67. Barack Obama

It was election day, cut me a break.

I used the same photo as reference that Shepard Fairey used for his famous Hope poster.  Certainly one of the most iconic graphic images created in the last 20 years.  Once it was clear that the image was going to have a continuing cultural and historical impact the AP, who own the rights to the original photograph, insisted on getting a cut of the action.  Fairey sued them on the grounds of fair use and the parties ultimately settled before going to trial.

Fairey and I both went to RISD.  I don't know him, he's younger than me.  But we both learned the same thing: that all images are fair game.  Everything is in the mix.  As an artist I can do whatever I want.  When I interpret an image, I am making a new thing.  It's mine.

The AP can go fuck off.

66. Elana

Muse #2.

Elana and I went to RISD together.  We should have been best friends because it turns out we have a million things in common.  But after freshman year everybody went off in different directions and lived in separate worlds.  Especially the Apparel majors.  They had their own dimension.  ;)

But she was with me on this all the way to the end.  Always encouraging and positive, her enthusiasm and feedback carried me through the darkest days and the coldest streaks.  It's no surprise she's a great mom.  I could not have done this without her.

Thank you, Elana!

65. Frankenstein

It was Halloween, cut me a break.

Thought I was tossing myself a Frankenstein softball here but the cold streak continues.  I should be able to draw Frankenstein in my sleep, right?

Not right!  Wake up!  I had to make amends!  To Frankenstein!

Ah screw it, gimme a beer.

64. Dylan

Brother of Michael and Matthew.

One of the things I learned about myself while doing this project is that I go through hot streaks and cold streaks.  It's bizarre because my skill level is pretty constant, and at this point in the project I've been drawing every day in a row for two straight months.  But some days I just don't have it.  I don't know why.  I was cruising for a while.  Until now.

Now I'm cold.

63. WWW

My little pretty.

Still one of the scariest things I've ever seen in a movie.

There's a progression to the experience of the Wizard of Oz:  as a child it's amazing, as an adolescent it's a sentimental relic, as an adult it's a nostalgic metaphor for life.

And then you have a kid - and she watches it a thousand times and insists on wearing the Dorothy dress and the ruby slippers to school - and then it breaks your damn heart. 

62. Erik

Jon's brother.  Brother of my brother.

I have a confession.  I'm a friend poacher.  I'll friend your friend.  I'll friend your friend's brother.  I'll even friend your friend's daughter.  It's true.  I need all the friends I can get.

Every time I see Erik I'm amazed at what a great guy he is.  Smart, funny, a kindred soul.  I am lucky to know him.

By any means necessary.

61. William Shakespeare

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

60. Jim

Big Jim.  Father of Erin and Dylan.  Married to Janine.

Jim and Janine have a great ping-pong table in their basement.  One day I was in the middle of a particularly intense match with Mick/Mitch.  I was losing by a point.  We're both hyper-competitive and these matches usually get amped up way out of proportion.  You'd think it was the finals at Wimbledon or something.  After a frustrating stab at a cheap drop-shot by Mick the paddle flew out of my hand and smashed into a framed Jerry Garcia poster on the wall.

In addition to basic property damage, I soon discovered that breaking a Jerry poster has moral and religious consequences as well.  After confessing to Janine it became clear to me that I would Never Hear the End of This.  Apparently I have rage issues and it's hilarious.  As penance I agreed to do another drawing of Erin and Dylan.  Not sure if it was a fair trade but whatever.

I made amends to Jerry too.

59. Maria

My beautiful niece.  Sister of Quin and Christopher.  Actress, comedian, photographer.  She says she has a low voice and high hopes.  She also has a ton of talent and ambition.  So - just for the record:  I knew her when.

If you're going to do portraits you have to love to draw hair.  You have to respect it, you have to do it right, and you have to love it.  I love it.  When I'm drawing someone's features it's the equivalent to doing brain surgery, but when I'm drawing someone's hair I feel like I'm finger-painting.  Feels like freedom.

Don't think Maria liked this drawing much.  But I wanted to get out of the box a little, do something different.  And draw some hair!

58. Alfred Hitchcock

Lucie and Hitch have the same birthday.  She's very proud of that.  And she loves his movies, which makes me proud.  Normally she refuses to watch old movies on principle.  If it's in black and white, forget it.  But for Hitch it's okay.

I admire the way Hitchcock was able to exploit his twisted vision in the context of popular entertainment.  I don't think he thought he was creating art, but he was certainly an artist.

Now I feel like watching Vertigo.  Or Strangers on a Train.  Or Psycho.  Or.....

57. Matthew

Michael's older brother.

In retrospect, having the boy squint into the sun wasn't a great idea.  If someone asked me to draw their kid right now, I would never do this.  That being said, I love it.  It's rock solid.  Can't do much better than this.

BTW - I still have the drawing.  Mitch.

56. Michael

Mick (Mitch) went through a bad patch and owed a favor to his friend Dave, so he asked me to do portraits of Dave's kids as a gift.  Dave has six boys.  Pretty amazing in this day and age.  And a direct parallel to my own life, since I have five brothers.  How could I resist?  I said sure.

I did three.  Couldn't work out the logistics for all six.  Shit happens.  Drawing is pretty good - I'm not sure it looks like him though.

BTW - I still have these drawings - Dave never got them.

Way to go, Mitch.

55. Sue

One of my Muses.

When I started posting these drawings on Facebook there were three people in particular who were very supportive and really helped keep me going. The three Muses.  Sue was one of them.  Knowing that I had friends who appreciated what I was doing and looked forward to seeing it everyday meant so much.  I wanted to say thanks, so I made them a part of it.

I went to college with Sue.  We knew each other but we weren't great friends.  That's a shame because she's a great person.  She's also a successful graphic designer, a wonderful mom, and has a beautiful family.

Thank you, Sue!

54. Superman

After I left the ad agency I worked nights as a waiter at a hotel near Princeton.  One night Christopher Reeve came in for dinner with his wife and mother.  He's a Jersey boy too.  My buddy Scott waited on them.  I think he had the Veal Chop.

After they were done my manager invited him to come back to the kitchen and say hello to the staff.  He was gracious about it and had an awkward conversation with the chef about veal chops and then he shook hands with everybody.  He was very tall.  I could tell he was just a guy trying to have a nice dinner with his mom and I felt bad that we were intruding on a private moment.

It must be tough to be a movie star and a celebrity, to embody a character that's larger than life, to become a pop culture icon - and then go back to being a regular joe.  But he was cool, he did the right thing.

He was Superman, like it or not.

53. Jesus

The original hipster.

I went to St. Mary's grammar school and St. Joseph's High School.  This portrait was everywhere, standard issue at the time.

Swedish Jesus.  Hollywood Jesus.  Three Dog Night Jesus.  Superstar.

Looks like a nice guy.

52. Erin

Daughter of my good friends Jim and Janine.  As a result, she's been to more Phish shows than I have.  It's not fair.

Her first communion.  This is the studio portrait they have framed on the mantel.  It was a challenge.  I wanted to try something different, make a drawing that was all white more or less, with mostly line work.  Think I was looking at Ingres at the time.

It's okay, not crazy about the smoky haze surrounding her.  A cop-out on my part.  Although... it is kind of like the smoky haze you might see... at a Phish show....  

Whoa.   

51. Jon

Yuh-Boy.  Musician and scholar.  Master carpenter.

Jon has been my best friend since freshman year.  We've never lost touch and I still see him all the time.  He is my friend to the end, and I absolutely love him.

When I graduated from college my whole family came up to Providence the day before, we went out to dinner and my mom let me borrow her new Impala for the night.  I went to my girlfriend's to help her pack.  It was a weird, sad night, alternately spent packing up her stuff and bursting into tears.  The next day we were saying goodbye to RISD, and we were also saying goodbye to each other, but we didn't want to admit it.  I thought the day I graduated from college was going to be a victory dance, but it was one of the saddest days of my life.

I parked the Impala on the corner of Waterman and Prospect, at the top of the hill, and when I went out in the morning I saw that somebody had crashed into the back of it during the night.  The tail light was smashed, the fender was messed up.  Bad way to start a bad day.  Plus it was pouring rain.

When my mother found out she was not happy.

About ten years later Jon told me he was the one who hit the car.  He said he was having a bad night of his own, bouncing from place to place, and hit a car at one point.  He realized it was me when I told him what happened but he didn't say anything.  And he carried that guilt around for ten years.

It was such a bizarre coincidence I had to laugh - it was like a cheap plot twist.  That day was long gone, the story had passed into legend, but he had to make amends.  Of course I forgave him.

Because love is forgiveness.

50. Mick

Mickey.  Mick.  Mitch.  Mumbly Joe.

One of my oldest friends.  Father of Ethan, Nate and Jake.

When this guy got to college they put a name tag on his door that said "Mitchell Pidgeon."  And ever since then, everybody he knows calls him Mitch.  His kids think his name is Mitch.  His co-workers think his name is Mitch.  It's a farce.  I will never call him Mitch.  Never.

I don't get it.  Think of all the cool guys named Mick.  Mick Jagger.  Mick Jones.  Mickey Mantle.  Mickey Rourke.  Mickey Mouse.

And Mitch?  Mitch Miller?  Mitch, the guy on Baywatch?  Really?

This one's for you, buddy.

50 down, 50 to go.

49. Anna

My sister-in-law.  Married to Gerry, mother of Quin, Christopher and Maria.

Pulitzer price winning columnist for the New York Times and Newsweek.  Best-selling author of One True Thing, Black and Blue, Blessings and Every Last One.

Anna hosts Thanksgiving every year.  It's a family tradition.  It's always great, the whole family is together, some years there are special guests and old friends, and after all these years Anna really knows how to do it right.  It's an incredible feast.  Lucie was just saying how much she was looking forward to it this year.  The smell of the food cooking, all the fireplaces going, seeing her cousins and her grandma, the whole coziness of it all.   It's quite a thing.

I was totally bummed out when I did this drawing.  An epic failure.  Especially after the Sarah Palin portrait.  I choked.  WTF?

I made amends to Anna.  You betcha.

48. Sarah Palin

I'm a liberal Democrat.  I'm not an independent, I don't just lean left, I am all the way Left.  I am hard-wired to hate Republicans.

And yet - the whole time I'm doing this drawing all I can think is oh my god she is so pretty!  Her face is absolutely perfect.  Her teeth, her crazy smile, her nose, her eyes....her eyes.....

Oh crap - I'm in love.

47. William Faulkner

When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch.  It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excrutiating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's.  I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it.  Because no battle is ever won he said.  They are not even fought.  The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

46. Nate

Ethan’s little brother.  Nate looks pretty bad-ass here but he’s really a sweet little kid.  

This is one of the best drawings of the series.  I had my A+ Game that day.  It was the first portrait I did using a photo that I personally took specifically for the project.  So – for the first time I had total creative control.  And I liked it!

Wish I could draw like this every damn day.  

45. Herbie

The first real job I had after college was at Venet Advertising in Union, NJ.  At the time it was the largest ad agency in NJ.  Compared to the big shops in NYC, it was tiny, but it did have some major clients like the NJ Lottery, Brickchurch and Pathmark.  It also had illustrators on staff!  I was the Pathmark art coordinator for all the spot art that appeared in ads and circulars. The pay was shitty, but I got to draw all day, so that was good.   It was a blast to see some drawing I did of a roast chicken in the Sunday paper.  Or a box of Corn Flakes I drew on a coupon.

Herbie was my assistant.  He was around 5’ tall, a man-child.  In that pre-digital age we had a room of filing cabinets filled with tiny drawings of cereal, toilet paper, soda, etc.  His job was to get the art, and then put the art back.  Mostly he spent a lot of time leaning on my desk, watching me work and calling me ‘bubala’. 

He was an old Jersey boy who never grew up, couldn’t grow up, and he loved Jackie Robinson.

44. Valerie

A great person, a good friend.  Jordan’s step-mom.

Val asked to be a part of the series and I really let her down.  As a drawing it’s okay, but as a portrait it’s a failure.  Val is much prettier than this.  I think she was disappointed and so was I.  With requests and commissions I try to make people look as good as they can, if not better.  The goal is to be in a frame and on the wall. 

I never made amends to Val, but maybe I should.

43. Julia

Half of what I say is meaningless.

Eight years ago my illustration business collapsed and I had to change careers.  That was bad.

My brother offered me a job at his law firm and I met Julia.  That was good.

She was my friend when I really needed a friend.  She saved my life.

This is the second portrait of Julie, the first one was terrible.  She asked (demanded) me to take it down and I did another.  It was one of three times when I skipped a day.  I don't remember the other two.

So - to be completely accurate, I did 101 portraits in 103 days.  But it doesn't have the same ring to it, you know?

42. John

My grandfather died the day before Lennon was shot.  I was a freshman in college and just turned 18.  Never lost someone that close before.  I was numb.  I was hundreds of miles away from home and family, and I was wrapped up in my insulated, selfish, teenage life and I didn’t know how to feel.  I wasn’t sad, I didn’t cry, it all seemed far away.

John was shot the next day.  Chris Lee and I were listening to the news on the radio in his room.  It was unbelievable.  It was too much.  I went to my room and sat on the bed in the dark and cried like a baby.  I couldn’t stop.  After about an hour I got a grip and found my friends and joined the general grieving.  I think a lot of us stopped being kids that day.

The next day I went home for Pop’s funeral.  When I saw my grandmother at the wake it didn’t seem so far away anymore.  And then I cried for Pop too.

Love is old, love is new

Love is all, love is you

41. Ringo

Don't pass me by, don't make me cry, don't make me blue,

'Cause you know darling I love only you. 

The Beatles had a huge impact on my life. Yours too I bet. It's nothing special. Their greatness is given and I have nothing new to add to that. But I love them and love is always very personal. They make me happy.

I can't imagine the world without them. 

40. George

We were talking

About the space between us all

And the people who hide themselves

Behind a wall of illusion

Never glimpse the truth

Then it's far too late

My sister-in-law Christine is a big George fan and the proud owner of this drawing.  Well, I don’t know how proud she is but it’s somewhere in her house.  I’m sure it’ll get framed….eventually.  When she gets around to it.  One of these days.  Maybe.