Shannon May Illustration

Remixing the Mind

2012-01-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

Sketches for a project with Adam Good!

Hello!Lucky Christmas!

2011-10-31T16:19:00.001-07:00

The Hello!Lucky Holiday Shop is live! Order some personalized cards!

Hello!Lucky Holiday Shop

Order in Space // Solo Show Opening Sept. 20!

2011-09-13T12:06:00.001-07:00

I am so pleased to announce that I am teaming up with the wonderful folks at the Curiosity Shoppe to bring you Order in Space, a solo show of all new work! The show will be on view from Sept. 20-Oct. 23, but if you're in the SF Bay Area please stop by the opening on Sept. 23 from 6-8 PM! The Curiosity Shoppe is located at 855 Valencia St., between 19th and 20th.

Hello!Lucky Christmas!

2011-09-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

Sneak peak of some Christmas card designs for San Francisco letterpress and stationery shop Hello!Lucky. Lovely to work with them! Available for purchase around the holidays at hellolucky.com.

Furry Logic

2011-09-11T19:04:00.000-07:00

Illustrations for a Bold Italic article about how dog-owners and non-dog-owners should get along. I never would have expected I would draw so many dogs in my illustration career! Read the article here.

Bayes Theorem

2011-09-11T19:02:00.001-07:00

Illustration for New York Times article about the history of Bayes Theorem. Read the article here.

Collaboration

2011-07-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

Illustration about competing businesses collaborating for the common good for Harvard Business Review July/August 2011 issue! On newsstands now!

I Got You Babe!

2011-07-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

Illustrations for a new Bold Italic article about the bad-ass babes at Three Babes Bakeshop! Read it here.

Tough Love!!

2011-06-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

Hero and spot illustrations for the Bold Italic's article on the harsh behavior of bartenders at Zeitgeist, voted the meanest, baddest bar in San Francisco!

Read it here.

Cultivating Minds

2011-06-06T14:23:00.000-07:00

New York Times Op-Ed Letters illustration for art director Alexandra Zsigmond! Read here.

Benben

2011-06-06T12:09:00.001-07:00

Portrait of my good friend, Ben!

Made in the Shade: ReadyMade Magazine

2011-05-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

New editorial piece in the latest issue of ReadyMade Magazine!

Ten Paces...

2011-05-27T17:42:00.000-07:00

Ten Paces and Draw is a blog with a weekly theme that challenges illustrators to finish each others' sketches. This week I finished a sketch of Quest Love from the Roots, and submitted a sketch of David Bowie finished by Jordan Sondler.

The Changing Face of Psychiatry

2011-03-08T14:33:00.000-08:00

New York Times Op-Ed Letters illustration for about the added pressures psychiatrists feel to give patients prescription drugs as opposed to talk therapy. Art director Alexandra Zsigmond. Read it here.

Nobel Prize Winning Physicists

2011-02-06T01:11:00.000-08:00

More physicist portraits.

Wilhelm Röntgen

2011-02-01T15:12:00.000-08:00

Trying to draw more people and felt like my previous physicist portraits were a little too tight and serious. Hope these ones are better. I'm starting chronologically from the first Nobel Prize winner.

Boyfriends

2011-02-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

A bunch of sketchbook stuff. I don't usually color like this... still deciding how I feel about it.

Flamingo Magazine Feature

2011-02-01T11:35:00.000-08:00

An interview and feature of my work was posted today to the awesome UK-based Flamingo Magazine! The questions were very poignant, and I had a lot of fun answering them.

Check it out here!!

Crushin' Promo!

2011-01-30T15:49:00.000-08:00

My friends/colleagues and I just finished up a promo packet in time for Valentine's Day. My card is above, and the whole spread is below! 12 cards from 12 illustrators!

You can purchase them from the talented Jen Mussari's Etsy here.

American Illustration 29

2011-01-27T10:11:00.001-08:00

This is a late post, but better late than never! The American Illustration party was a blast, it was so much fun to see Rachel Salomon, Ted McGrath, Whitney Sherman, and Michael Hoeweler again!

You can see images from the book here or purchase it from Amazon here.

Communication Arts!

2011-01-11T13:20:00.001-08:00

My work is featured in the January/February issue of Communication Arts! I have a full two-page spread and a portrait done by Barbara Tarr.

You can also see a feature online here!

Forbidden Planet

2010-12-29T14:31:00.000-08:00

New York Times Book Review illustration of "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" by Mike Brown. Art director Nicholas Blechman. Read it here.

Cable Bills

2010-12-22T15:44:00.000-08:00

Spot illustration for Gizmodo about how to talk your way to a cheaper cable bill. Read it here.

Gizmodo feature!

2010-12-21T15:23:00.000-08:00

I've been featured as a guest artist on Gimodo!! Check it out here. Will be posting all the articles I've illustrated soon. I can't find the link to the article for the illustrations above...

Streaming Video

2010-12-10T15:25:00.000-08:00

Gizmodo article about how to watch streaming video anywhere in the world. Read it here.

Cyberterrorism?!

2010-12-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

Spot illustration for Gizmodo article about whether or not to worry about cyber attacks. Read the article here.

Shopping for TVs...

2010-12-01T15:27:00.000-08:00

Illustration for Gizmodo post about the pros/cons of shopping for TVs online or in stores. Read it here.

Self Comes to Mind

2010-11-26T14:27:00.000-08:00

New York Times Book Review illustration of "Self Comes to Mind" by Antonio Damasio. Art director Nicholas Blechman. Read the article here.

Birth Pangs

2010-09-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

New York Times Book Review cover for "Origins" by Annie Murphy Paul. Art director Nicholas Blechman. Read it here.

Ways to Measure Student Learning

2010-09-23T14:50:00.000-07:00

New York Times Op-Ed Letters illustration about the different ways to gauge students' learning. Read it here.

Brilliant

2010-07-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

New York Times Book Review illustration for "Brilliant - The Evolution of Light" by Jane Brox. Art directed by Nicholas Blechman. Read it here.

The Facebook Effect

2010-07-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

New York Times Book Review illustration for "The Facebook Effect, The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World" by David Kirkpatrick. Art director Nicholas Blechman. Read it here.

Psychology of Pleasure

2010-06-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

New York Times Book Review illustration for "How Pleasure Works" by Paul Bloom, exploring the science behind the things that please us. Art direcotor Nicholas Blechman. Read it here.

The Genome Project

2010-06-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

New York Times Op-Ed Letters spot illustration for an article discussing the human genome project. Read it here.

Not my most conceptual piece, but...what can you do!

Love Not Taken

2010-06-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

New York Times Book Review illustration for "One Day" by David Nichols. Art director Nicholas Blechman. Read it here.

Chef

2010-06-14T19:55:00.000-07:00

New York Times Book Review illustration for Nicholas Blechman. Read it here.

Should We Tinker with Plant Genes?

2010-05-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

First illustration assignment thanks to art director Kim Bost at the New York Times! The full article is here.

OMFG AI-AP!!

2010-04-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

My first published piece will appear in American Illustration 29 to be released in November 2010!! The piece that was selected was my portrait of Werner Heisenberg!

I am so excited I cannot contain myself.

Sketchbook

2010-03-29T16:54:00.000-07:00

Here's some older sketchbook work!

Collections

2010-03-04T11:35:00.000-08:00

More formalized versions of the collections, plus a new one with color.

A New Light on the Old Frontier

Auk-ward

Rocks

Voyager/Mariner

Cosmicomics

2010-03-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

As part of a personal project (under the guise of thesis), I've been working on illustrations inspired by Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics.

The Distance of the Moon

At one time, according to Sir George H. Darwin, the Moon was very close to the Earth. Then the tides gradually pushed her far away: the tides that the Moon herself causes in the Earth's waters, where the Earth slowly loses energy.

Without Colors

Before forming its atmosphere and its oceans, the Earth must have resembled a grey ball revolving in space. As the moon does now; where the ultraviolet rays radiated by the Sun arrive directly, all colors are destroyed, which is why the cliffs of the lunar surface, instead of being colored like Earth's, are of a dead, uniform grey. If the Earth displays a varicolored countenance, it is thanks to the atmosphere, which filters that murderous light.

Games Without End

When the galaxies become more remote, the rarefaction of the universe is compensated for by the formation of further galaxies composed of newly created matter. To maintain a stable median density of of the universe it is sufficient to create a hydrogen atom every 250 million years for 40 cubic centimeters of expanding space. (This steady state theory, as it is known, has been opposed to the other hypothesis, that the universe was born at a precise moment as the result of a gigantic explosion.)

A Sign in Space

Situated in the external zone of the Milky Way, the Sun takes about two hundred million years to make a complete revolution of the galaxy.

All At One Point

Through the calculations begun by Edwin P. Hubble, on the galaxies' velocity of recession, we can establish the moment when all the universe's matter was concentrated in a single point, before it began to expand in space.

Sketchbook: Collections

2010-02-17T15:10:00.000-08:00

Recent sketchbook pages of collections of things.

Economic Crash

2010-02-17T13:50:00.000-08:00

Editorial illustration for thesis. For an article titled, "Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China".

Beauty Myths

2010-02-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

The first in a string of editorial assignments for thesis. A half page and spot illustration for an article about Beauty Myths, basically arguing that there is a correlation between women's growing political power and painfully exacting beauty standards.

Musics!

2010-01-24T10:07:00.000-08:00

A couple music-related projects... CD label design for The Torches in DC and an online flyer for Sunday Drive Bye in Atlanta.

Final Thesis Work

2010-01-24T09:58:00.000-08:00

Final versions of Wilson & Penzias, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Hubble.

A New Hope?

2009-11-29T14:28:00.000-08:00

Trying a new direction on my thesis.

Carl Sagan as a constellation.

Imaginary scientific machine used to measure the length, wavelength, frequency, and amplitude of superstrings. Apologies for the poor/wrinkly scan!

Portrait of Erwin Schrodinger. Hypothetically, he may or may not be inside that box.

Buckminster Fuller.

Please let me know what you think. This whole experience has been very strange!

Buckminster Fuller

2009-11-04T19:59:00.000-08:00

New portrait of inventor and designer Buckminster Fuller. I suppose technically he's not a physicist, or a scientist at all even, but he did invent the geodesic dome; certain carbon molecules (C60) were named fullerenes after him due to their resemblance to geodesic spheres... so in a way, he counts. Right?

Natural history, Station Building, Park Ave.

2009-10-14T22:58:00.000-07:00

A couple old pencil sketches from my sketchbook.

Inky inks

2009-10-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

Inky sketchbookings.

Book Covers

2009-10-14T22:49:00.000-07:00

A couple paintings on old book covers, focusing on different areas of science.

Carl Sagan

2009-10-14T22:46:00.001-07:00

That whimsical thinker, creator of "Cosmos" and "Contact" and founder of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) -- Carl Sagan!

Oppenheimer

2009-10-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

Father of the nuclear bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer!!

Richard Feynman

2009-10-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

Feynman on the beach. Not sure about this one either...hrgmm.

Your logic is impeccable.

2009-09-29T22:13:00.000-07:00

For Claire's birthday!

Alternate Dyson??

2009-09-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

An alternate version of Freeman Dyson... first one I've inked with a brush, not sure what to make of it.

So, Wilson, Penzias, and Dyson all walked into a bar...

2009-09-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

Robert Woodrow Wilson and Arno Penzias, those famous radio astronomers who discovered the background noise of the BIG BANG! Also, a reworked Freeman Dyson, "inventor" of the theoretical Dyson sphere; any civilized and advanced society should have one!

Erwin Schrödinger {Edit}

2009-09-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

Needed to take a new direction with the physicist portraits and thus abandoned the matchbox idea for now. Might come into play later, but really needed to rethink the way I was approaching these. I'm much happier with the way this one turned out! {Edited this one a bit since the previous post...}

Art&Physics

2009-09-15T17:08:00.001-07:00

From Leonard Shlain, Art & Physics:

Integrating art and physics will kindle a more synthesized awareness which begins in wonder and ends with wisdom.

Phantom Stranger

2009-08-26T07:06:00.000-07:00

Illustration for my band, Phantom Stranger!

Frames on Etsy

2009-08-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

I have been hard at work making picture frames out of books and vintage rulers, and they are finally being posted to etsy!

Etsy feature!!

2009-07-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

I was featured on Etsy in the "Back to School" category! Yay!!

Mooncraft

2009-07-20T15:46:00.001-07:00

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Posted a bunch of new embroideries, jewelry, collages, and neck-kerchiefs on my etsy site, themooncraft.etsy.com

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Lunar Park

2009-07-17T17:29:00.001-07:00

Made this for fun after spending a long car ride listening to "Lunar Park" by Bret Easton Ellis on audiobook. This illustration is more moon than the book is and less potentially drug-induced paranoia pertaining to your father's ghost haunting your daughter's toy tucan. This book is giving me nightmares.

Mythical Creatures

2009-07-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

Dungeon Majesty

Ghosts

Black Smoke Monster

Summer project. Work in progress, a collaboration with William Orr, to be published as a zine.

Chakra Cube

2009-06-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

Another request from William Orr. I don't ask questions.

Caleb Stine

2009-05-31T22:31:00.000-07:00

I was so excited to do this poster for my friend, Caleb. And the show was fanastic; it was a wonderful line-up, the crowd was responsive, and there was a really great vibe.

Nathanael West

2009-05-15T22:51:00.000-07:00

Cover mock-up and end-paper design for two books by Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts and the Day of the Locust. The books would be hardcover with black bookcloth with white screenprinted text and a square cutout in the middle that allows the endpapers to peek through. I also did full spot illustrations for both books, but that is too tedious to post here. The red is meant to represent suffering.

Flatland

2009-05-14T22:09:00.000-07:00

Cover

Of the Nature of Flatland

Concerning the Inhabitants of Flatland

Of Recognition by Sight

Of the Universal Color Bill

How I Had a Vision of Lineland

Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland

How I Came to Spaceland and What I Saw there

How the Sphere Encouraged Me in a Vision (Pointland)

Here is the entirety of the Flatland series. Please excuse the strange size oddities, the square pieces are meant to be spots only approximately 3" x 3".

Baudelaire

2009-04-27T22:26:00.000-07:00

Illustration for "Man and the Sea" by Baudelaire, in which Baudelaire decides that man and the sea are both striving for and obsessed with the same thing, hence their constant strife; death.

Sesame Street?

2009-03-06T23:00:00.000-08:00

If you don't get a sense of Sesame Street from this illustration, don't worry, neither did anybody else. Really I just wanted to have fun and construct a city out of letters, which is what I imagine Sesame Street aims to do. I guess I forgot they do numbers too, oh well! I think the clouds are my favorite, as was the process of collaging the city.

Buckminster Fuller

2008-12-10T22:33:00.000-08:00

Experimenting with a minimalist style... not really sure about it.

Math Nerds

2008-11-18T22:48:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day Card for math nerds; interior says, "I am a subset of your superset."

A Pictorial Guide to (Cloud) Emotions

2008-10-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

Looking back, I'm not entirely happy with this piece. The heading and keys were a complete afterthought and the arrows should be denser, but I am still excited about the idea. This semester was marked by synaesthetic comparisons between things, though I'm not sure why.

Music for Airports

2008-07-27T22:59:00.000-07:00

Illustration for that glorious god of ambient, Brian Eno.

Rural Water

2007-11-07T22:30:00.000-08:00