illustration by Steven Salerno created for The New York Times Real Estate section (9/19/21)
My picture book projects have longer term deadlines, generally about 2-3 months to fully complete necessary research & sketches then about 3-4 months to fully complete all the final illustrations… And these longer term deadlines for picture book projects gives me slim openings to also take on some other quick illustration assignments for newspapers and magazines… such as these two newspaper assignments I’ve posted here.
At the top is the illustration I created for the Real Estate section of The New York Times appearing in the Sunday Times 9/19/21. This was assigned to me by the Art Director for the Real Estate section, Ken McFarlin. As per usual with daily newspaper assignment deadlines I usually have one day to submit sketches of several different concept ideas. Then once one of these sketches is decided upon by the Art Director and the Editor I have one day to create the final illustration. This illustration of the man examining the historical records inside a file cabinet drawer sliding out from home was created all digitally…well, nearly all digitally. The texture you can see in the grass and the trees is a painted gouache texture that I created then scanned into Photoshop then added into the digital illustration.
illustration by Steven Salerno created for The Wall Street Journal Exchange section (9/12/21)
Above is an illustration I created The Wall Street Journal appearing in the Exchange section ”Remote Pay” -about the dilemma some people face when a new job offer involves relocating to another city with a lower cost of living than their current home location, so this the job is offering a lower salary. This was initially assigned by the WSJ Personal Journal Art Director, Lisa Dilillo, who I created the sketches for, but the article was suddenly moved to another section of the newspaper so I ended up actually creating the final illustration for the Art Director Siung Tijia of the Exchange section appearing 9/12/19. As with the NY Times illustration seen at the top. this illustration of the woman in the sailboat was all created digitally.
You can see more samples of my editorial illustrations for magazines and newspapers in the illustration > editorial section of my web site.