Dear Ross,
The New Yorker just sent the final proof of my essay, Unbuttoned, and I wanted to tell you how much I like the illustration you did. It looks like something in a children’s book, and fits so well with the final line. I love the touch of red, and the shabby jackets hanging in the closet. You got everything just right, and it tears my heart out. Thank you so much.
Sincerely
David Sedaris
Cover illustration. This issue had several reviews of books about comics.
Art Direction Matthew Dorfman
For a piece on Canadian psychologist and author Jordan Peterson.
Art Direction by Nicholas Blechman
Illustration for the Men's Fashion section of the New York Times, for an article on how gym showers are being designed with more privacy to suit millennials who are squeamish about appearing naked in public.
Art direction: John Cohoe
Editor: Jim Windolf
Personal piece
Poster, printed letterpress in 4 colors from handset type and linocuts. This was printed on the morning that Trump's first travel ban went into effect.
A piece in the August 2017 issue to celebrate the release of Bruce Handy's book Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult.
Art Director: Hilary Fitzgibbons
Illustrations for a book by Dave Barry, Adam Mansbach and Alan Zweibel
Art direction Ross MacDonald
Illustration for Garden and Gun magazine., for an excerpt from Lee Smith's piece Marble Cake and Moonshine.
Art direction by Marshall McKinney
The art was inspired by a poem by her friend James Still
Heritage
I shall not leave these prisoning hills
Though they topple their barren heads to level earth And the forests slide uprooted out of the sky. Though the waters of Troublesome, of Trace Fork,
Of Sand Lick rise in a single body to glean the valleys, To drown lush pennyroyal, to unravel rail fences; Though the sun-ball breaks the ridges into dust
And burns its strength into the blistered rock
I cannot leave. I cannot go away.
Being of these hills, being one with the fox
Stealing into the shadows, one with the new-born foal, The lumbering ox drawing green beech logs to mill,
One with the destined feet of man climbing and descending, And one with death rising to bloom again, I cannot go. Being of these hills I cannot pass beyond.
—James Still
Illustrations from the book In and Out With Dick and Jane, A Loving Parody.
Written by James Victore and Ross MacDonald
Edited by David Cashion
Personal piece.
This poster was produced in collaboration with Steve Heller and the School of Visual Arts in New York.
It is hand printed letterpress from hand set wood and lead type, and a linocut. Like the RESIST poster, this piece was done to protest the travel bans.
read more here
Cover illustration for The Year Of Voting Dangerously by Maureen Dowd.
Art Direction by Jarrod Taylor
Thumbnail sketches done in response to news events
Illustrations, hand lettering and maps for Southern Living Magazine
Art direction: Peter Carstensen
Illustrations from the How To Speak... book series –
How To Speak Baseball, by Sally Cook and Jim Charlton (Chronicle Books)
How To Speak Golf, How To Speak Football, How To Speak Soccer, by Sally Cook and Ross MacDonald (Flatiron Books)
Illustrations done for the online marketing of the SyFy Channel miniseries Childhood's End, based on a Robert C Clarke novel of the same name.
In the show, the Overlords appear from space to banish all war, sickness and poverty on earth... but at what price? You guessed it - a terrible one!!!
I did 2 or 3 thumbnail sketches for each scenario, but the children were deemed too happy - in the show, the kids become dead eyed, robotic and slightly menacing. So the tighter sketches and the final art show the more soulless children.
Illustration for Tor.com, for the short story Last Son of Tomorrow, by Greg Van Eekhout
Art direction: Irene Gallo
New York Times, Book Review
Summer Reading Issue
Art director: Steve Heller
Cover of the New York Times, Men's Style section.
Art direction: John Cohoe
Editor: Jim Windolf
Linocut and watercolor
Penguin Books
Design by Michael Ian Kaye
Illustration for one of the last pieces by the great Christopher Hitchens.
Read more about this assignment here
Art Director: Roy Comiskey
Illustrations for Security Management Magazine