Featured Artist: Dan Hubig

My Background: In my youth my family blew around Texas like the proverbial tumbleweeds. Without consistent friendships I was always in need of entertaining myself, so I began drawing comic books. These mainly had to do with airplanes with dotted line machine gun fire and elaborate explosions on battleships, nevertheless they proved very involving for myself and my dog ``Inky." Years later as the 60's flowered in front of me I turned my interest in art and politics to something more useful. I helped start an underground (and anti-war) newspaper in Austin Texas and began drawing political satire illustrations. That experience led me to Pacific News Service , in San Francisco, which syndicated my drawings to newspapers and magazines in the US., Europe, Africa and Asia. After a half dozen years of syndication, I had a strong desire to introduce more humor into my work and to experiment with many new --to me-- drawing styles. This, in turn, led to computers and the unending possibilities of style and technique they offer. I've always worked around and for newspapers and continue to do so. I live in San Francisco 10 days a month and work as a part-time illustrator for the San Francisco Chronicle. The rest of the time I live in Santa Barbara and work on freelance projects.

My Technique: I like to sketch quickly (accidents, yes!) and small (quicker yet!). As the illustration begins taking shape I start organizing it into ``harmonious" shapes by drawing some simple rhythmic lines on top of the drawing and then trying to make the shapes conform to those new lines. I work on tissue paper and keep adding new layers (usually about a dozen) with a piece of white paper somewhere beneath (to keep the sketch from getting too complicated). When I've finished the sketch I scan it into my computer. I use Macromedia FreeHand to make most of the illustration, then often switch to Photoshop to finish it. One of the things I like best about FreeHand is that when I've finished the drawing I can still make alterations in my color palate and the changes will ripple through the artwork, including the blends, which I use a lot. I also particularly like the transparency lens.

On the Guild: I believe in the obvious notion that we can improve our professional lives (and make it more fun) by sharing our experiences and ideas, rather than just competing with one another.

My Favorite Client story: My favorite client story isn't really about a client at all. In the years just before Nelson Mandela came to power in South Africa, I was a regular contributor to the anti-apartheid newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail . One of my political illustrations was censured by the government. The spot where my drawing was to have run was left blank (replaced by an official government stamp), but they left my signature and the line I'd drawn around my illustration on the page.

All artwork © 2002 Dan Hubig. Not to be used without permission.