Received a commission from Dean Welshman over at Rhode Island Monthly to paint a portrait of Red Sox player Rocco Baldelli. I had never heard of Baldelli before, but after having done a lot of research on him, I’ve come away with a great admiration for the guy. How refreshing to learn of a baseball player who is renowned in the league for being humble and an all-around nice guy. He’s been diagnosed with an illness called channelopathy, and has been valiantly fighting through it and still managing to make plays for the Sox. He’s from Rhode Island originally, so his signing with the Sox has been a special homecoming for him and his New England fans.

The illustration won’t run until October, so I can’t show the final version just yet, but this particular job had a long enough deadline that I actually completed two totally different versions, just to satisfy my own nagging feeling that the best solution is still just around the corner. The client went with the other version, but I like how this one turned out well enough to go ahead and post it.

Thanks to Dean Welshman for the great assignment. I know all illlustrators these days make a point of mentioning art directors in their blog posts, and it can come across sometimes as just kissing up to the client, but seriously, collaborating with Dean on this job has been one of the most pleasant experiences of my career, and I’d work for him again in a heartbeat.