Coronavirus Insomnia...

Appearing in the print newspaper edition and the online version of The Wall Street Journal (June 1st - 2nd, 2020) is my recent illustration created for the Life & Arts section (Your Heath -How Sleep Has Changed in the Pandemic: Insomnia, Late Bedtimes, Weird Dreams written by Sumathi Reddy. It was assigned to me by the Life & Arts art director, Lisa DiLillo. And as usual with fast paced daily newspaper deadlines, the article is being written at the same time I’m working on the illustration, so I only have a one sentence synopsis of what the article’s content will hit on.

illustration for The Wall Street Journal by Steven Salerno -visit stevensalerno.com

And in the case of this particular illustration assignment the editors had already pre-established that for the illustration they simply wanted to see two people depicted, with one sleeping soundly and the other person wide awake with insomnia… So during the sketch stage I did not have to devise a clever concept, just merely illustrate the scene so to speak. The newspaper uses the illustration not just in the large format for their printed edition of the newspaper, but the illustration image is also used in various quite tiny online format versions, too… so when creating the illustration it is necessary to create simple elements within it that are uncomplicated and clear so they read clearly when viewed in the small online formats.

In the illustration the woman is sleeping peacefully in a calm blue color but the man is riddled with anxiety in a wide-awake yellow color, with coronavirus cells orbiting all around him, the largest one morphing into a 3am clock face… This illustration was created all digitally in Photoshop.

Visit stevensalerno.com and click on the illustration section to see many more of my editorial illustrations.