them. But there were a few nice shots of Jake in the classic stoic Lab pose. I really liked the shots of Jake facing me head-on with his tongue out and that big smile – and Vonnie had mentioned how much she loved Jake’s ear-to-ear grin.

Once I chose the pose for the painting, I wrote to Vonnie, “Let me know if you like this pose too and I’ll transfer the line art, and then paint it. I’m going to use a light touch. Not too much pen and ink, since Jake’s not a dark dog . . . I’ll do mostly watercolor. The finished painting will be 8 x 12″ or so.” (It turned out to be closer to 11 x 14″ or almost life size).

Here is the preliminary pencil sketch. I sent it to Vonnie for her approval and any necessary tweaks. She wrote back right away, “Karl! That is beautiful! Although, i do like his stoic look, i do love it when he has the ear-to-ear smile! I can’t wait to see the finished project . . . i just know i will cry ♥”

And so I proceeded. Here is the watercolor about completed.

And finally finished.

I sent the painting off to Vonnie and she wrote, “I totally love the portrait! It is totally Jake and I actually made it into my desktop picture, And the more I look at it, the more it makes me smile because it is . . . him. The amazing thing about your work is that it almost looks like a photograph and it’s not!”

This post is a written and visual record of the steps involved to develop illustrations for the front and back covers of a book.

What appears on the face of it to be a simple drawing can involve many iterations and lots of back and forth communication between the illustrator, art director, editor and the author.

The majority of the narrative in this post is by the most wonderful art director, Sarah.

Enjoy!

Sarah wrote to describe the project, “Hi Karl, I work as an art director here at Random House Children’s Books. I would love to hire you to illustrate the cover of a middle grade novel called The New Kid. I have the design/concept worked out and approved by the editor and author — I’ve attached a jpeg of the concept.

I would basically need a few small spots of a kid. One on the front cover in the “I” of Kid. And another spot for the back cover (possibly the back of him) and maybe another for the front flap.

The New Kid story is very sweet—it’s about a 3rd grade boy named Carson who moves to Northern California with his Dad. As soon as they arrive in their new home, Carson has to start going to a new school. He is at first nervous, friendless and alone. But, he is determined to make friends! It’s told in small vignettes of things that happen in the classroom.

Here is a description of Carson’s new school uniform: A brand new white shirt and tan pants, a brand new Valley Oak zip up hoodie with a silhouette of an acorn on the front, a brand new Valley Oak wind breaker with a silhouette of an acorn on the sleeve, and a brand new Valley Oak backpack, with a silhouette of an acorn on the back. He could be wearing all these things or a combination?”

Here are the initial sketches I sent to Sarah generated on my WACOM tablet:

Sarah wrote back, “Karl, these are great! I’m liking numbers 1, 2, 6, and 10. He should look eager and nervous but, not too sad. I think I like 6 the best. But, the style of 1 and 2 are good too! It’s looks like you had fun doing these! Hope that helps. Thanks for sending the rough pre-sketches!”

I did some new sketches and sent the following trying different line quality and expression.

Sarah responded with some comments. “The editor, author, and I all like sketch C the best! The author had a few comments about Carson’s ethnicity.”

I find doing humorous illustrations of animals simpler because ethnicity, race and gender don’t enter into the equation. In this situation, the art director decided to go for an ethnically neutral kid. He could be whatever the viewer wanted him to be. That poses a bit of a challenge for an illustrator.

I wrote Sarah, “I have done line art for a number of subtle, ethnic variations of version C. Very subtle, but once we get that nailed, we need to decide if you want me to do the bold, vector color, like on the Sammy Keys covers, or a more subtle, Dr. Martins watercolor wash. If there is a sample in my portfolio you are drawn to, let me know.”

I generated multiples of the kid with the face blank, and then drew variations of facial features to give the art director a number of choices – sixteen variations in all.

She wrote back: We picked #9 and #10! And the graphic acorn on #1. I think a color version would be good to show the author!

So I did color versions, some with a loose water color wash, some bold color generated in Photoshop.

After reviewing the color versions, Sarah made some choices. “Hi Karl, I got your color versions here and they look great! I’m liking #4 the best. I like the bright blue and I think that his skin tone coloring is right here too.

The editor has given us the ok to move onto final art! She and I agreed on the coloring and style of #4 (blue hoodie).”

This art was generated on the WACOM tablet and colored, on a second layer in Photoshop.

I sent it off, and Sarah wrote back, “So, I think your little color Carson here looks great as is! I just mocked up the final design for the editor and she likes it! So, now we’re just waiting to here what Mavis thinks. I’ve attached a pdf of what it’s looking like! Hope you like it too! I’ll keep you posted!”

The author Mavis Jukes gave the cover her blessing. Sarah wrote, ” Hi Karl!–Mavis loves it! YAY! I’ve attached a jpeg of the FINAL designed cover.”

I just finished up another pair of front and back book cover illustrations for the latest in the Sammy Keyes series by author Wendelin Van Draanen. Sammy Keyes is sort of your modern Nancy Drew. She is always getting herself into trouble while solving mysteries. She’s precocious, smart and a little bit edgy. This will be my sixth or seventh cover for this series. It has been a pleasure to work with the folks at Random House over the past several years, and I really like the characters and story lines in the Sammy Keyes books.

The name of this book is The Wedding Crasher. Here is the story synopsis and initial book cover concept from my art director:

In The Wedding Crasher,  Sammy is a (reluctant) bridesmaid and she brings down a crook who loves Harleys. So, we thought it would be comical to show Sammy in her big poofy lavendar bridesmaid dress, riding a Harley hog (perhaps like she’s late for the wedding— going fast, dress billowing out behind her…).

A few details to keep in mind:
• Sammy is 13 years old. Not big, so she’d look small on the motorcycle
• The bike should be really macho
• The bridesmaid’s dress is described as: “lacy, lavender, short puffy sleeves, long puffy skirt, big puffy bow” —very fairytale princessy/fairy godmother-like
• If Sammy’s feet show, then she should be wearing her trademark high-top Converse sneakers
• Plus, we want to keep Sammy mysterious, so let’s have her wear a full helmet, so we avoid showing her face

So, I started with the image of Sammy, a 13 year old girl, screaming by on a gnarly motorcycle, late to a wedding.  I hadn’t yet read the manuscript, but I had this scenario to work with, along with another incident in the book describing a dead rat wearing a dog collar and tag which reads, “Die Dude.” So you see, this is an interesting assignment with little to go on except for the guidance of the art director.

Here is my initial sketch of Sammy on a motorcycle in a full helmet, carrying a bridesmaid’s bouquet of flowers. I drew the sketch on a WACOM tablet.

The designers also wanted to see some rats.  This is the really fun part  for me. I enjoy developing characters.

My art director reviewed the preliminary sketches and wrote back a few days later,

In terms of the cover, the author is now having reservations about showing Sammy, even though most of her face is hidden. That being the case, we’d like to try a new angle. Instead, we’d like to feature a biker dude holding a very girly bouquet—someone who looks like he’s a wedding crasher. Some key features we thought would be funny to include are: classic biker—big burly guy, helmet with goggles on top, do-rag, leather jacket, and a bouquet with some frilly lace attached. There’s no facial description, so please go with whatever you feel fits.

No problem! But I needed to do some research on big, burly biker dudes.  This guy was perfect!

Can you see the resemblance!?  I did a couple versions, one using my WACOM stylus and the second one with a traditional dip pen and India ink.

Since I had the green light to proceed with the rat, I imported the line art into Adobe Illustrator, Live-traced it and added color.

The art director chose the second drawing of the biker dude. So, like the rat, I imported it, converted to a vector file and colored it in Illustrator.

The art director felt the tattoos and some of my color choices made the art a bit too dark. She also wanted to emphasize that the flowers were supposed to be a wedding bouquet, and needed me to make the bouquet more “girly-girly” to really contrast with the burly biker.

I took my original line art, removed the tatts from the biker dude and redrew the bouquet. I also recolored the goggles and bandana as requested by my art director.  Here is the final art.

This assignment was super fun to do. I had great people to work with and I look forward to seeing The Wedding Crasher soon on the shelf at Powell’s.