Millk for your muscles

Paul's painting of chocolate peanut caramel

When Cytosport, maker of "Muscle Milk®" protein bars, decided to launch a new series of bars, they tried photography first. But to represent their product in the most delicious way possible, they needed a blend of realism and fantasy. That was a job for illustration. It had to look as good as it tastes.

Cytosport called on me to do super-real illustrations of the new bars for their packaging, saying they liked the "balance of realism and fantasy" in my food work.

They sent me one prototype of each bar that I was to use for reference. I did take some of my own photos of these bars to start with, breaking, cutting, slicing, and distorting them to get a variety of effects. From there, it was time to venture into the more subtle areas of emotional and gustatory communication.

Yes, I tasted the prototype bars too.

The final art would be partly an image from the client's imagination, yet the goal was a very precise look. My job was to add substance to the image in their minds. They would know it when they saw it.

Paul's painting of vanilla toffee crunch

"Realistic", with an element of "fantasy", but not "cartoony". "We want deliciousness," said the Cytosport marketing manager.

We went back and forth with comments and new variations quite a few times, each one getting closer to the client's mark. "Appealing, moist, textured, yummy, more chocolatey, more caramel, smoother, less grainy interior". These are some of the terms we batted around  while I made subtle variations until it looked just right. 

The final product on the shelves.

The table-top box, from the cytosport web site.

Please leave a comment.

Desert Terroir

Or is that Desert Terror? I didn't know what a terroir was either, until I illustrated this book of food history and stories by Gary Paul Nabhan last winter. Desert Terroir will be published by The University of Texas Press in 2012.

Cover design featuring Paul Mirocha painting.

This story... well you're just going to have to read it.

Terroir comes from the French word terre, meaning "land," and refers to the sometimes undefinable tastes and quality given to food or drink by the native soil, geography, climate, etc. in which it is grown. Specifically the natural aspects of the environment that are not under human control.

The concept, or concrete fact, as some would say, of terroir is the basis for the French appellation system for wines. A Burgundy wine has to come from Burgundy, and they can trademark and protect that from imitators.

Now terroir is apparently a borrowed English term. So you can use it at your next cocktail party to start a conversation.

Making mesquite flour tortillas

Terroir originally referred to wine production, but has been applied more recently to many other local foods around the world. So yes, this book is part of the local foods culture by one of it's originators.

"We crave food with stories," says the author. Some of thestories are more apealing than the food they are about, but that's what books are for. We crave stories, I think.

Hungry for home: the three year walk of Esteban the Moor across the Southwest.

Date palms: from the Middle East to Baja California.

Mexican cowboys turn to fishing in the Gulf of California to make a living, sometimes catching endangered fish.

Mexican Corriente cattle, descended from the cows brought to the new world on ships by the Spaniards, are now being raised by Arizona ranchers as a specialty meat and grazed on the stinking hot desert.

Mexican Oregano and the essential oils that give desert plants their distinctive and addictive flavors.

Living off the land around the Big Bend.

Please leave a comment.

Bat Questions

Do you have questions about bats? If not, you will after reading this new book by Rose Hauk, published by Western National Parks Association, illustrated by Paul Mirocha.

Basic bat anatomy: so you know how to ask a good question.

I have made a lot of scientific illustrations and I'm always looking for a new or better way to make an idea easier to understand. In this case, as usual, we did some searches for other similar diagrams so I could make them better than anything that had been done on the subject so far. I also decided to give thesubjects some personality, even though they are just describing a technical concept. I paid attention teh the expressions on the faces.

The author and publisher noticed.

A comparison of arm bones in humans, birds, and bats

 Bat radar is a common enough subject and there are probably hundreds of variations of this diagram. I decided to make it more realistic and more detailed, using 3d models integrated into a digital painting.

How bat radar can tell if something is stationary, coming towards them, or moving away from them.

Please leave a comment.

Artist in Residence

Downtown Tucson and the Sta. Catalina Mountains in the distance from the grounds of the 1903 Carnegie Desert Laboratory. My car is parked outside my new digs. (Click for larger image)

This past spring, I was invited to be the artist in residence at Tumamoc Hill, "Hill of the Horned Lizard", a Sonoran Desert preserve owned by the University of Arizona. I bought a sketchbook and dedicated it only to drawing on this hill.

This is an open ended project, but in return for use of an office here and an unpaid Research Associate position at the University, I will simply be doing whatever drawing, writing, painting, or photography occurs to me. I'll also help with organizing a visiting artist and writers in residence program for the preserve. I also keep regular office hours and do almost all my illustration work up here above the distractions of the city. It is also a sanctuary for the mind and heart. For me, being here is like having a love affair with a place.

Studio building

You can follow what I am doing on the blog, Tumamoc Sketchbook,  I set up at http://tumamocsketchbook.com

There are links on the Tumamoc Sketchbook blog to more information about Tumamoc. But, briefly these are some of the items on its resume.

• In 1903, the Carnegie Foundation created the Carnegie Desert Laboratory on this spot, the first research center in the world set up for the study of deserts. The hill was fenced off in 1907 to keep out cattle and now is the oldest, continuously monitored vegetation and climate site in the world. Many distinguished scientists worked out of the Carnegie lab and were influential in creating the new field called "ecology." 
• Archeologists have found evidence of human habitation here for up to 5,000 years. Hohokam villages on the summit were occupied during the Early Agricultural period (500 B.C. to A.D. 1) and again during Early Ceramic times (A.D. 400 to 600). This makes the area the oldest continuously inhabited site in North America, north of Mexico City.
•  It's the origin of Tucson. A unique oasis of surface water was created geologically at base of the volcanic Sentinel Peak/Tumamoc Hill complex by interruption of the groundwater flow against the dense, dark base of volcanic rock. This was the site of "KukChon" (the Indian word for "Dark Base"), the village visited by Jesuit explorer Father Kino in 1692. The settlement and Spanish mission built there eventually became the town of Tucson.
•  Surrounded by urban Tucson and 730 feet above the ground level at the base, Tumamoc is as intact a microcosm of the Sonoran Desert as can be maintained in a small area, and it's especially rich in life due to the volcanic soils which hold moisture. It is the closest natural walk to urban Tucson and about 1000 people walk to the top and back daily.
• Tumamoc is a sacred place to Indian Tribes such as the Tohono-O'odham and Hopis. These tribes join biologists and archeologists, as well as other scientists in wishing to protect his place from human interference to the highest extent possible.

It's also the most beautiful commutes to work I've ever seen. I must have a view of the natural surroundings where I work. One short story--about 15 years ago I had a studio downtown in an old warehouse building. When I sat at my drawing table, I was able to see one of the peaks of the Catalina Mountains through another set of windows in the building in front of me. I was thrilled at the view.

The view here is like that wish expanded beyond my wildest imaginations at the time.

Downtown Tucson from the Tumamoc summit.

Please leave a comment.

Spain 2009: Cordoba

The Mesquita (mosque) in Cordoba is still a marvel to me, and this was my second visit there. Artist M. C. Esher went there to draw, so I had to so the same. 

A sketch I did on location in the Mesquita in Cordoba. 

Please leave a comment.

Extreme Makeover for Drucker Labs

Click image to enlarge

Drucker labs use a lot of high-tech science to produce their organic nutritional supplements. But laboratory glassware is just not appealing to the customer thinking about what's for dinner.

They had the science down, now for the organic part. To begin the redesign of their branding, Drucker started with the exhibit to be shown at their trade show last January.

Here is what they had from previous years:

Yea, it's cool, but it needed to change. People did not respond to it, unless the were doctors or organic chemists.

Here is where it all begins. A client's scribble, but it contains a lot:

Client's concept sketch.

Paul's first sketch was well liked, but didn't allow for the table of product samples to be in front of the display.

This second sketch by Paul was approved to go.

The new design featuring a layout and digital painting by Paul Mirocha, made everyone happy, both doctors and the cleaning lady, as the new year rolled in.

To quote the client's new years note,

I hope your New Year is getting off to a great start! 

Just wanted to write you both and congratulate Paul and an AMAZING job with his artwork!!! I picked up the piece from the printer yesterday and they were completely blown away at the piece. I attached a picture so you can see it set up.

I could have not done this without your hard work and EXTREME patience!

(I left out some of the exclamation points)

Paul says, "This was one of the most challenging projects I have worked on. It was not only the intensive back and forth communication and production of sketches for each new version. That's fairly normal, although this one took a lot of talking.

The hard part is that the final painting was to be 7.5 x 12 feet. The largest painting I've ever worked on. And since it was happening over the holidays, I was in a little room at my relative's house in California working on a laptop for most of the holiday festivities! The working file was well over a gigabyte and it was so slow! My immediate family decided to celebrate Christmas on Three Kings Day, January 6, like they do in teh Eastern Ortodox Church. That may become a tradition. It's a much more relaxing time anyways.

Not wanting to repeat that process,  I bought a new (semi-portable) top of the line 27 inch iMac in January, which served me well when I had to travel again in February and march, working in Lexington, Kentucky for  seven weeks while my wife, Christina, went through a science study for a new stroke therapy.

It's an artist's dream to work on that machine. All I need now is a table, a chair, and a quiet place to work. My whole digital life's work in on that machine now.

Please leave a comment.